Favourite websites: Britain From Above

Dec11

My heart is in the past, and that is why I love this website: Britain From Above. In 2007 English Heritage, the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (RCAHMW) acquired the historic oblique aerial photography archive of Aerofilms, a company set up in 1919 for commercial photography from the air. Usually the photos were taken for clients, maybe to establish the location of a building plot within the landscape, or to show the progress of a large construction site or the condition of a property, or as views to be sold to postcard manufacturers, but they have other significances too: the most important part of the collection spans the years from 1919—1953, and document a now-lost England, Wales and Scotland (sadly Northern Ireland is not part of the project). Currently there are over 96,000 digitised images in the collection.

Padstow, Cornwall. July 1930.

I can—and do—lose hours on the Aerofilms website. If you register as a member (it’s very easy to do so, and free), you are able to zoom in on the photographs. The negatives have been scanned at such a high resolution that the tiniest details become clearly visible. They show snapshots of a long-lost Britain: stooks of wheat in a field after harvest; horse-drawn ploughs; airmeets for the dashing 1920s and 1930s aviators where planes are simply landed in a suitable flat field; steam engines puffing along pre-Beecham railway lines; film sets from the 1930s; even the R-101 on its first test flight. You can search by date, by co-ordinate, or by placename.

Salisbury Cathedral, May 1933.

The project encourages users to contribute information on places by tagging the images or adding data, photos, videos or links in a free text area. There are galleries which include all the images taken on a single flight, and even a gallery for so-far unidentified images, where the information accompanying them is lost or incorrect, and members have helped successfully re-attribute many of the photos in the collection. Some of the photos are on glass plate negatives which have been damaged—yet another reminder of a lost time.

Many of the photos are of cities and built-up areas, but as my heart is in the countryside as well as in the past, I tend to stick to looking at the photos of rural areas.

An unlocated country house and countryside. July 1938.

Not a real castle - an unlocated film set for a so-far unidentified film.

Not a real castle—an unlocated film set for a so-far unidentified movie. November 1928.

I have used Britain From Above for my archaeological research work: sometimes I undertake projects where I have to find out as much as I can about a particular area or site, and how it has developed over time. For this I will use documentary sources (books and articles, plus written documents such as letters, wills, diaries, estate accounts etc), maps and plans, drawings, paintings and sketches, and where available, photographs. The Aerofilm vertical photos at 1:10,000 scale are an amazing resource for identifying landscape features such as earthworks, and the oblique photos on Britain From Above are also very useful as they are often taken from a much lower altitude and so have much more detail. Earlier this year I worked on a project for the history of a house and plot near to Hampton Court Palace in Richmond upon Thames, London: the Aerofilm photos provided great details about its development from the 1920s onwards.

Hampton Court Palace, Hampton Court Park and environs, Hampton Court Park, 1948.

Hampton Court Palace, Hampton Court Park and environs, April 1948.

Britain From Above is a fantastic resource (especially for schools) and a complete time-sink. Once I log on, that’s it for a couple of hours …

Favourite websites: OCEARCH.org Global Shark Tracker

Oct20

Ever wondered where great white sharks get to when they’re not peering in at cage divers or dining on hapless seals? Well, the answer is on the OCEARCH website: for several years now, great whites and other apex predator sharks have been tagged and their locations recorded every time they surface and send a ‘ping’ to the satellite tracking system.

Great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias). Photo by Terry Goss.

It’s a fascinating glimpse into the lives of these magnificent creatures: there are tagged populations off the East Coast of the United States, the West Coast of South America, and the South African coast. The researchers have named all the sharks, and my favourite is Lydia, a great white shark.

Lydian being tagged on 2 March 2013, off the coast at Jacksonville, Florida, United States.

Lydia being tagged on 2 March 2013, off the coast at Jacksonville, Florida, United States. At the time of tagging she was 4.40 m (14 ft 6 in) long and weighed approximately 900 kg (approx. 2,000 lbs).

Lydia is a very well-travelled shark: earlier this year she headed east from the eastern seaboard of the US to the middle of the Atlantic. To the very middle, in fact: for several weeks in March and April she swam down the line of the Mid Atlantic Ridge.

Lydia’s track on OCEARCH.org.

It’s fascinating to see where the sharks go, and how far and how quickly they travel.

OCEARCH is a wonderful organisation, undertaking research vital for the conservation of these beautiful creatures. Here’s a little about them, from their website:

‘OCEARCH enables the brightest scientists in the world by giving them approximately 15 minutes of access to live, mature great white sharks (and other species) to conduct up to 12 studies including tagging and sampling. OCEARCH captures mature sharks that can range between 2,000 and 5,000 pounds on average, maneuvers them onto a 75,000 lb. custom lift, then releases the shark after researchers have completed their 15 minutes of work. The shark is guided by hand in the water on and off the lift. OCEARCH is a leader in collaborative open source research, sharing scientific data and dynamic education content in near-real time for free to the public through the Global Shark Tracker, enabling students and the public to learn alongside PhDs.’

Hurrah for OCEARCH, and hurrah for open source research: it’s not just the scientists who benefit.

