Boeing Take Off

For those of you who are unaware, Eva is the airline of Taiwan. This is a wonderful photo. EVA Air Boeing 747-45EM taking off from runway 36L at Amsterdam-Schiphol . The great timing and angle, and the size of the 747 makes this shot look quite surreal. The distance to the fence was 145 metres (475ft) !

Boeing Take Off

For those of you who are unaware, Eva is the airline of Taiwan. This is a wonderful photo. EVA Air Boeing 747-45EM taking off from runway 36L at Amsterdam-Schiphol . The great timing and angle, and the size of the 747 makes this shot look quite surreal. The distance to the fence was 145 metres (475ft) !

Boeing Take Off

For those of you who are unaware, Eva is the airline of Taiwan. This is a wonderful photo. EVA Air Boeing 747-45EM taking off from runway 36L at Amsterdam-Schiphol . The great timing and angle, and the size of the 747 makes this shot look quite surreal. The distance to the fence was 145 metres (475ft) !

A phascogale drops in‏

Words and pics by Paul Oates

A local Phascogale dropped in this evening and checked out the insects on the fly wire. It's not an easy animal to photograph as its nocturnal and very quick and agile. I've been trying to photograph one for at least a couple of years. If you think it's a 'dear little thing', unfortunately, a family of them have taken up residence in our roof and as we are ready to go to sleep, they wake up, scrabble around and exit the roof.

They only return from their nightly pursuits as dawn breaks and run around inside the roof on top of the ceiling above our heads. Grrrrr.... When they leap from a height, they use their fluffy tail as a parachute to slow them down. That can be very disconcerting when they drop in on your nice quiet 'sundowner' on the verandah at sunset. Ah! Living in the country. Nothing like it.

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A phascogale drops in‏

Words and pics by Paul Oates

A local Phascogale dropped in this evening and checked out the insects on the fly wire. It's not an easy animal to photograph as its nocturnal and very quick and agile. I've been trying to photograph one for at least a couple of years. If you think it's a 'dear little thing', unfortunately, a family of them have taken up residence in our roof and as we are ready to go to sleep, they wake up, scrabble around and exit the roof.

They only return from their nightly pursuits as dawn breaks and run around inside the roof on top of the ceiling above our heads. Grrrrr.... When they leap from a height, they use their fluffy tail as a parachute to slow them down. That can be very disconcerting when they drop in on your nice quiet 'sundowner' on the verandah at sunset. Ah! Living in the country. Nothing like it.

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A phascogale drops in‏

Words and pics by Paul Oates

A local Phascogale dropped in this evening and checked out the insects on the fly wire. It's not an easy animal to photograph as its nocturnal and very quick and agile. I've been trying to photograph one for at least a couple of years. If you think it's a 'dear little thing', unfortunately, a family of them have taken up residence in our roof and as we are ready to go to sleep, they wake up, scrabble around and exit the roof.

They only return from their nightly pursuits as dawn breaks and run around inside the roof on top of the ceiling above our heads. Grrrrr.... When they leap from a height, they use their fluffy tail as a parachute to slow them down. That can be very disconcerting when they drop in on your nice quiet 'sundowner' on the verandah at sunset. Ah! Living in the country. Nothing like it.

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Nature's Wonders

God has wounderful ways of shaping the earth and our lives as seen in some of these amazing creation he had done for us.

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Nature's Wonders

God has wounderful ways of shaping the earth and our lives as seen in some of these amazing creation he had done for us.

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Nature's Wonders

God has wounderful ways of shaping the earth and our lives as seen in some of these amazing creation he had done for us.

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Rice fields of Japan ... amazing!

Stunning crop art has sprung up across rice fields in Japan. But this is no alien creation - the designs have been cleverly planted. Farmers creating the huge displays use no ink or dye. Instead, different colours of rice plants have been precisely and strategically arranged and grown in the paddy fields. As summer progresses and the plants shoot up, the detailed artwork begins to emerge.


Sengoku warrior on horseback has been created from hundreds of thousands of rice plants, the colours created by using different varieties, in Inakadate in Japan. The largest and finest work is grown in the Aomori village of Inakadate, 600 miles north of Toyko, where the tradition began in 1993.

The village has now earned a reputation for its agricultural artistry and this year the enormous pictures of Napoleon and a Sengoku-period warrior, both on horseback, are visible in a pair of fields adjacent to the town hall.

More than 150,000 visitors come to Inakadate, where just 8,700 people live, every summer to see the extraordinary murals. Each year hundreds of volunteers and villagers plant four different varieties of rice in late May across huge swathes of paddy fields.

Napolean on horseback can be seen from the skies, created by precision planting and months of planning between villagers and farmers in Inkadate.

Fictional warrior Naoe Kanetsugu and his wife Osen appear in fields in the town of Yon ezawa, Japan. And over the past few years, other villages have joined in with the plant designs. Another famous rice paddy art venue is in the town of Yonezawa in the Yamagata prefecture.

This year's design shows the fictional 16th-century samurai warrior Naoe Kanetsugu and his wife, Osen, whose lives feature in television series Tenchijin.Various artwork has popped up in other rice-farming areas of Japan this year, including designs of deer dancers.

Smaller works of crop art can be seen in other rice-farming areas of Japan such as this image of Doraemon and deer dancers. The farmers create the murals by planting little purple and yellow-leafed kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed tsugaru roman variety to create the coloured patterns between planting and harvesting in September.

The murals in Inakadate cover 15,000 square metres of paddy fields. From ground level, the designs are invisible, and viewers have to climb the mock castle tower of the village office to get a glimpse of the work.Rice-paddy art was started there in 1993 as a local revitalization project, an idea that grew out of meetings of the village committee.

