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Johanna Paris Womens Floral Print High Rise Straight Leg Pants Purple Size S. Powered by Frooition.com JOIN OUR EMAIL LIST Women Handbags Shoes Accessories Jewelry Men Kids Home Beauty Johanna Paris Womens Floral Print High Rise Straight Leg Pants Purple Size S Item Description Description: Hips: 34" Inseam: 31 Polyester Condition: Pre-Owned gently worn ; good used condition Click here to see full item description About Us About Us Payment Shipping Returns FAQ About Us Linda Lightman created Linda's Stuff out of her home in 2000. Twenty-Three years later Linda's Stuff has grown into a $25 million business occupying a 93,000 square foot office space filled with fashion and fun. As THE leader in luxury consignment, Linda's Stuff is a worldwide fashion reseller. Our main focus is the resale of authentic designer clothing, shoes, handbags and accessories. In addition, Linda's Stuff also accepts home goods, collectibles and electronics. We offer the largest commission package with consignors earning up to 80% of the sale price, with most transactions completing within just a few days. Condition: Pre-owned - Good Condition: gently worn ; good used condition Brand: Johanna Paris Size: S Size Type: Regular Style: Not Available Color: Purple Department: Women Type: Pants Material: Polyester Pattern: Floral Inseam: 31 Waist Size: S Vintage: No Fit: Regular Hips: 34" See More PicClick Insights - Johanna Paris Womens Floral Print High Rise Straight Leg Pants Purple Size S PicClick Exclusive  Popularity - , 51 days for sale on eBay. 0 sold, 1 available. More × Popularity - Johanna Paris Womens Floral Print High Rise Straight Leg Pants Purple Size S , 51 days for sale on eBay. 0 sold, 1 available. Close  Best Price - × Price - Johanna Paris Womens Floral Print High Rise Straight Leg Pants Purple Size S Close  Seller - 1,021,830+ items sold. 1.3% negative feedback. Top-Rated Plus! Top-Rated Seller, 30-day return policy, ships in 1 business day with tracking. More × Seller - Johanna Paris Womens Floral Print High Rise Straight Leg Pants Purple Size S 1,021,830+ items sold. 1.3% negative feedback. Top-Rated Plus! Top-Rated Seller, 30-day return policy, ships in 1 business day with tracking. Recent Feedback Close More Like This PicClick Exclusive 5 watchers Johanna Paris Womens Abstract Print High Rise Flare Leg Pants Green Size S $64.97 Buy It Now or Best Offer See Details 1 watcher Johanna Paris Womens High Rise Drawstring Bandana Print Pants Blue White Small $36.09 Buy It Now or Best Offer See Details Johanna Paris Womens Abstract Print Feather Pajama Pants Green Pink Size Medium $110.02 Buy It Now or Best Offer See Details Johanna Paris Muze Womens Plaid Abstract Print Pants Brown Size Small Lot 2 $36.09 Buy It Now or Best Offer See Details Johanna Paris Womens Leopard Print Button Down Blouse Gold Purple Size S $56.34 Buy It Now or Best Offer See Details PicClick® CA • Search eBay Faster Copyright © 2008-2025 PicClick Inc. All Rights Reserved. You are the salt of the earth...You are the light of the world...

Another DIY simpit Greetings fellow citizen,I've seen several threads with awesome simpit builds and I would like to add mine (still in progress) as well. 30.06.2014, now with all cockpit lights4 white light cold cathode tubes I had laying around from the times before LEDs. (Can be switched on and off)10.07.2014 Some fun with first batch of decals. Too bad I can't print white for switch captions.and the well known "cockpit reflection on visor" shot ;)05.08.2014: Remade the side panels. Auxiliary USB ports on both and audio panel on the left. Current look below.What it can:- HOTAS with pedals (Logitech G940 (out of print))- Mini keyboard for WASD type games (Logitech G13)- Full mouse with mousepad- adjustable seat- MFDs with buttons and display (Thrustmaster Cougar and 7" USB Displays- adjustable keyboard (from nearly vertical to horizontal) (Hama mini keyboard and some "telescope-rails?" )- all USB devices with on/off switch (switchable active USB hub)- a little quick and dirtry written software that shows me the button bindings for the MFD frames, depending on game running.- fullfill childhood dream of having a cockpit =)What it can't:- save space. The thing will always be a massive block.- save time. Damn, I've sunk several weekends there....What it misses (yet)- final touches on panels to hide rough edges and seams Done- audio panel (like to have sockets for headset with on/off switch and maybe volumne ****) Done.- extra USB sockets on front panel to quickly plug in anything else needed (gamepad ?) -> Done- some decals for decoration DoneUsed Materials (mostly from ebay and local hardware store):- Old car seat (from a co-worker's Opel Zafira)- beaverage crates as scaffolding- ABS sheets as covering (2mm thick)- self adhesive foil for unicolored smooth surface (Oracal 631)- shelf boards (~18mm thick)- lots of taping screws and angle brackets ;)here in a early stage without any covering:some details of the electronics behind the panels:I've bought USB hubs which already have switches and LEDs. I just soldered wires to it to extend them to the front panel and used nice metal flip switches.To keep things somewhat modular, I've used BEC/JST connectors (from RC racing) between the panel and the circuit board.23.07.2014: Auxiliary panels05.08.2014: New cable tags to keep some semblance of organisation. Also the mounting of the aux. USB ports.Material processing- crate scaffoldingIt's always amazing how sturdy these things are while still being quite light. The plastic gives very good bite to taping screws (only make sure to not overthighten them). With a sharp box cutter and alot of force you can cut the thinner parts, but it is way easier to use a small saw.I've made a big diagonal cut on the top crate for the angled surfaces on the sides:The crates are fixed with (angle) brackets and taping screws.The top of the side rows have a shelf board (for smooth surface) attached to it and the front "towers" are connected with a shelf board on top and 2 rails from a shelf system Attached to the top rail are two handholds (drawer grips) to make entry/exit from the pit easier. - CoveringI've found the 2mm ABS sheets are very easy to work with. They are flexible but not wobbly if fixed with strategical placed screws.To bring them in shape I used a box cutter and a metal ruler. Make a superficial cut and then bend the sheet. The cut will widen and then snap in a clean line.With a countersinking cutter and screws you can fix the sheets without screw heads sticking out.- Base plateAgain Big shelf boards, fixed together with brackets. One each for left, right and front blocks. The seat needs two boards, due to it's width. The underside is covered with felt to make the whole construction moveable on my floor without scratching. The boards are cutted to size with a pendular saw and the whole footprint is 1,20 x 1,10 meters.30.06.2014:Underside of the top panel with multi socket outlet, cathode tube power box and some wiringA view of the keyboard tray rails and how cheap & dirty they are mounted =DAnd my new coat hanger ejection handle D-ring ;)Also: Cable duct for the hotas throttle cable and 2nd cathode power box (for lights left & right of the seat)I like to point out that pit building is not that hard or even necessariely expensive. I have zero training in craftmanship (keyboard pusher by trade) and consider myself to have 2 left hands.The expensive stuff are the electronics: HOTAS, USB hubs, switches, wirings/extensions and MFDs. Most of them are optional.The constructions materials were quite cheap. (crates, some wood, plastics, etc)The real constraint for pit building is: Do I have the free space to store the damn thing ? hardware post

Ultimate DIY: Military UHF SATCOM antenna PART ONE By Steve Douglass I remember the first time I saw a Dorne & Margolin UHF portable SATCOM antenna. I know that may seem a bit weird and esoteric (an antenna leaving that kind of lasting impression) but the moment I saw one - I knew I wanted one. It was many years ago at the annual “ROVING SANDS” military exercises held in southern New Mexico. I was there covering the games as an aviation journalist. The world's largest air and missile defense exercise, ROVING SANDS overseen by the JFACC, combines Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force units and pits them against each other over the White Sands Missile Range and Biggs Army Ranges. For many years Roving Sands afforded me a unique opportunity to observe (very up-close and personal) military aviation operations that didn’t require going through the laborious task of obtaining government-vetted-sanctioned press credentials, which is exactly what I didn’t want. Once one is allowed on the inside - you only see the stuff they want you to see. Sure you have better access-but it is chaperoned access. My job (then) was to look for the “unacknowledged” black-project aircraft that were rumored to be involved in the games, reporting for magazines such as Popular Science and Aviation Week & Space Technology. Almost needless to say, my compatriots and I weren’t disappointed- but that’s different story for another day. Anyway, (being a rabid military-monitoring hobbyist) I couldn’t help but spot the uber-cool milspec-looking-fishbone-yagi antenna on a building at the Roswell Industrial Airfield (where the Red Forces were based) pointing up at what I could easily deduce was a military satellite hanging 22,000 miles above the equator in geosynchronous orbit. Later in the week, I summoned up my courage and asked an airman (eating his lunch near the antenna at a picnic table) what it was. Apparently he was the right man to ask. He said it was a Dorne & Margolin portable antenna used for UHF-TACSAT/DAMA voice, data and telemetry work. The airman (a com-tech) was proud of his MOS and even took time from his lunch to show me his radio rig. It was impressive, big and bulky over-built by Harris and looked like you cold have dropped it out of the back of a C-130 without damage. He then graciously demonstrated it for me by doing a radio check (voice) with the Joint Training Analysis and Simulation Center (JTASC) in Suffolk, VA. I was surprised at the high-fidelity and clarity of the return com-check, considering it was relayed off a rotating hunk of spinning metal and wires located some 22,000 miles in space, making the round-trip just under 50,000 miles. As the tech continued with his demonstration, he rattled off a list of technical specifications, frequency ranges and communications parameters and protocols that I’m sure he thought I wouldn’t understand. I played dumb, scratched my head all the while trying as hard as I could to take it all in. He had no idea that he was talking to man who had written a hobbyists guide to military monitoring. As impressive as the radio equipment was, I knew I’d never be able to afford one - even sometime in the far-flung future, when it had become obsolete and sold as surplus. It was kind of like taking a test drive in a Ferrari, all the while knowing you couldn’t even afford a Yugo. But the antenna was a different matter entirely. I did own more than one receiver that could (with the right antenna) intercept satellite signals in the bands the airman had detailed (240 to 310 MHz) and had done so (with very limited success) from time to time. The trouble was – UHF TACSAT satellite downlink transmissions were what was technically described as being (right-hand circularly polarized) making reception on commercial and consumer grade antennas (usually vertically or horizontally polarized) problematic at best. Without getting too technical, rotating satellites have forced the use of circular polarization. The fundamental advantage of circular polarization is that all reflections change the direction of polarization, precluding the usual addition or subtraction of main and reflected signals. Therefore there is far less fading and flutter when circular polarization is used at each end of the link. Over the years I tried building my own high-gain UHF Yagi antennas to receive military satellite communications with very limited success. Main trouble was, as the satellite rotated, the signal would swing out of phase and fade (rapidly) in and out and sound much like a record skipping – making interception just plain irritating. To put it simply, it was like trying to have a conversation with someone