Favourite websites: Kittenwar

Aug21

Kittenwar is another of my favourite websites. It’s a real time sink if you are a cat lover (like me): once you start looking it’s hard to stop.

Basically photos of two kittens/cats are shown side by side, and they ‘do battle’ as you vote for the cutest. The ‘winningest’ kittens and their stats are listed (hint: take a photo with your kitten’s paws and tubby tummy in full shot and you’re in with a chance), as are the ‘losingest’ (hint: if you have a sphinx or angular-headed Siamese, your darling is going to be on this list …)

I put up a photo of one of our two fudsies, Ballou, on 12 January 2006, and in those eight and a half years she has done battle 4,235 times. Her stats are a pretty steady 49% won, 39% lost and 13% drawn. I think she’s the cutest thing ever in the photo I entered, but that’s because I know she’s enjoying having her ears rubbed and is not being tortured, as it rather looks like …

Ballou. Kittenwar warrior. Not being tortured, honest.

Favourite websites: iknowwhereyourcatlives.com

Jul24

Oh lordy. Now I am going to get drawn into the wormhole of Catblivion.

Catblivion. You are powerless to resist.

A new website called iknowwhereyourcatlives.com features over a million cats, located Google Earth-style to their actual locations. The site’s maker Owen Mundy, an art professor at Florida State University, has taken photos of cats that have been uploaded on to photo sharing websites such as Flickr, Twitpic and Instagram, and used the metadata on these photos (which includes the latitude and longitude of where the photos were taken) to create this cat cyberstalker’s heaven.

There’s also a ‘random cat’ button. The very first one I got was a tiger in the City of Des Moines Blank Park Zoo. Too cool! He’s lying in snow and he looks like he’s got conjunctivitis in one eye. See, I’m already fretting about teh kittehs.

The second was of a lovely ?Bengal cat who lives in Finland.

And now I’m fretting even more—this is also a catnapper’s little black book with knobs on. But maybe I’m just a cynical old bag. Time to click random cat again and de-stress. Kitteh in Gold Coast Australia helps …

Kitteh in the Gold Coast, Australia.

They also have a Kickstarter to get funds to cover the web hosting for the first year. So far it’s on $775 of a $2,500 target; that’s 16 days left to meet the target.

Favourite websites: VolcanoCafé

Jul8

I have always had a fascination with nature’s dramatic events, such as tornadoes or tsunamis or landslides or earthquakes. At the top of my ‘ooooh’ list: volcanoes.

The lava lake at Mt Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo by Cai Tjeenk Willink.

When a new volcanic underwater vent off the coast of El Hierro in the Canary Islands started erupting back in October 2011, I tried to find out what I could about it on the web. One of the best sources was a new blog, VolcanoCafé, which I gather was set up to house volcano aficionados who had been deemed too chatty for a more serious-minded volcano website (though I might have got that wrong …).

The eruption at El Hierro. Photo by INVOLCAN.

The eruption at El Hierro, pictured three months in to the eruptive phase, on 5 January 2012. Photo by INVOLCAN.

Lakagigar, Iceland. Photo by Juhász Péter, 1 July 2004.

I have little scientific knowledge. I did geology ‘A’ level partly because of my fascination with volcanoes, but it involved mineralogy and crystallography and other areas of study that I really, really struggled with, only having done biology and geology at ‘O’ Level. I found VolcanoCafé perfect for me, as it is accessible to those with little or no scientific knowledge. It’s maintained by a group of highly informed and interested amateurs who understand what it is to not fully grasp things, and explain patiently in the comments section anything you might not understand.

Mt Cleveland in Alaska. Photo by Jeffrey N. Williams from abaord the International Space Station. This was an APOD!

Mt Cleveland in Alaska. Photo by Jeffrey N Williams from aboard the International Space Station.

What I love about VolcanoCafé is that it features articles written by its readers, about volcanoes that inspire them. You get the real sense of wonder and excitement, plus a really eclectic mix of subjects. Professional volcanologists read it too, and pop up in the comments section every now and then. The comments section is always really lively, and often provides early alerts and updates to new volcanic events around the world. Currently I’m learning about the new eruption which has enlarged Japanese volcanic island of Nishinoshima. Fantastic!

When the submarine eruption near the island of Nishinoshima first broke the surface of the water, the isalnd it created was nameed. It has since expanded considerably and joined to Nishinoshima.

When the submarine eruption near the island of Nishinoshima first broke the surface of the water, the island it created was named Niijima. It has since expanded considerably and joined to Nishinoshima. This photo was taken on 8 December 2013, by the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite.

So a heartfelt ‘thanks’ from me to Carl, the founder of VolcanoCafé, and the ‘dragons’, and all the contributors who make it such an interesting and vibrant read.

Favourite websites: APOD

Jun28

After a couple of gloomy posts about the poor hedgehogs, I thought I should feature something wonderful and lovely and spirits-raising. And so … here’s a mention of one of my favourite websites to brighten things up: NASA’s APOD site, otherwise known as the Astronomy Picture of the Day.

