My modest collection of country highpoints now includes Mount Korab, which is the joint highpoint of North Macedonia and Albania. We went for a quick jaunt up Korab in August.

https://patricklam.ca/post/20261003-korab/

Fewer birds in this post than I'd thought, but there are some other animals too. Thinking of getting the new lightweight 100-400 lens, which will be far better than the 55-210, even if it's not quite as good as my 1kg lens. #Birds #Butterflies #NorthMacedonia

These are Japanese #Birds, some from Tokyo in September 2024, and some from the Kumano Kodo in February 2025. One more birds/mountains picture to come...

edit: the first part of the thread is here: https://mastodon.nz/@va2lam/117430373612202145

Your usual birds interlude. #Birds

September's photos post:

https://patricklam.ca/post/20261007-september-photos/

Includes most of the Greece pictures from August (particularly Olympus); Mount Korab (North Macedonia/Albania); a day of the Kumano Kodo in Japan and a day in Tokyo; a day from the Tour du Mont Blanc; and a trip to Whakapapa. #Alps #NZ #mountains

I do not, in fact, agree for my health info to be shared with OpenAI. Thanks for asking, Quantcare!

I've memorized Ctrl-U 101 as ā, but I have not memorized the unicode codepoints for the other vowels. In reading a master's thesis, I realized that I can use Ctrl-U 304 to add a macron afterwards. Much easier for me to write kererū now! (And there were two on the street today, though not these.)

Spotted at a cafe in Montreal:

A man (50s?) wearing Yoda pants waits in line. He is carrying a little black and white kitten in his arms. Occasionally he pets the kitten.

@georgepenney

Only a couple of #Birds this time. In this post, three from Aotearoa and one from Greece.

(Two days & one conference later; heading back to Rome later today and then to Canada for a week) More pictures from the highlights: Olympus; near Nugget Point in the Catlins; field hockey; Tour du Mont Blanc.

I wrote a photos post for August and posted it a few days ago, but haven't had time to post a thread yet. Here it is. Once again, I'm travelling, so the thread may be somewhat delayed...

https://patricklam.ca/post/20260907-august-photos/

Featuring pictures from the Catlins, Courmayeur, Québec, Kaikōura, and Mount Olympus! Not a bad photos count given that I was travelling for half of August.

This is a quite Canadian message associated with the red warning for severe thunderstorms in Waterloo: "Destructive wind gusts, loonie to ping pong ball size hail and heavy rain are possible."

Me: "... But we don't really want to get to the ferry terminal two hours early"

Random guy next to us on the bus: "sometimes you do!"

Here are some more nature pictures from Kaikōura and the Tour du Mont Blanc. There were about a dozen humpback whales and a sperm whale. I also got lots of pictures of butterflies.

July pictures. This flight has another 30 minutes. Well, I can at least post four pictures in this time.

https://patricklam.ca/post/20260804-july-photos/

This includes a lot of pictures from a Whale Watch Kaikōura trip in July (a last minute but highly worthwhile decision), as well as pictures from snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef in 2024, and then one more set of pictures from the Tour du Mont Blanc and from Christchurch in May.

I'm on a set of planes to Greece and the backlog is going to grow a whole lot...

#BirdsNZ #Birds

Floss expires?!

I've eaten food that has an expiry date further in the future than this.

Some more not-actively-tramping pictures on the rain day. #tramping #NotTramping

Yes, so, here we are with flooding again right now e.g. in Kaikōura. There was 60mm of rain on the Old Ghost Road when we were there, so we doubled up a day and took a rainy rest day in the hut; we were the only ones there. The Mōkihinui was full of water; fortunately, there were no river crossings. #Tramping

Australia really does have different birds, and the Northern Territory has different birds again. We visited the Great Barrier Reef in 2024. Of course, you access the reef from Cairns. (For what it's worth, I found that I got better views snorkelling in the Cook Islands and French Polynesia, but photography underwater is another thing.) #Birds #BirdsAU

But first, the birds. People always like #Birds here. First three from the Old Ghost Road, and the last one from Travis Wetland, so this is #BirdsNZ with a bit of #mosstodon content.

I have a paper submission to work on (occupational hazard), but here's my photos post from June anyway. Will post to it as I take breaks from paper editing.

https://patricklam.ca/post/20260701-june-photos/

We'll have pictures from the Old Ghost Road, Tour du Mont Blanc, a day in Cairns, some pictures from Canada, a bunch of Wellington pictures, and a couple from Travis Wetland in Christchurch.