riding on a merry-go-round. If you weren’t running along side them (constantly) all you would here were bits and bursts of voice. Radio hobbyists (with more technical knowledge than moi) had built home-brew helical antennas and were reporting (via Internet news-groups) great success but the antennas were difficult to engineer and build, especially for a man who barely squeaked by with a C in high-school algebra. For me, looking at the formulae for calculating the spacing and turns on a helical antenna was like trying to read Greek, but that wasn’t what turned me off to ever attempting to build one. The main problem was, none of the antennas looked like the one I saw at Roving Sands, with the majority of the home-brew designs looking like the coils of razor wire ringing the local prison, plus they were huge -sometimes doubled-arrays hardly portable or easily mounted on the back balcony of my tiny apartment. What I wanted was a Dorne & Margolin (now EDO) portable SATCOM antenna, transportable, easy to set up and tear down – and not to mention – tough-looking and black-like those used by covert operators, Rangers, SEAL teams and DELTA. I wanted an antenna that didn’t say “ham radio operator” but instead said “government spy” and “If I tell you what it is I’d have to kill you – so don’t ask.” type of antenna. Anyways – Over the years I’ve held out hopes that some military surplus outlet advertising on the Internet would acquire one of these beauties (and not knowing what it was) offer it for sale at a reasonable price. A few years ago – it happened. Dorne & Margolin/EDO and Trivec Avant (the major military contractors building SATCOM gear) surplus antennae began showing up sporadically on Ebay. Unfortunately they were snapped up fast (and at premium prices) by the well-heeled radio hobbyists. The going price was around 3K to (for pristine units) with even broken or heavily used and abused specimens going at over 1,000 dollars. Refurbished (and new) antennas can also be (now) bought through various re-sellers, who equip shady-military-security for hire companies like Blackwater/Xe Services LLC. These controversial firms are authorized to communicate with the military via SATCOM in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Blackheart International (http://www.bhigear.com/) offers a mini-satcom antenna on their site for the walk-away price of $3,000. Heavy-duty antennas (Bigger-more gain) could be had for 5K. I couldn’t (and still cannot) fathom why a simple assembly of electronics and aluminum sticks could cost so durn-much! For the life of me – they looked like a simple X-wing Yagi design. Was there something super-secret or complicated (hidden within the design) that made their construction complicated and thusly (and rightly-so) so expensive? Still, hope springs eternal and I thought it would only be a matter of time before one popped up at a price I could afford. In the meantime – I acquired a new super-scanning radio released by Uniden the BCD-996XT. The 996XT is a computer-controlled-programmable scanner with a 25,000-channel capability. To quote Uniden: "This new scanner significantly raises the bar with much improved APCO-25 digital decoding as well as a host of new features and more memory. For those who like GPS scanning, a feature no other manufacturer offers, you can now enable and disable not only Systems but Groups as well depending on your location (the optional GPS antenna that we sell is required). The radio offers a band-scope feature, a Fire Tone Out search feature to help you determine the tone out frequencies being used, improved Close Call, APCO-25 NAC code decoding, and more. The 996XT is a big leap forward." The main reason I acquired the BCD-996XT was for its digital-decoding capabilities. I run a small news-gathering company for the local and (sometimes national) news media called “The Reporter’s Edge.” Recently, the Texas Department of Public Safety had “gone digital” employing APCO-25 digital encoding. It is my job to scan the public safety bands for their producers and reporters and be a sort of safety net for the breaking-news stories that sometimes fall between the cracks while already over-tasked and under-staffed TV journalists took time to write, edit and produce the news as well have a life that didn’t dictate them spending their sacred off-time with their ears glued to a scanning radio. Since I always have a scanning radio droning on in the background wherever I am- it was only natural I found a way to make my obsession (for intercepting radio communications) pay off. Once the Texas DPS went digital, the only way to listen in on their communications was with an APCO-25 digital scanning radio. The BCD-996XT filled the bill nicely. The BC-996XT didn’t disappoint. In fact I can say without hesitation it is the finest scanning radio I have ever owned, only second to the handheld version Uniden’s BC396XT which I also own. Computer aided scanning software of choice is Butel’s ARC396, followed closely by Freescan. The BCD996XT (with its’ more than ample 25,000 channel capacity) freed my BCT396XT for use as a MILCOM scanner, something I have wanted to do for a long while. I love intercepting military aircraft (MILAIR) and associated communications on all the bands and to have a scanner dedicated to just MILCOM was a real treat. I even went so far as to custom outfit a case (containing an ASUS netbook computer loaded with scanning software) that also housed the BCT396XT making it look somewhat like a retro SAC “nuclear football” capable of sending the emergency action messages triggering WWIII. It comes complete with an Cold-War era SAC badge that General Jack D. Ripper would trade his Cuban cigars to have. Okay, I admit-its’ kind off geeky – but that’s just my way. The “football” does have a utilitarian function. Underneath the netbook are two gel-cell batteries that can power the scanner and computer for up to twelve hours. Both can be charged by plugging it into a wall or a cigarette/accessory plug in an automobile. (C) Steve Douglass Continued soon in PART II YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE THIS

According to Jane's IHS, several contenders are in the run for the Challenger 2 LEP upgrade contract. The contenders that send bids to the UK Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) are: BAE Systems Combat Vehicles General Dynamics Land Systems UK Lockheed Martin UK Krauss-Maffei Wegmann Rheinmetall CMI Defence RUAG Defence The Challenger 2 life extension programme (LEP) was announced some time after the reveal of the T-14 Armata tank in Russia during the Moscow Victory Day Parade 2015. At first the UK MoD also considered buying a completely new main battle tank (MBT) as replacement of the Challenger 2. In particular the lethality and the effectivity of the L30A1 tank gun has been questioned. Unlike other tanks such as the M1 Abrams and the Leopard 2 MBTs, the Challenger 2 has not seen any major upgrades since it's introduction into British Army service in the 1990s. The British Army already investigated the replacement of the rifled L30 gun with a German Rh 120 L/55 smoothbore gun during the Challenger 2 lethality improvment programme (CLIP) beginning in 2001, but this project was terminated due to too high costs. The German gun together with the superior tungsten ammunition proved to be more effective during the British trials. The follow-up to CLIP was the Challenger 2 capability sustainment programme (C2 CSP), which incorporated most parts of the CLIP and some new upgrade ideas. However the C2 CSP also ended up being too expensive and was thus terminated in 2008. The Challenger 2 LEP was announced in July 2013 and started one year later. The reveal of the T-14 Armata however triggered however the UK's interest in owning a tank strong enough to cope with the T-14. The Challenger 2E is the most advanced version of the CR2 to be developed by Vickers/BAE yet. The list of contenders is rather interesting. BAE as owner of Vickers has the in-house advantage, but has not gathered any experience in modern tank design/building since the Challenger 2. Even worse BAE had to rely on the purchased Hägglunds for any sort of the success on the AFV export market in the recent history. In theory BAE might fall back to the old Vickers Challenger 2E tank designed for export, which failed to perform equally well as the Leopard 2, Leclerc and M1 Abrams in the Greek trials in the early-2000s. The Challenger 2E offers a number of considerable upgrades over the current CR2: a EuroPowerPack (MTU MT883 engine together with Renk HSWL 295TM transmission) and a new, superior fire control system with the SAGEM MVS 580 periscope and SAGEM SAVAN 15 gunner's sight. However BAE announced in 2005 that the development of the CR2E was stopped following lack of success on the export market. General Dynamics is having the Abrams as up-to-date modernized MBT. While the upgrades might not be as deep as the ones offered by other companies on the market, this seems to be largely related to the lack of funding from the US and the low interest in upgrading foreign M1 Abrams tanks (due to the fact that most Abrams user's like Egypt, Iraq and Australia do not have the money for any tank upgrades). For the Scout-SV programme General Dynamics European Land Systems however had to rely quite a bit on other companies from this list: the turret for the Ajax is based on Rheinmetall's Lance Modular Turret System and at least partly manufactured in Germany, whereas Lockheed Martin UK has developed the fire control and reconnaissance systems for the Ajax. The upgraded Warrior using Rheinmetall's turret design as base is the best reference that LM can offer. Lockheed Martin plays a major in the Warrior capability sustainment programme (WCSP) and in the Ajax variant of the Scout-SV, but lacks any own vehicle designs. Instead LM mostly upgrades electronics and other sub-components of AFVs mostly. For the Scout-SV and the WCSP Lockheed Martin relied on turret technology supplied by Rheinmetall and technology/components supplied by other sub-contractors. Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) is currently the world market leader when it comes to tanks and thus should be considered a very safe bet. While on pure numbers the M1 Abrams and the T-90 have sold more units, this is often the case by allowing the local assembly of cheap, downgraded and subsidized versions (such as the M1A1 tanks for Egypt or Iraq and the T-90S tanks for India). KMW has shown the willingness to create local versions of the Leopard 2 and to allow local assembly. They also have shown intention to upgrade designs made by other companies (such as their bid to upgrade the Brazilian M113s). During the 1980s and early 1990s KMW developed a special tank based on the Leopard 2 tank for the Spanish Army. KMW could just as well "leopardize" the Challenger 2 by fitting the Challenger 2 with as many proven sub-system of  the Leopard 2 as possible. Rheinmetall has seen increased success on the tank market, after starting to compete against KMW for Leopard 2 upgrades in 2010. They just recently managed to win a contract for the modernization of the Polish Leopard 2A4 tanks to a new Leopard 2PL standard. Rheinmetall has a wider variety of subsidaries and can probably, unlike pretty much any other contender, provide most technologies and components by themselves, without the need to hire a subcontractor. With the MBT Revolution upgrade, Rheinmetall does already offer a modular upgrade which in theory is designed to fit (with some adaption) to any tank. So maybe we can see some type of Challenger 2 Revolution? Leopard 2 Revolution prototype - will the CR2 soon look similar to this? CMI Defence is probably the least expected candidate for the Challenger 2 LEP tender. It never has produced or designed a complete AFV or even a major AFV upgrade. Instead CMI Defence is specialized on light-weight medium/large caliber guns (such as the series of Cockerill 90 mm guns or the Cockerill CV 105 gun) and making ammunition for these. However in the past years CMI has extended it's portfolio into the market of turrets and weapon stations. CMI's biggest turret on a CV90 RUAG Defence of Switzerland has experience with the modernization of medium and heavy combat vehicles for the Swiss Army and several other export costumers. The Panzer 87WE upgrade for the Swiss Army was developed in cooperation with