It pretty much does what it says on the tin: every day it features a wonderful photo to do with the skies above us. Sometimes they are Hubble space telescope shots, sometimes they are photos by the legion of talented amateur photographers who photograph our skies by both day and night, sometimes they are photos taken from the International Space Station; whatever the source they are invariably beautiful shots that fill me with wonder and joy.

M16: Pillars of Creation. Pillars of evaporating gaseous globules emerging from pillars of molecular hydrogen gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula, which is associated with the open star cluster M16. Photo by J Hester and P Scowen.

I am completely unscientifically-minded, but I love learning about the natural world about us, whether it is the worlds beyond our planet, or the geology and meteorology of our own. NASA has some fantastic websites, and this is one of my favourites. Click on the links in the text written by professional astronomers that accompanies the photos, and have a truffle round in the archive (link at the bottom of the APOD page)—you’ll lose hours but you’ll learn so much!

The Milky Way, photographed at Bryce Canyon, Utah, USA. Photo by Wally Pacholka.

Sun with solar flare. 13 April 2013. Photo by NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory.

Crossing Dingo Gap on Mars, taken by the indefatigable Curiosity Rover near Mt Sharp on Mars.

Crossing Dingo Gap on Mars, taken by the wonderful Curiosity Rover near Mt Sharp on Mars.

Favourite Etsy shops: The Litus Gallery

Jun12

There are some amazing artists and craftspeople on Etsy, and I wanted to write about some of my favourites. Top of the pile is The Litus Gallery.

I was so delighted when I found this shop: DD McInnes is an artist living near Canterbury in Kent, a self-professed fantabulist who paints the most whimsical, fantastical oil paintings, some of which are inspired by 17th, 18th and early 19th century paintings, and which have animals, including birds, invertebrates and insects taking the place of the human sitters. DD describes the paintings as ‘A unique collection of dream-like, darkly humorous paintings and prints of mythical beasts and metaphysical poets for the discerning Virtual Grand Tourist.’

‘The Tender Foils’ by DD McInnes.

‘Portrait of a Young Man’, by DD McInnes.

‘The Spectral Lovers’ by DD McInnes.

The paintings have such terrific titles as ‘The Contessa di Faraglione Arrives for the Evening Ball‘, and ‘The Morning Exercise, Newthorpe Park, May, 1768‘, and ‘La Passeggiata of the Lady Dowager, Siena, 1796‘, and ‘Mister Renard’s Dappled Gray, “Lightning Bolt”, with the Jockey Lamb, Up‘, and ‘Henry Lord Byfield, 1st Viscount of Framlington, Rides Out on His First Grand Tour, 1795‘, and ‘The Game of Quoits at Dunmow Lacey, Afternoon, 1814‘, and ‘A Table at Mrs. Goatsby’s Coffee-House, Berwick St. London, 1767‘. I’m not sure whether all of these are based on original paintings and their titles, or are the product of DD’s fevered imagination, but I have had fun trying to find out. (I could just ask DD, but where’s the challenge in that?)

A couple of them I recognise:

‘The Yuletide Handsel’ by DD McInnes

‘The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch’, better known by its shorter title ‘The Skating Minister’, by Sir Henry Raeburn, 1790s.

‘The Swing’ by DD McInnes.

‘The Swing’ by Nicolas Lancret, 1730-35.

and DD mentions the inspiration in the title of a few more:

‘The Eight Lives of Mr. Tybalt (after Nicolaes Eliaszoon’s “Portrait of Nicolaes Tulp”, 1633)’ by DD McInnes.

‘Nicolaes Tulp’ by Nicolaes Eliaszoon Pickenoy.

‘On the Way Home (After William Blake’s Engraving “The Traveller hasteth in the Evening,” 1793)’ by DD McInnes.

‘The Traveller hasteth in the Evening 14 Publishd 17 May 1793 by WBlake Lambeth’
Engraving from ‘For Children. The Gates of Paradise’, by William Blake.

‘The Turnip Spinner (After Chardin’s, “Gabriel Godefroy watching a top spin”, c.1735’, by DD McInnes.

‘Portrait of Auguste Gabriel Godefroy’ by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin.

‘I Want, I Want (after William Blake)’ by DD McInnes.

'I want! I want!' Plate 9, For the Sexes: The Gates of Paradise, by William Blake.

‘I want! I want!’, a plate in ‘For Children: The Gates of Paradise’, by William Blake.

And if you want yet more whimsy, read the shop’s ‘About’ page. I love it!

I don’t know DD’s gender, but I’m guessing DD’s a ‘he’ as the phrase ‘grizzled painter’ is used. Mind you, as DD says the oil paints used are delivered by packs of dromedaries across the marshes of Kent, maybe I should take absolutely everything with a pinch of salt …

DD sells the original oil paintings, plus fine art prints of some of the paintings and lovely notecards too, in the Litus Gallery shop on Etsy. It’s well worth a visit, and I guarantee you’ll come away smiling.

(Sadly necessary disclaimer: I’m writing about shops that grab my fancy and fire my imagination. I’m not being paid or otherwise rewarded to do this—just spreading the love!)

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