This one time I got to paddle around a big ‘ol lake in the middle of an Amazonian national park. There were all sorts of creatures residing in, on, above and around this lake. This group of birds of an unknown species were doing just that, and having a time of it by the looks of things.

Ohhhh dang. I never in all my years thought I was going to be able to see one of these little fellas in person, but lo and behold! I live an awesome life.

If you attempted to check 390nm yesterday, you may have noticed you were redirected to a webpage explaining what SOPA is and why it is bad. 390nm lended it’s small help towards a cause undertaken by such giants as Wikipedia and Google. This cause is keeping the internet free of censorship in the form of opposing SOPA and PIPA. The fact that the United States senate is still attempting to pass such an Orwellian law, despite it going directly against the constitution, not to mention the pleas of nearly every expert in the field, is nothing short of deplorable. The bill has not yet passed, but nor has it been thrown out. All must stay vigilant, especially you Americans reading this. Write a letter to your congressman. Seriously.

In other news, this is the ugliest rooster I have ever seen in my entire life.

I know I just wrote about the Amazon fairly recently, but seriously the place is unreal. The diversity of plant and animal life is hardly exaggerated. I mean, look at the colour of these flower petals. It’s rare that you see synthetics that are that vibrant. The animal life is no less spectacular. I could show you pictures of caymen, or perhaps some more monkeys, but instead I have this shot of a predatory bird. To my Canadian eye, it looks rather like an osprey but I’m reasonably sure that is not the case. Any of you bird watchers out there feel free to enlighten me as to the species of this little fellow.

Oh hello, I didn’t see you there. I was too busy looking at these swell photos from the AMAZON RAINFOREST. This first fella was taken on a beach where for whatever reason there were loads of flies, wasp like creatures, moths and butterflies hanging out. The yellow terror below was somewhere around the size of your palm. Things are bigger in the Amazon. Much of our time in the Amazon was spent in a boat, looking for birds and other creatures. Into these boats were stuffed around eight people and no life jackets. Note that this particular lake contained electric eels, sting rays, piranhas and cayman. Of course, guides failed to mention this until after I had been swimming for a good half hour.There were also bats hanging out on the side of a semi-submerged tree.

I just realized I have been totally spacing on anything resembling posting on 390nm. I apologize for the few of you who actually are regularly checking this site and promise to be more vigilant in the future. Anywho, I have nowhere near gone through the 5000+ photos from my recent trip to Peru but after a brief scan here are a few that I hope you find neat.

First up is this wacky scale that was sitting in an old warehouse that fishermen had recommissioned to slaughter fish in. One may ask, “Are there sanitation issues here? This scale looks like it hasn’t been washed since the mid 1970′s.” You would give the answer “Shut up.” as nobody cares  in Peru. Now here is a delightfully spooky church in the city of Cuzco, which incidentally is the oldest city in South America.I have never really been able to properly distinguish between Llamas and Alpacas. I’m pretty sure that Llamas are substantially larger but other than that I have no clue. Since I do not have a size reference in this photo I am just going to assume that these delightful fellows are Llamas but I could be wrong. If I am, then I guess I’ll have to retire from the competitive sport of Llama spotting.And as a special bonus, here is a photo of my dad hanging out with a monkey.