KMW, previously RUAG also upgraded the Swiss fleet of M109 howitzer. Other tank modernizations from RUAG include upgrades for the older Panzer 68 and cooperation with Jordan on the M60 Phoenix MBT prototype. In 2015 RUAG has managed to win a contract for upgrading Austrian and Belgian Pandur APCs. Currently RUAG is offering a Leopard 2A4 upgrade - does it work for CR2 aswell? In general it is unkown how the UK MoD wants the CR2 to be upgraded. It is understood that the scope of the upgrade is rather limited, as the budget is very tight. Replacing the gun is expensive, because the interior of the Challenger 2 MBT is not configured for storing long 120 mm unitary rounds. In case of the CR2 fitted with the German L/55 gun as prototype during the CLIP, there was only proper stowage space for a total of 6 rounds (!) of main gun ammunition. This 6 round compartment stores all the ammunition of the CLIP prototype... In theory only Rheinmetall and RUAG/CMI can offer a main gun replacement with their own technology. Rheinmetall has developed the Rh 120 L/44 and L/55 guns of the Leopard 2 MBT, aswell as a 105 mm smoothbore gun and the 120 mm L/47 LLR (lightweight, low-recoil) gun. RUAG has developed the 120 mm CTG (compact tank gun), which was designed with reduced recoil as a low-cost/low-modifcation upgrade option for various existing tanks. Jordan has tested this gun on a Challenger 1 tank, the M60 Phoenix upgrade prototype and on the Falcon-2 turret system, BAE used this gun for the CV-90/120 light tank and the Swiss Army trialed it on their Panzer 68 upgrade. Depending on required maximum recoil and muzzle break, the CTG has a length of 47 to 51 calibres. Will CMI or RUAG offer the CTG to the UK? However it is unclear wether RUAG or CMI could offer this gun to the British Army (even if they could afford major modifcations to the CR2 interior) - CMI has bought at least some rights of marketing the CTG to at least some markets. Maybe CMI bought the full rights, or RUAG and CMI agreed on both having full rights for this design.  Another interesting concept, that however might as well be too expensive for the British Army, just as fitting a smoothbore, is the idea of mounting a new turret on a Challenger 2 hull. The turrets of the M1 Abrams and of the Leopard 2 can fit onto the turret ring of a Challemger 2 hull, but require some deeper modifications, which again could be too expensive for the British military. The M1 Abrams turret does not include most of the gun and turret drives, which are located in the tank's hull and are also hydraulic in the M1 Abrams. This is an important difference to the CR2 turret, which includes electric gun and turret drives. US trials have also revealed that upgunning the M1 Abrams with the longer L/55 gun of the Leopard 2A6 requires deeper modifications, which is why it was judged as being to expensive for the US Army. The big advantage of a M1 Abrams turret would be the rather large ammunition load of 34 or 36 rounds (depending on which racks are installed). The Leopard 2 turret has electrical drives housed in the turret, so that it would be easier to integrate onto a CR2 hull - however the Leopard 2 stores only 15 round main gun ammunition in the turret buslte, so that the CR2 hull would require modifications for storing further ammo. CMI is specialized on guns and turrets, so they could offer a version of their Cockerill XC-8 105-120HP turret fitted with a 120 mm smoothbore gun, if the turret rings are compatible. Problematic is in this case the different level of protection (CMI's turret is lacking thick composite armor) and the fact that the British Army might not like being forced to utilize an autoloader. According to Jane's IHS only two contenders will be shortlisted. I'd bet that this will be BAE and either General Dynamics or Lockheed Martin - simply because they have the best position in British politics and they have manufacturing facilities in the UK. The UK government was willing to increase the price tag for their Scout-SV programme by several millions, just to move the manufacturing site from Spain to Wales. In terms of technology, I'd choose Rheinmetall, General Dynamics or KMW however. Unlike BAE these companies have state-of-the-art products available and do not make most of their living from old 1980s designs such as the Warrior or Bradley. Compared to CMI and Lockheed Martin, all of these companies do have manufacturing capabilities for deeper modifications and upgrades. RUAG is probably comparable, but lacks a wider portfolio and as many successfull contracts as Rheinmetall/KMW/GD. Probably the Challenger 2 LEP will end up being only a minor improvment due to budget cuts. Some new ammunition maybe, an improved fire control system, a new APU and maybe some other digital stuff.

It's nice to see LG go in a new direction and although the DualScreen case makes this a faux folding phone, there are various issues and strong competition to consider. Should I buy the LG Velvet? Pros Stunning design Affordable dual screen Battery life Cons Camera issues DualScreen issues Slow charging Our Verdict The Velvet is a stunning phone at a reasonable price, but rivals have more to offer if the DualScreen doesn't tempt you enough. Price when reviewed $700 Things have been a little quiet for LG recently but the Korean giant is back with a new strategy for the smartphone market. But can the Velvet stand out in a busy market as a ‘low-end flagship’? I promise this isn’t an attempt to avoid the question so you read the entire review, but the answer is complicated. The Velvet is certainly a step up for LG in some ways, particularly design and the DualScreen case adds an interesting element. In fact, it’s more than that, but it’s also not a great solution and for the more tech savvy buyer, the Velvet has some tough competition. NOTE: Please be aware that LG sent me the Korean version of the Velvet so there are some hardware and software differences to the edition that will arrive elsewhere. I'll point these out as we go. Design: A sight for sore eyes We don’t always start with this section in reviews these days, instead focusing on what is most important about the product we’re reviewing - particularly. Design is the key thing here though as LG has really gone to town on the Velvet to create a desirable smartphone. Arguably LG has been doing that for a long time but many of the firm’s phones from the last few years have been poorly received. It’s not that they were suddenly ugly, but in general the competition was moving quicker. Well the Velvet brings things up to speed with an extremely slick and polished design, quite literally. This is almost entirely a slab of shiny glass with an aluminium band running around the edge to separate the two pieces. Like a certain Korean rival (you know the one beginning with S), the metal gets extremely thin along the sides and the glass is curved at the edges on the front and back. It’s a lovely piece of craftsmanship and I also love the rain drop arrangement of cameras, with only the main lens sticking out a tiny bit which makes a nice change from the huge modules we’re now used to seeing on the back of phones. It's also IP68 waterproof. Although it’s a sight for sore eyes, there are a few things about the design which I’m not so keen on. It’s pretty common so this isn’t a pop at LG but the glass makes it incredibly slippery and there’s no case included in the box. The Velvet repeatedly tried to slide off my garden table onto the looming concrete below despite being pretty level. The phone is also extremely tall. Another thing that’s pretty standard these days but the 20.5:9 aspect ratio is really pushing it. I have reasonably large hands but it’s near impossible to stretch to the top third of the 6.8in display. I’m not a big fan of white tech so the Aurora White didn’t do it for me but the Velvet comes in some really nice colourways including a stunning green and if you really want to make an impact, Illusion Sunset. It’s clear that LG has gone down a more fashionable route with the Velvet calling is ‘minimalistic design, premium finish’ and on that front I think it really fits the bill. DualScreen Now to tackle the DualScreen case which adds another display to the Velvet. Eagle-eyed readers will notice that this setup is just like the LG V60 and you’re right, it’s near identical. The Velvet slots into the case easily enough and like magic you have two phones side-by-side. LG Velvet DualScreen Whether or not this makes it a rival to the likes of the Galaxy Fold and Huawei Mate Xs is up for debate, but this certainly can’t be called a folding phone. It’s better to think of it as a cover case that happens to have a display on the inside and therefore a cheaper alternative. It’s a neat trick and the case turns the Velvet into a sort of Nintendo DS style device with it’s hard plastic case with hinges that can rotate 360 degrees. This is largely so you can use the main phone to type without the second screen being in the way of your left hand. First the good bits… The DualScreen has a small 2.1in mono screen on the front which gives you some key info such as the time, date, notifications and battery info. It’s pretty handy but note that you can’t interact with it. LG Velvet DualScreen display The main benefit is being able to run two apps side-by-side. It’s like holding two identical phones next to each other only a lot easy to use, so if you like multi-tasking but want an entire screen for each app then this is perfect. LG even provides a folder of shortcuts to launch a different app on each screen and you can create your own combinations. A pop-up menu on the main screen allows you to select various DualScreen functions like move an app to the other display or switch one off etc. It’s worth noting that the DualScreen’s display is identical to the Velvet’s, even including the notch. There’s no camera but it’s easier for LG to manufacture this way and does provide symmetry so although it irks me a bit, I do understand the reasoning. LG Velvet DualScreen gaming You can also use the pair in landscape mode (like a Nintendo DS) which can work really well for some productivity elements but mostly gaming. LG provides software so you can put a virtual controller on the bottom screen while dedicating the top one to the actual game. This makes playing games like Asphalt 9 a lot easier to play, and you can map the buttons to any game. It will work better for some games and not others, though. And the bad bits, I hear you cry… Well the Velvet inside the case might be thinner and lighter than the V60’s iteration but it’s still bulky and isn’t the kind of thing you can carry around in a trouser pocket. The DualScreen is better suited to sitting on the coffee table and being put to use around the house. Since the Velvet plugs into the case via a physical USB-C port, charging while docked means attaching a small magnetic attachment which provides the space to plug a cable in. It’s nifty but is just asking to be lost within a few weeks. The Velvet does have wireless charging luckily but you can’t charge the phone and use it at the same time that way - if you have lost the attachment. LG Velvet Whale browser A bigger problem is how apps are used across the two screens. Sure it’s fun to use a different app on each screen but it can’t do a whole lot beyond that. LG includes a Whale for LG Dual Screen custom browser which shows off how the two can work together. For example, double clicking a link will open the page on the other screen. It’s neat but you can’t do this Chrome or other apps and it’s unlikely developers will adapt apps for this specific LG case. What you can do with Chrome - and other Google apps like YouTube, Gmail, Maps and Photos - is run them in ‘wide-view’. Oddly this has to be switched on for individual apps in the settings menu and allows them to run across the displays like it’s one big one. But as Henry put in the LG V60 review “it obviously looks terrible thanks to the honking great hinge in the middle” and that’s no different with the Velvet's DualScreen. Using YouTube cut my colleague’s head in two and attempting to use Google Maps just meant I ended up putting the focal point on one of the screens to see it properly - so it’s no wonder LG doesn’t just let you put any app you like across the two in this view. LG Velvet DualScreen Wide View It’s a real mixed bag for the DualScreen element as it’s not a viable alternative