Closer to the image, the careful placement of thousands of rice plants in the paddy fields can be seen.

The different varieties of rice plant grow alongside each other to create the masterpieces. In the first nine years, the village office workers and local farmers grew a simple design of Mount Iwaki every year. But their ideas grew more complicated and attracted more attention.

In 2005 agreements between landowners allowed the creation of enormous rice paddy art. A year later, organisers used computers to precisely plot planting of the four differently colored rice varieties that bring the images to life.

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Rice fields of Japan ... amazing!

Stunning crop art has sprung up across rice fields in Japan. But this is no alien creation - the designs have been cleverly planted. Farmers creating the huge displays use no ink or dye. Instead, different colours of rice plants have been precisely and strategically arranged and grown in the paddy fields. As summer progresses and the plants shoot up, the detailed artwork begins to emerge.


Sengoku warrior on horseback has been created from hundreds of thousands of rice plants, the colours created by using different varieties, in Inakadate in Japan. The largest and finest work is grown in the Aomori village of Inakadate, 600 miles north of Toyko, where the tradition began in 1993.

The village has now earned a reputation for its agricultural artistry and this year the enormous pictures of Napoleon and a Sengoku-period warrior, both on horseback, are visible in a pair of fields adjacent to the town hall.

More than 150,000 visitors come to Inakadate, where just 8,700 people live, every summer to see the extraordinary murals. Each year hundreds of volunteers and villagers plant four different varieties of rice in late May across huge swathes of paddy fields.

Napolean on horseback can be seen from the skies, created by precision planting and months of planning between villagers and farmers in Inkadate.

Fictional warrior Naoe Kanetsugu and his wife Osen appear in fields in the town of Yon ezawa, Japan. And over the past few years, other villages have joined in with the plant designs. Another famous rice paddy art venue is in the town of Yonezawa in the Yamagata prefecture.

This year's design shows the fictional 16th-century samurai warrior Naoe Kanetsugu and his wife, Osen, whose lives feature in television series Tenchijin.Various artwork has popped up in other rice-farming areas of Japan this year, including designs of deer dancers.

Smaller works of crop art can be seen in other rice-farming areas of Japan such as this image of Doraemon and deer dancers. The farmers create the murals by planting little purple and yellow-leafed kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed tsugaru roman variety to create the coloured patterns between planting and harvesting in September.

The murals in Inakadate cover 15,000 square metres of paddy fields. From ground level, the designs are invisible, and viewers have to climb the mock castle tower of the village office to get a glimpse of the work.Rice-paddy art was started there in 1993 as a local revitalization project, an idea that grew out of meetings of the village committee.

Closer to the image, the careful placement of thousands of rice plants in the paddy fields can be seen.

The different varieties of rice plant grow alongside each other to create the masterpieces. In the first nine years, the village office workers and local farmers grew a simple design of Mount Iwaki every year. But their ideas grew more complicated and attracted more attention.

In 2005 agreements between landowners allowed the creation of enormous rice paddy art. A year later, organisers used computers to precisely plot planting of the four differently colored rice varieties that bring the images to life.

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Rice fields of Japan ... amazing!

Stunning crop art has sprung up across rice fields in Japan. But this is no alien creation - the designs have been cleverly planted. Farmers creating the huge displays use no ink or dye. Instead, different colours of rice plants have been precisely and strategically arranged and grown in the paddy fields. As summer progresses and the plants shoot up, the detailed artwork begins to emerge.


Sengoku warrior on horseback has been created from hundreds of thousands of rice plants, the colours created by using different varieties, in Inakadate in Japan. The largest and finest work is grown in the Aomori village of Inakadate, 600 miles north of Toyko, where the tradition began in 1993.

The village has now earned a reputation for its agricultural artistry and this year the enormous pictures of Napoleon and a Sengoku-period warrior, both on horseback, are visible in a pair of fields adjacent to the town hall.

More than 150,000 visitors come to Inakadate, where just 8,700 people live, every summer to see the extraordinary murals. Each year hundreds of volunteers and villagers plant four different varieties of rice in late May across huge swathes of paddy fields.

Napolean on horseback can be seen from the skies, created by precision planting and months of planning between villagers and farmers in Inkadate.

Fictional warrior Naoe Kanetsugu and his wife Osen appear in fields in the town of Yon ezawa, Japan. And over the past few years, other villages have joined in with the plant designs. Another famous rice paddy art venue is in the town of Yonezawa in the Yamagata prefecture.

This year's design shows the fictional 16th-century samurai warrior Naoe Kanetsugu and his wife, Osen, whose lives feature in television series Tenchijin.Various artwork has popped up in other rice-farming areas of Japan this year, including designs of deer dancers.

Smaller works of crop art can be seen in other rice-farming areas of Japan such as this image of Doraemon and deer dancers. The farmers create the murals by planting little purple and yellow-leafed kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed tsugaru roman variety to create the coloured patterns between planting and harvesting in September.

The murals in Inakadate cover 15,000 square metres of paddy fields. From ground level, the designs are invisible, and viewers have to climb the mock castle tower of the village office to get a glimpse of the work.Rice-paddy art was started there in 1993 as a local revitalization project, an idea that grew out of meetings of the village committee.

Closer to the image, the careful placement of thousands of rice plants in the paddy fields can be seen.

The different varieties of rice plant grow alongside each other to create the masterpieces. In the first nine years, the village office workers and local farmers grew a simple design of Mount Iwaki every year. But their ideas grew more complicated and attracted more attention.

In 2005 agreements between landowners allowed the creation of enormous rice paddy art. A year later, organisers used computers to precisely plot planting of the four differently colored rice varieties that bring the images to life.

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