to a proper folding phone - both in physical size and functionality - but does provide some useful ways of doing more without having to splash out. What I don’t know is whether LG is bundling the DualScreen with the Velvet or not. Hopefully it comes included in the price giving the Velvet a key selling point, even if it is just an accessory you attach occasionally. Screen Back to the Velvet itself and although the screen is too tall for my liking, it is quite striking and not solely due to the curved edges. LG, of course, knows how to make displays and you get an OLED panel here with bags of colour, excellent contrast and plenty of brightness to boot. I’ve found it a joy to use in almost all aspects. If you’re a more geeky user then there are elements that may dissuade you from getting the Velvet though. Namely the fact it’s 60Hz when you can get higher refresh rates from various rivals, even in the budget market thanks to devices like the Realme 6. Pushing things to 90Hz or even higher provides a smoother experience but I don’t think the LG Velvet is aimed at users who know what this stuff means. LG Velvet screen You could also argue that rivals have a higher resolution but the Velvet is perfectly crisp for my liking and the choice to go Full HD+ combined with a standard 60Hz is good for battery life. LG has managed to get a fingerprint scanner embedded into the display, which is optical like the V60. At first I found it pretty flawless but it did struggle on various occasions even when my thumb wasn’t wet. Specs & Performance To achieve a more affordable price point, LG has avoided Qualcomm’s top tier 800 series processors and gone with the slightly lower 700 range. In Korea, the Velvet comes with a Snapdragon 765 and elsewhere it gets the 765G. Either way, this chip has 5G and makes the phone an affordable option if you want the latest standard. It’s another indication that the Velvet isn’t aimed at anyone who will be looking at the spec sheet for the processor model number. Either way, I’ve not had any performance issues with the Velvet and I’ve been testing the less impressive Korean model, so anyone buying the phone will get a boost thanks to the 756G. You get a decent 128GB of storage and either 6- or 8GB of RAM, plus a microSD card slot. Overall it’s perfectly good, but if you are the kind of person who wants the best specs around then the Velvet isn’t for you. Check out the OnePlus 8, for example, especially if you’re looking for something more affordable than the likes of the Galaxy S20. My benchmark results are below but note once again that this is testing the Korean model of the Velvet with a Snapdragon 765. I've added the obvious rivals but also the Realme 6 to show what you can get at the budget end of the market these days. Cameras I mentioned earlier how nice the raindrop arrangement of cameras looks really nice. It’s a shame that none of them are particularly amazing, though. Although there are three, one is a depth sensor so this is really just a main 48Mp with an 8Mp ultrawide option - a combination, I might add, LG was doing long before rivals started to add a wider angle addition. Sure, the main 48Mp can take some shots with a good amount of detail and vibrant colours. Note that like other phones with high resolution sensors, it’s actually outputting a 12Mp image. You can take full 48Mp resolution images if you like for extra detail but it’s not worth the extra storage space and the drop in dynamic range. LG Velvet cameras I’d rather have an ultrawide camera than telephoto and this creates a much wider shot with still decent quality. It’s just not as easy access in the app compared to other phones, having to toggle the zoom to 0.5x which I didn’t find intuitive. You can use this to zoom in 2x but this is just a crop of the main sensor. That said, the results aren’t too bad at all thanks to the high resolution sensor. There’s no macro lens here but the main camera can take decent close-ups and on phones with a dedicated macro camera, I’ve found the main camera to be better anyway. Low light and night isn’t the Velvet’s forte, but results aren’t too bad either. It’s the portrait mode, arguably the most important mode, which disappoints the most. This is surprising considering the dedicated 5Mp auxiliary camera for depth estimation. As you’ll see in the gallery below, the phone just struggles to cut things out properly for that blurred background effect. I found the selfie camera far more impressive with excellent results in both regular and portrait mode. Even though the latter isn’t perfect, the Velvet did a good job of cutting around my hair with only a minor slip that most people won’t notice looking at the photo briefly. In terms of video, the Velvet can shoot at up to 4K at 30fps, or you can get 60fps at 1080p if you prefer. There’s no optical image stabilisation here but the software does a decent job of eliminating movement and shake. Panning is trickier but it’s not bad. Overall the quality is pretty good with lots of detail and accurate colours at 4K, with low noise. However there are issues at 1080p with an over processed look at 30fps and poor rendering at 60fps. Battery Life As I alluded to earlier, LG’s choice of specs combined to not only hit a more affordable price than many rivals, but aids battery life. The Velvet has a decent 4300mAh battery and can easily last through a day of varied usage for the average user. Of course, hammer it with gaming - especially running the DualScreen - and you’ll need to top it up a lot sooner. I’ve had some issues with the battery benchmark but will add the figure once I’ve got it. LG offers reasonable 25W fast charging but getting to 31% in 30 minutes starting from 0 is nothing to write home about. Still, I wasn’t expecting to find wireless charging here so that’s a nice extra. Perks & Software An odd subheading I know but it’s worth praising LG for elements such as a headphone jack. It’s mad but that’s a real bonus and the firm continues to look after those who care about audio. Although if you are an audiophile, it’s bad news because the Velvet doesn’t have a Quad DAC like the V60. This, I imagine, is part of the change in strategy and to save money. Still, the stereo speakers are very impressive with better sound than most budget Bluetooth speakers and you can try LG’s 3D Sound Engine from the quick settings. This aims to adjust the sound appropriately to what’s playing. I preferred the regular sound but you might like it. I can’t comment fully on software as I tested the Korean version of the Velvet, but ignoring all the pre-loaded apps that I can safely assume won’t come on a western model, the software is decent. It’s a clean and colourful look that’s hard to find offensive really - with the caveats of the DualScreen stuff I covered earlier. LG Velvet DualScreen menu LG gives you the option of things like the app drawer and whether to have on-screen navigation buttons or the more modern gesture way of controlling the phone. I used the latter which was mostly fine, but like some others, I found that swiping sideways often triggered ‘back’ when I wasn’t trying to do that. Price So how much is the LG Velvet? We're waiting for UK details, but LG has confirmed that the phone costs US$700 and 650 Euros and from what I can gather the DualScreen is only included if you pre-order. I really think LG needs to bundle the case as standard to lure customers but that's easy for me to say. Regardless, it means LG has stiff competition even if it does undercut phones like the Samsung Galaxy S20. The iPhone 11 and OnePlus 8 are both extremely accomplished phones which outclass the LG Velvet in most ways - disregarding the DualScreen since it's not included. There are also a number of devices that are excellent at much lower prices. Lots to choose from but the Xiaomi Mi Note 10, Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite and Asus ZenFone 6 all spring to mind from the mid-range. And you can get some seriously impressive budget phones like the Realme 6, which is just £219. Check out out best phone chart to see what we rank as the best handsets you can buy. Verdict I find the LG Velvet a particularly hard phone to sum up, especially while we wait for UK details. I applaud LG for nailing the premium design and build quality of the Velvet (and getting rid of the ThinQ branding), but it's not like other phones out there are exactly horrible in comparison. Whether this is the phone for you depends on where you're coming from: Are you bothered about having the best specs and performance - ie a phone geek? The LG Velvet isn't for you considering it's lack of things like a 90Hz display, telephoto camera, flagship processor and other things you're probably looking for. Are you looking for a stylish, premium phone cheaper than most flagships? Maybe the Velvet catches your eye, but if you're not an LG diehard then there are plenty of rivals with a lot to offer, many of which are at lower prices. For me it comes down to whether or not you're taken with the idea of the DualScreen, despite its shortcomings. If you are, and we may be down to a small number of potential buyers now, then the Velvet is a great choice - especially if LG decides to bundle it as standard. Specs LG Velvet: Specs Android 10 6.8in HD (1080x2460) P-OLED, 20.5:9 Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G octa-core processor 6/8GB RAM 128GB expandable internal storage (up to 2TB) 48Mp f/1.8 main 8Mp f/2.2 ultrawide 5Mp depth sensor 16Mp f/1.9 selfie camera Fingerprint scanner (in-screen) 11ac dual-band Wi-Fi Bluetooth 5.1 GPS NFC 5G Single/Dual-nano SIM USB-C Stereo speakers Headphone jack 4300mAh non-removable battery 25W fast charging Wireless charging Quick Charge 4.0 167 x 74 x 7.9mm 180g IP68

This is the third in our exclusive series on the crucial but neglected question of sea mines and how well — or not — the United States manages this global and very real threat. Here we’re looking at the most promising technologies, ships and aircraft that can give the United States the edge in this crucial and complex battle. What works? Read on. The Editor. Clearing sea mines is so murderously hard that the best defense is to sink the ships or shoot down the planes carrying them before they can be put in the water. But politics, surprise, or fear of escalation might keep the US military from stopping the minelayers “left of splash.” That means somebody had better be ready to go after the deadly explosives in their natural habitat. The great leap forward today is that “somebody” is increasingly likely to be a robot. For over a century, clearing mines was a brutal, crude and close-up business. Specialized ships, divers, and even trained dolphins had to go right into the minefield. The US Navy has led the world in counter-mine equipment that could be towed from helicopters, but that still means flying low, slow and in a predictable pattern in airspace where enemy aircraft or missile launchers might be watching. There are even reports that China has developed anti-helicopter mines designed to launch themselves out of the water. For more than a decade, the Navy has increasingly invested in technologies to “keep the sailor out of the minefield” by sending unmanned systems in, both under water and on the surface. Since 2002, when the Navy officially launched its controversial Littoral Combat Ship program, this new remote-controlled approach has been intimately linked with LCS. When fitted with its Mine Counter-Measures module, whose first iteration goes into full-up operational testing this year, LCS will replace the Navy’s remaining 13 wooden-hulled Avenger-class minesweepers. So it might seem like bad news for mine warfare that the LCS has faced relentless criticism since its inception, culminating in Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s decision in January to truncate the program and develop a better-armed successor. The upgunned LCS unveiled last Decemeber will focus on hunting submarines and fast attack boats, while dropping the minesweeping mission — which has always been a Navy stepchild. The Navy ethos has been thoroughly aggressive since its birth: “I wish to have no Connection with any Ship that does not Sail fast for I intend to go in harm’s way,” wrote John Paul Jones in 1778. The fleet has always favored fast ships that can take the battle to the enemy: aircraft carriers, nuclear-powered submarines, guided-missile destroyers. By contrast, minesweeping is slow, inherently defensive and, well, just not sexy. New Anti-Mine Technologies But there are two substantial silver linings for mine warfare. First, the LCS is not all dead. The Navy still plans to build 32 (down from 52) of the original design, the one that can perform mine-hunting missions. Second, new mine-clearing technologies are no longer tied to the LCS program. Iran’s threats in 2011-2012 to close the Strait of Hormuz jolted the Navy into taking mines more seriously and speeding new equipment to the fleet. Instead of waiting for LCS, sailors have launched mine-seeking underwater drones and mine-killing mini-torpedoes from current vessels, even including inflatable boats. Helicopters have tested a new technology to find mines with a laser beam, the Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMNDS). The Navy even repurposed a decommissioned amphibious ship, the USS Ponce, as what’s called an Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB), primarily to support counter-mine operations. Two more purpose-built AFSBs will follow, and “the primary mission of the Afloat Forward Staging Base [is] aviation mine countermeasures,” said Capt. Henry Stevens of Naval Sea Systems Command at January’s Surface Navy Association conference. While the AFSB can potentially accommodate a multitude of missions, from special operations to V-22 Ospreys, its design is driven first and foremost by the needs of the massive MH-53E helicopter used for aerial mine-clearing. Precisely because the Littoral Combat Ship’s design is modular, it’s relatively easy to break off specific systems and use them independently. “The various MCM mission systems are programs of record in their own right, which the LCS Mission Modules program then integrates,” Naval Sea Systems (NAVSEA) spokesman Matthew Leonard explained. A former top aide to the Navy’s top admiral, Bryan Clark, has proposed taking the entire MCM module and installing it on ships other than LCS, including both future Afloat Forward Staging Bases like Ponce and the smaller Joint High-Speed Vessels (JHSVs). So, in spite of the decision to curtail the LCS buy, new mine-clearing technologies may end up spreading widely through the fleet. With increasingly aggressive Russia and China amassing hundreds of thousands of increasingly sophisticated naval mines, a revolution in minesweeping might be just what we need. Divers, Dolphins & Dead Sheep How primitive can “modern” mine warfare get? At least as recently as the 1990s, US sailors hunting mines spent a lot of time shooting dead sheep. Both Iraq and Iran used the classic black-spiky-ball mines that are the world’s most common type. Clones of the century-old Russian M-08, these are contact mines that detonate when a ship bumps against their “horns.” Until then, they float somewhere below the surface of the water, anchored in place. Sometimes, though, the anchor chain breaks. Then the M-08 bobs to the surface and drifts about at random until it bumps into something, like a lethal bath toy. It’s also possible, albeit against international law, to set mines adrift on purpose. But stray mines are hardly the only thing drifting around. Humanity has a multi-millennium bad habit of dumping garbage in the sea. Some of it floats. From a distance — which is definitely how you what to deal with a suspected explosive device — it can be hard to tell that junk from a mine. “It’s why we used to shoot all the sheep,” said Bob O’Donnell, a retired Navy captain with a long career in mine warfare. “Over in the Persian Gulf, they have all these sheep ships coming from Australia and New Zealand, and when the sheep would die, they’d thrown them into the water. They’d bloat; their little legs would stand up” — and suddenly you’d have a round, dark object with four spiky projections bobbing in the water, looking uncomfortably like an M-08. So, O’Donnell recounted, US sailors would do what mine-hunters have done since at least World War I: go up on deck, shoot the drifting object, and see if it explodes. That’s how tricky it is to handle mines that you can see. Mines under the water are far harder. In theory, a tethered mine is a pretty obvious target: very few natural or manmade objects float at a specific depth and location with an anchor chain keeping them in place. In the real world, sonar has real difficulties finding them. The problem is the ocean’s not a bathtub. It’s not the atmosphere, either, where radar can look hundreds of miles. Underwater currents; differences in pressure, temperature, and salt content (salinity); currents; even how sound waves reflect off the bottom — all these factors change how sonar performs, sometimes from hour to hour. “You can optimize your capabilities against a certain kind of threat in the morning and it won’t be that good in the afternoon,” mine warfare expert Scott Truver said. Even more difficult than mines floating underwater are those on the bottom. “Something that has a ball, a chain, and an anchor, that’s pretty apparent that’s a mine,” said Navy Capt. Frank Linkous, a mine warfare official. “When you start looking at things on the bottom, it could be a mine, it could be a barrel, it could be a tire, it could be a lot of stuff, [like] rocks.” Each suspicious sonar return must be marked as a “mine-like contact” and investigated. Worst of all are mines buried under the bottom of the sea. There is no sonar in current service that can find them, said Navy Captain Aaron Peters, an explosives ordnance disposal (EOD) specialist. “The only things that can detect buried mines right now are your marine mammals,” he said, primarily trained dolphins. But the Navy is working on a new system called Knifefish, with a special low-frequency sonar that can penetrate ordinary soil and detect small, dense objects such as explosives. It won’t be ready until 2017. Until the new drones and sensors spread through the fleet, the mainstays of mine warfare will remain the MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopter and the Avenger-class minesweeper, both of which entered service in the 1980s. The helicopter is literally the cutting edge of the current force. It tows a cable through the water that slices the mooring cables of mines like the M-08, forcing them to bob to the surface where someone can blow them up. Usually those are human beings, highly trained Explosive Ordnance Disposal divers who must swim up to each individual mine, attach an explosive, swim clear, and detonate. More sophisticated mines, ironically, can be easier to detonate. Because advanced mines detect ships by the noise they make or their magnetic fields, they can be set off prematurely by an “influence sweep system,” a kind of decoy that emulates the acoustic and magnetic telltales of a ship. It’s the MH-53E helicopter, again, that tows the sweep “sled” through the water. After the helicopters have done all they can from the air, the Avengers sail into the mine field to take a closer look. Hopefully only the stealthier, deeper mines remain by this point, with no contact mines left to bump into near the surface, while magnetically triggered mines cannot detect the minesweeper’s wooden hull. Any surviving mines with acoustic triggers might still pick up the Avenger‘s engines, however, and pressure-triggered mines might sense its hull displacing water. “For a mine countermeasures guy, the worst problem is a country that’s got a goodly number of mines [of] different types,” said O’Donnell. “You start from the top of the ocean down and you try to take out the different mine types going from shallow to deep, because you’re trying to make it safe for our current mine countermeasures vessels to get in there and work.” But savvy adversaries will set some mines to lurk on or near the bottom with their sensors turned off so they can’t be decoyed into detonating prematurely. Instead, they go live at some preset time, let out more slack in their anchor chains, and rise. So, said O’Donnell, “you think you got all the mines out, but you didn’t, because two days later one of these close-tethered mines decides to move up.” That is the kind of danger US sailors face using current techniques and tactics. That is why the Navy is moving towards drones. “If you look at the ships we’ve lost due to mines, a large number of them are mine warfare ships. It’s still a dangerous mission,” said Rear Adm. John Ailes, who for many years ran the mission modules program for the Littoral Combat Ship. “Right now what we do is we take this wooden ship and drive it into the minefield – with 80 to 90 people at risk. [With the equipment being developed for LCS,] we have a remote controlled system and we stand off.” Send In The Drones The workhorse of the new approach is the Remote Multi-Mission Vehicle. “It’s basically a diesel engine with some expensive electronics attached,” Ailes said. The RMMV is what’s called a “semi-submersible”: not quite a surface craft, not quite a sub, it swims along with its upper surface just above the water. Being mostly submerged helps stabilize the small craft in choppy seas, which gives its sonar a much better picture. Being partly exposed to air allows it to burn diesel fuel, which gives it much longer endurance than batteries. Manufacturer Lockheed Martin boasts it can do 24-hour-plus missions. That said, the program has had to work hard to make the RMMV reliable enough to do multiple day-long missions without a breakdown. The semi-submersible RMMV will be supplemented from below and from above. The Knifefish, a deep-driving drone sub, will find buried mines, while a helicopter-carried Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMDS) will scan for mines floating on or near the surface. (The laser can’t penetrate very far through water). Knifefish won’t enter service until 2017, though, while ALMDS mine-identification software is still struggling to improve its accuracy. Once it’s working, the ALMDS will allow a fast, wide scan. That is, it will if the airspace over the minefield isn’t in range of enemy anti-aircraft missiles: ALMNDS is currently carried by a manned helicopter, the MH-60S Sea Hawk. (The Littoral Combat Ship will also operate the unmanned Fire Scout, but that’s slated to carry other sensors). The manned MH-60 will also destroy mines, lowering a four-pack of mini-torpedoes into the water — the Airborne Mine Neutralization System (AMNS) — and using their cameras to check out suspected mines before blowing them up. Of course, if you can’t fly the helicopter over the minefield before you send in the RMMV, and the robot hits a mine you missed, at least you haven’t lost a manned minesweeper and its crew. The helicopter-carried AMNS blows up mines on a retail basis: It has to return to a mothership to reload after it fires four shots. The wholesale minesweeper will be something called Unmanned Influence Sweep System (UISS), a smaller version of the mine-detonating decoy sled currently towed by the MH-53E helicopter. One of the many controversies about the Littoral Combat Ship program has been the lack of a helicopter-towed sweep system. The LCS deck can’t accommodate the MH-53, and the smaller MH-60 didn’t have enough power to tow a sled safely. So the UISS will be towed by a robot boat, aka an unmanned surface vessel (USV). The USV-towed sled is slower than the helicopter-towed version, but it can stay out much longer, Navy officials told me. “With a helicopter you’re only going to get about three hours of mission time,” said Peters. “The [USV] is going to go out and tow 12-plus hours.” Ultimately, the plan is for a single Littoral Combat Ship to simultaneously control two RMMVs looking for mines and one USV sweeping them. Meanwhile the LCS stands back at a safe distance from not only the minefield but from any nearby enemy forces, protected by its onboard anti-missile systems and potentially by a full-up Aegis destroyer. “What we do today is we take the wooden Avenger class, which has no self-defense capability and we send it into the minefield, [and] no Aegis ship’s going to go into the minefield with it,” Ailes told me. While critics have savaged the Littoral Combat Ship for its lack of firepower and survivability, there’s no question it’s better armed than the Avengers — whose heaviest weapons are machineguns — and that its hull is made of metal, not wood — which was last considered cutting-edge protection circa 1812. New technology is long overdue.

The Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft's BR(Baureihe) 01 steam locomotives were the first standardized (Einheitsdampflokomotive) steam express passenger locomotives built by the German railway. The BR 01 10 was also a part of the standardized locomotives, but it was a 3-cylinder version of the BR 01. Both the BR 01 and BR 01 10 where used right up to the end of steam service in both West-Germany and East-Germany. In this article both Enrico and Simon Jakobi (Dr Snotson on Flickr) will take a look through the history and use of the BR 01 and BR 01 10 and show their models which represent these iconic locomotives. DRG Class 01 The Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft's BR 01 steam locomotives were the first standardized (Einheitsdampflokomotive) steam express passenger locomotives. A total of 231 locomotives where built by German company’s across Germany. They were of 4-6-2 Pacific wheel arrangement in the Whyte notation, or 2′C1′ h2 in the UIC classification. The idea behind standardization is to reduce cost and make repairs easier and quicker. Neuenmarkt-Wirsberg, 3 September 1972. Loc 001 180 with a sister locomotive at the Schiefe Ebene, photo credits to Nico Spilt. The BR 01 is a 2-cylinder locomotive. As a test 10 locomotives where built with a 4-cylinder configuration, these where renumbered in BR 02. The 2-cylinder version was favored after long testing because it was easier to maintain running compared to the 4-cilinder version. The main batch of the BR 01 were delayed in the 1920’s. The reason behind this was that the infrastructure of the DB wasn’t ready for these locomotives. Turntables needed to be lengthened and railway lines needed to be strength to be able to support the 20-ton locomotives. Since 1938 there were 231 BR 01 locomotives available for the prestigious express train duties across Germany. The 10 four-cylinder BR 02 locomotive version (01 111, 01 233–241) were converted to two-cylinder BR 01 models between 1937 and 1942. Since there were so many routes that still had axle load restrictions, which were too low for Class 01 service, in the early 1930s, a third variant was produced: the BR 03 designed with a two-cylinder engine and axle load of 18 ton. A total of 298 BR 03 locomotives where built. Launched in 1939, the three-cylinder DRG Class 01.10 was a further development of the 01. The 03 098, a version of the 01 with a lower axle load. The 03 098 is preserved in the Technic-museum Speyer. In 12 years, a total of five series or batches were delivered, each with minor variations: 01 001–010 (1926)01 112–076 (1927–28)01 077–101 (1930–31)01 102–190 (1934–1936)01 191–232 (1937–1938). Stats Originally, the BR 01's top speed was restricted to 120 km/h(75mph). In order to raise this to 130 km/h(81mph), the diameter of the leading wheels was increased from its original 850 mm to 1,000 mm on locomotives from operating number 01 102 onwards and brake effort was increased by installing double-sided working of the brake shoes on the coupled wheels and by braking the trailing wheels.  Each locomotive was able to produce a respectably 1,648 kW. The driving wheels where 2000mm (78.74 inch). Tenders The BR 01s were equipped with 2'2 T 30, 2'2' T 32 or 2'2' T 34 tenders. Their coal capacity was 10 tons of coal, and the water tank held either 30, 32 or 34 cubic meters of water. The prototype locomotives, 01 001 to 01 010, were supplied with the smaller 2'2 T 30 tenders, because there were not enough large turntables around. Later these tenders were only used if they were absolutely necessary, e.g. in cross-border services with the Netherlands. From the second series (01 012 et seq.) on, the Class 01 was furnished with rivetted 2'2' T 32 tenders. The welded tenders, class 2'2' T 34, appeared only by way of exchange (mainly from brand new Class 44) locomotives. Thereafter they were almost the only ones used during the war years and after the Second World War, because they had a larger water capacity. Rebuilds: Multiple locomotives where converted in their life spent. From a complete overhaul to a small parts change. Here 3 categories that stent out the most: Henschel mixer preheater rebuilds In 1950 and 1951, the Deutsche Bundesbahn converted locomotives 01 042, 01 046, 01 112, 01 154 and 01 192. They were enhanced with a Heinl mixer preheater by Henschel and a turbo feed pump. In addition, combustion chambers were installed in the boilers. This increased the power to 1,802 kW. Finally, the conversion was rounded off with the replacement of the original smoke deflectors by Witte deflectors, which in spite of their considerably smaller size were just as effective as their larger predecessors. Four of these five modified locomotives remained in service until 1968. New DB boiler design rebuild From 1957 until 1961 the Deutsche Bundesbahn rebuilt a further 50 vehicles. These engines were given welded, high-performance, steam boilers, which had already been used on the BR 01.10’s. In addition, a new mixer preheater system was installed in the smokebox and numerous friction bearings were replaced by roller bearings. Changes to the cylinder block, running board, a shorter chimney, front apron (Frontschürze) and locomotive frame, as well as the missing feedwater dome, all gave the locomotives a different external appearance. The power of these rebuilds where increased to 1,714 kW. Koblenz, 12 Augustus 1970. Loc 001 150, with a new boiler, ready for departure to Trier, credits Nico Spilt. DR Reko locomotive 01.5 The Deutsche Reichsbahn (the East-Germany railway’s) rebuilt 35 BR 01 locomotives which were on their part of Germany after the split between East and West. All these locos were fitted with new Witte smoke deflectors with tapered edges, a new driver's cab and a new boiler, positioned higher on the frame. The boiler had a combustion chamber, a mixer preheater and a continuous cover for the dome. All this gave these locomotives an entirely different look compared to there West-German versions. The 01-514 in Technic museum Speyer. This locomotive was rebuilt in West-Germany, and currently preserved in the Technic museum. The end of the legends Class 01 locomotives remained in service with the Deutsche Bundesbahn until 1973. In West-Germany, they were still working up to the early 1980s, largely in their original state with large smoke deflectors. They were legendary in their last years for hauling the D-Zug services on the Berlin-Dresden route up to autumn 1977. Only when the large Soviet DR Class 132 diesel locomotives arrived, the Class 01 express train locomotives were finally forced out of scheduled services in East-Germany after almost 50 years. Survivors: The list of preserved BR 01 is quite impressive. All the locomotives mentioned bellow very in state and condition. Some are still in there rebuild version, how ever there a few preserved in the state they came out of the factory. 01 11801 06601 20201 11601 15001 00501 00801 11101 13701 16401 17301 20401 22001 509 (ex 01 143)01 514 (ex 01 208)01 519 (ex 01 186)01 531 (ex 01 158) DB BR 01 „Blue Lady“ – SIMON JAKOBI Inspiration In late 2017 I met Julius Theißen a.k.a. “Dampfstein” on a meeting of LEGO Fans at our local LEGO-Store “Steinchenbrüder” in Hannover, Germany. Like me Julius was totally into 8 w LEGO train MOCs. On this evening he brought his excellent model of a German Baureihe 03 to the store. His solution concerning the golden boiler rings is outstanding. On both hands they are slim and round with a diameter close to the boiler, but brick built. On our first exhibition in early 2018 we decided to plan a team layout with turntable and roundhouse to showcase our MOCs. Up to then I had only designed electric and diesel engines. But now I was wondering which DB steam prototype would reveal an interesting contrast to Julius` 03 on our future “Bahnbetriebswerk”. Deep down in my stuff in the basement of my parent`s house I found the first part of the answer – a 20 years old MINITRIX model (12617) of the German Baureihe 03 in a special dark blue livery with silver boiler rings. A few days later deep down in the dungeons of the WWW with the pictures of a KM1 model of the 01 1087 I found the second part of the answer: It seems that not only a few of the 03 were painted in steal blue, but also one Baureihe 01 received this elegant color scheme which gave these so called “blue ladies” a perfect match to the blue coaches of the “F-Zug-Netz” in those early days of the young DB. The award winning Bahnbetriebswerk Julius and Simon built together. Challenge First of all, I don`t scale. That`s not my kind of approach to a locomotive. In the end all of my MOCs reflect a balance between form and functionality. Usually, I start to design several characteristic details of a prototype to get a first idea if I achieve a satisfying recognition factor in LEGO. In case of the Baureihe 01 I began with smaller sections like the boiler sections, cab or rear and top of the tender and checked if I could carry out my drafts in the desired color. Some items are rare or not available in dark blue, so I decided to stick to regular bricks and plates whenever possible. Again, and again, I checked if the required bricks were available in dark blue for a reasonable prize. But as mentioned before, the BR 01 was my first steam locomotive and what is even more important my first articulated steam locomotive. At a certain point of my fast and enthusiastic progress on both details and arrangement I had to look the devil in the eye and face the bitter truth: Moving further on doesn`t make any sense without solving the critical issues concerning articulation of such a type of locomotive (pacific, 4–6–2 or 2`C1`) when it comes to negotiation of R40 curves and TLC switches. Because I don`t own any curves bigger than that, the ability to take such small radii was one of my prior goals. On the other hand, I wanted to keep the gap between engine and tender as narrow as possible. The front profile of the amazing Blue Lady. References I was wondering if I could realize both of these wishes or if I would have to abandon one of these desires. Long story short: once again I had to dig deep in the common digital archives. Sooner or later, I stumbled upon another excellent executed Baureihe 01 on Flickr. On his account the creator Johan van den Heuvel [Johan van den Heuvel | Flickr] shows us smart solutions for the articulation of the front truck and both the rear truck and the coupling of the tender to the engine. Based on his concept I connected the center pivot of the first boogie of the tender with a long towing bar as close as possible to the last main axle of the engine. The rear axle of the engine is swimming underneath the towing bar. The tender is not connected to his first boogie as one would expect but to the middle of the towing bar as close to the cabin as possible. The result is some kind of virtual pivot point pulling the tender close to the engine to a minimal gap on a straight track and providing enough clearance for turnout of the cab on curved and even S-curved track like switches. The distance between the tender and locomotive, is impressively short. Result Apart from the close coupling of engine and tender and the ability to negotiate R40 curves and TLC switches on the same time I was able turn a lot of other ideas or major goals from my list into reality: The special livery in dark blue with flat silver boiler rings gives my creation a very unique look. There is a real gap between the round boiler and the frame carrying the main axles enabling you to look through the spokes of the huge XXL-wheels from Shupp`s. To eliminate the LEGO specific raster of plain brick-built sidewalls most of the tender is done in snotwork with regular 1 x 1, 1 x 2 and 1 x 4 bricks laying on their side and betraying our LEGO brains. Only when it comes to motorization, I have to admit one big sacrifice. I really would like to see the drivers of the engine be powered. But unfortunately, the 6 wagon wheels split up the boiler in 7 short sections and there is not enough space left for one (or even better two) PF-motors and a reliable drivetrain. Due to the fit of extreme snotism space in the tender is also very limited. Keep in mind: snotism and other extravagant design techniques are nothing but cruel and relentless space killers! The only solution left is the use of PF-train-motors underneath the tender. Luckily, I managed to store and hide a PF-battery-box (6 x AAA) and a SBRICK in the coal bunker of the tender above. Recently I have equipped my V60 and my Baureihe 81 with 3D-printed rods from bricks-on-rails.de to put these new items to a test. I am very pleased with the quality and will definitely upgrade my Baureihe 01 and my upcoming Baureihe 50. Last but not least I have to mention the custom decals from modellbahndecals.de. Please note: the number my locomotive is fiction. It is the birthday of my beloved wife. BR 01 10 Launched in 1939, the three-cylinder DRG Class 01.10 was a further development of the 01. They were 2’C1’h3 2’3′ locomotives, there was a need for faster locomotives for express trains between mayor cities in Germany. To achieve this speed, the 01.10 was designed with a three-cylinder layout. Furthermore, they were equipped with a streamlined casing to reduce air resistance. Frictional losses were minimized by the use roller bearings on the driving and coupling rods. Originally 400 locomotives where ordered. Because of the Second World War only 55 where delivered, all made by Schwarzkopf. Emden West, 12 July 1971. Loc 012 063 ready to depart to Rheine, credits Nico Spilt. After the war al the BR 01 10’s where left in West-Germany. All these locomotives where in a bad shape, a lot of parts of the streamlining was removed to be used in the war machine. Secondly and the major problem of the BR 01 10 was that their boilers where made from bad quality metal. Which resulted in them ageing much faster compared to other locomotives. Due to a locomotive shortage a number of BR 01 10 got a quick refurbishment after the war to get them back in action. In 1949 all the locomotives (accept the 01 1067), got a major refurbished, in this refurbishment what was left of there streamlining was removed. The boiler problem was later fixed in 1953-1956 which also saw a number of locomotives converted to oil-firing instead of coal. On 31 May 1975 the last BR 01 10 where decommissioned in Bahnbetriebswerk Rheine, one of the last strong holds for steam locomotives in Germany. Stats: Because the BR 01 10 has 3-cilinders it’s able to reach a much higher top speed compared to the standard BR 01. The top speed of the BR 01 10 was 140 km/h (87 mph) for coal powered and 150 km/h (93 mph) for oil powered. There driving wheels where the same diameter as the standard BR 01, 2000mm (78.74 in), which resulted in the top power of the locomotives being around 1,728 kW for coal powered and 1,817 kW oil powered. All the locomotives where equipped with a 2'3 T 38 tender which was able to carry 38.0 m3 of water and, 10.0-ton coal or 13,500 L oil. Survivors: Of the 55 locomotives, 10 survived. Just like the BR 01 there in a range of states. 01 105601 106101 108101 108201 106301 106601 107501 110001 110201 1104 The 01 1102 got it’s streamlining back which represented the streamlining which the locomotives came out the factory with. The 01 1102 in Hilversum, credits Nico Spilt. BR 01 1075 A side profile of the SSN 01 1075 in LEGO History of the 01 1075 To better explain why the 01 1075 is my favorite locomotive, we need to go trough a quick history lesson. The 01 1075 was decommissioned, like many BR 01 10, in 1975 in Bahnbetriebswerk Rheine. Around that time a number of steam enthusiast in the Netherlands where looking in the possibility to buy steam locomotives in Germany, and to bring these to the Netherlands to preserved and restore them. 4 of these enthusiasts decided to join forces and create a steam heritage organization, this would from then on, be known as SSN, Stoom Stichting Nederland (Steam Organization Netherlands). There goal was to preserve and restore steam powered machines. The first 2 locomotives that the SSN bought were the 23-023 and 01-1075. The 23-023 was a locomotive from the BR 23 class, this was still operation when the SSN bought it. It was therefore used to collect the 01 1075 from Bahnbetriebswerk Rheine an get both locomotives to the Netherlands. The SSN 01 1075 beside their small platform, a perfect place to take pictures. The 01 1075 wasn’t operation until 1991, then the SSN decided to restore the locomotive at the Reichsbahn Ausbesserungswerk Meiningen, which was located in West-Germany. Besides getting the locomotive operation again, the locomotive was converted back into coal power. Therefore, it’s the only preserved 01 10 which is coal powered, and operation. The 01 1075 is equipped with both the Dutch and German safety systems, and it’s therefore able to operate in both the Netherlands and Germany. It is currently the fastest steam locomotive in the Netherlands.   The SSN is located in Rotterdam, near where I live (about a 15 min drive). I literally grow up with the SSN, my first visit was back when I was just 1 year old, and I have been a regular since then. The 01 1075 has been my favorite as long as I can remember. It’s speed, profile and looks just speak to me! The SSN 01 1075 on the turntable of the SSN during one of my visits. The locomotive just barely fits on the turntable. From 2016-2020 I had another version of the SSN 01 1075 in LEGO, this was 95% HaBricks 01 202 model, whit some changes to colours/parts. Back at the end of 2019 I equipped the model with a Pfx brick with a XL speaker. Since the tender was to small, and the model wasn’t really scale acquired, I decided to complete redesign the locomotive from scratch. The tender has increased in size compared to my old model; therefore, all the electronics are easier to fit in. A rough and strange 9 months later, and the locomotive is done. It still has the Pfx Brick with XL spear, with a led board for LED’s which are programmed. The Pfx Brick has original sound files that I got from the ESU lokprogrammer system. All these sounds are from the real BR 01 10, programming the sound alone took me at least a week. The LED’s which are used on the locomotive have been provided by UrbanErwin, which was kind enough to spend his free Saturday afternoon helping me out. For power the locomotive has 2 XL-motor’s inside the boiler which power both driving wheels. The driving wheels are XXL wheels from Big Ben Bricks. The costum prints are provided by BrickPrint, and the costum driving rods are provided by bricks-on-rails. Lights, let there be lights! Since most German locomotives look so much alike I tried to capture the real look of the locomotive as much as possible while still building in the right scale(1:45). For this I printed scaled dwarings ,where Raised was kind enough the rescale them for me, and massure the lengt/with of all the little nots and pieces. I also highly recommend serials scale program! The scaled dwarings, provided by the-blueprints.com. Wagons: The SSN has their own wagons to use when organizing events trough, the Netherlands and Germany. The bulk of there fleet are Bm 238 wagons. I have built 2 of these with great help from UrbanErwin (and with great help I mean he made most of the design). One of their most recognizable wagons is the Mitropa wagon, a WRm 130.1 wagon from West-Germany. This wagon is painted in the recognizable dark red paint scheme with yellow logos on the side. I made both these wagons in scale 1:45 for my SSN 01 1075. I’m planning to add more including the blue water wagon, dark blue Bm238, and the Bm 232 in dark green and white. These are all somewhere on my “to build” list. Both the Bm 238 wagons and the Mitropa model have lights, one of the Bm 238 has red lights at the end of wagon, these are made by UrbanErwin as well. The locomotive in action: Since there aren’t any shows currently to visit, I haven’t been able to make a proper video of the SSN 01 1075 in action. However, I do have a video of it running with all 3 wagons inside my house. The quality isn’t perfect, and I hope to be able to properly film the train soon! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iybYb08osqA&feature=youtu.be if you’re interested in seeing the real locomotives in action there a few great video’s down below. Some are in German and Dutch, but hey, steam locomotives speak a universal langue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3la9Fo8SZI&t=24s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVF3QyvubIY Ciao -Enrico -Simon

Sold out Restock Incoming - Join List $3 – $80 Out of stock Mercury in Gemini Anointing Oil Anointing Oils, Available, Mercury in Gemini Organic 100% jojoba oil poured over wildcrafted and organic herbs aligned with Mercury in Gemini during the height of our election, fumigated with frankincense: dill, wormwood, parsley, marjoram, bayberry root bark, mullein, skullcap, and seeds of fennel, caraway, and celery. Sour Patch Kid candies, a large copper-alloy Mercury dime, and alloys of white gold (silver + gold) and red gold (copper + gold). Eight yellow opals per mother vessel. Anointing the base of the skull at the back of the neck as a sort of anchor, and then two equal outer points, such as the top of the hands, wrists, bottom of the feet, ankles, or ears and lobes — well, this Power seems to like that! Other nice points include the crown of the head, heart center, and lower back. Revs the mind, quickens the tongue, and lightens the outlook. You may even feel a literal tingle of the tongue following application. A nice low-level daily stimulant, like an energetic cup of coffee. Easy to lose track of operating in the background, but greases the Mercurial gears that so much of modern life depends on. Adds a bit of luck and effervescence to the experience, and is likely to draw money and communications as well. Can also be used to dress candles, anoint objects and petition papers, or in any way magical Oils are oft' employed! Offered in a 1/2 oz Standard Vial (with optional dropper cap kit) for $80, 10 ml "flawless glide" Steel Roller for $65, both with keepsake opal and variegated blue leaf, or adorable 5 ml Mini for $33. 49 reviews $3 – $80 $3 – $80 Out of stock SALE! .yith-wcbm-badge-86301{--badge-discount-text : 'Discount';--badge-up-to-text : 'Up to';--badge-primary-color : #f4b712;--badge-text-color : #ffffff;--badge-secondary-color : #926d0a;--badge-secondary-light-color : #aa800c;--badge-secondary-dark-color : #7a5b09;--badge-tertiary-color : #614907;--badge-triadic-positive-color : hsl(133 , 91% , 51% );--badge-triadic-negative-color : hsl(-47 , 91% , 51% );--badge-analogous-positive-color : hsl(73 , 91% , 51% );--badge-analogous-negative-color : hsl(13 , 91% , 51% );--badge-complementary-color : hsl(223 , 91% , 51% );} .yith-wcbm-badge.yith-wcbm-badge-css-1 { overflow: auto; background-color: var(--badge-primary-color, #3a86c4); } .yith-wcbm-badge.yith-wcbm-badge-css-1 div.yith-wcbm-css-text { padding: 6px 8px; } $30 – $48 Select options Mercury in Gemini Steep + Smoke 30% OFF, Available, Mercury in Gemini, Re-Labeling *SALE*, Steep + Smokes Organic and wildcrafted ingredients: mullein, skullcap, lemongrass, wormwood, lungwort, caraway seed, fennel seed, and celery seed. Smoke by itself or combined with Mother Mary Jane. Add to floor washes and spiritual baths. Offered in a 2.5 oz tin for $30 or 4 oz bulk for $48. Individual steeping pouches are available as accessories. If any Steep is too strong or bitter, simply infuse for shorter lengths of time and re-infuse for future cups, which has the added benefit of making a little go a longer way! Note: While this contains nothing inedible or poisonous, it was not created in a commercial kitchen to GMP standards, so it is not suitable or intended for consumption. Keep this (and all our wares) out of reach of children. Do not use while pregnant. Any internal consumption undertaken at the user’s sole risk and liability. 5 reviews $30 – $48 $30 – $48 Select options SALE! .yith-wcbm-badge-86301{--badge-discount-text : 'Discount';--badge-up-to-text : 'Up to';--badge-primary-color : #f4b712;--badge-text-color : #ffffff;--badge-secondary-color : #926d0a;--badge-secondary-light-color : #aa800c;--badge-secondary-dark-color : #7a5b09;--badge-tertiary-color : #614907;--badge-triadic-positive-color : hsl(133 , 91% , 51% );--badge-triadic-negative-color : hsl(-47 , 91% , 51% );--badge-analogous-positive-color : hsl(73 , 91% , 51% );--badge-analogous-negative-color : hsl(13 , 91% , 51% );--badge-complementary-color : hsl(223 , 91% , 51% );} .yith-wcbm-badge.yith-wcbm-badge-css-1 { overflow: auto; background-color: var(--badge-primary-color, #3a86c4); } .yith-wcbm-badge.yith-wcbm-badge-css-1 div.yith-wcbm-css-text { padding: 6px 8px; } SALE! .yith-wcbm-badge-86301{--badge-discount-text : 'Discount';--badge-up-to-text : 'Up to';--badge-primary-color : #f4b712;--badge-text-color : #ffffff;--badge-secondary-color : #926d0a;--badge-secondary-light-color : #aa800c;--badge-secondary-dark-color : #7a5b09;--badge-tertiary-color : #614907;--badge-triadic-positive-color : hsl(133 , 91% , 51% );--badge-triadic-negative-color : hsl(-47 , 91% , 51% );--badge-analogous-positive-color : hsl(73 , 91% , 51% );--badge-analogous-negative-color : hsl(13 , 91% , 51% );--badge-complementary-color : hsl(223 , 91% , 51% );} .yith-wcbm-badge.yith-wcbm-badge-css-1 { overflow: auto; background-color: var(--badge-primary-color, #3a86c4); } .yith-wcbm-badge.yith-wcbm-badge-css-1 div.yith-wcbm-css-text { padding: 6px 8px; } $48 $33.60 Add to Cart Mercury in Gemini Spell Soap 30% OFF, Available, Face + Body, Mercury in Gemini, Re-Labeling *SALE*, Spell Soaps A vegetable glycerin-based soap with 10% real honey, infused with consecrated Mercury in Gemini powder, biodegradable glitter, and essential oils. Can be used regularly for those in actively Mercurial periods of life, once weekly before attunements in Mercury's hour, or prior to mundane or ritual activities where one seeks to invoke the Messenger's quicksilver grace, washing away energies that inhibit freedom of thought and movement. These Spell Soaps will last a looong time — for many, many years if only used occasionally. We recommend getting a dedicated soap holder with slats to best facilitate drying between use, and keeping the tissue paper with its series label to wrap them back up once dried, for easy future identification. These can be most conveniently stored in a dedicated ritual bathing drawer, as suggested in the Energetic Cleansing protocol. These soaps work beautifully as part of the "mundane fore-cleansing" portion of the process. Mercury is a great soap to use regardless of follow-up influences in terms of creating energetic movement and receptivity — a nod to the Divine Messenger's ability to go-between/ connect any and all powers, especially to our Human realm. Soaps were also created for each subset, each with their own scent and magical powder: Froggy and The Door-Key Offered in a 3" x 1" disc for $48 Please note that the loaded herbal components can make these slightly "scratchy" on the skin, which can serve to exfoliate, or, use your hands to work up a lather and transfer it to whatever areas you wish to wash! 13 reviews $48 $33.60 $48 $33.60 Add to Cart Sold out Restock Incoming - Join List $3 – $99 Out of stock The Door-Key Subset Anointing Oils, Available, Flagship, Incense, Mercury in Gemini, Powders, Spell Soaps Materia Magica to Open the Way, leveraging Mercury in Gemini's unparalleled access to anyone, anything, and anywhere it (or you!) sees fit. Abre camino leaf, quassia chips, frankincense, myrrh, witch grass, lucky hand root, palo santo, slippery elm, eucalyptus, and tulsi. Shavings from a 100+ year old skeleton key, and three key-shaped agates. 24k gold and white gold, mixed with consecrated Mercury in Gemini powder from the original election. Opal, and variegated red leaf. Some very fun, tremendously powerful Door-Key syncs oriented around the keys that were upon the working altar throughout the course of formulation, but we'll share those another time. Try it for yourself and enjoy your own ; ) Use as you would any "Road Opening" or Abre Camino-based products — to anoint yourself, take a smoke bath, or use in works of magic to gain access to your desires. Potent and exceptional unlocks await. Door-Key Anointing Oil: 1/2 oz Standard Vial for $80, 10 ml “flawless glide” Steel Roller for $65, or 5 ml Mini for $33 Door-Key Incense-Powder hybrid: 1/2 oz Vial for $33, or 2 oz bulk pot for $99 Door-Key Spell Soap: 2″ x 1″ disc for $48 (please view important tips here) Note that Sphere + Sundry's Incense Powders are designed to be burned *without* charcoal, on beds of premium ash in a firesafe dish or plate. Pour ash, then pat or use a tool to create a relatively smooth surface. Pour the desired amount of Incense Powder into the palm of your non-dominant hand, and use the other to assemble a thin peaked mound, line, or sigil, pinch by pinch. These can be quite thin if desired. The neater and more ridged your shape is, the better it will burn! Light the top of the ridge to ignite. Taking time to prepare Incense in this way can be a meditative and centering experience, and allows the practitioner to create custom burn times with zero waste. If your line ends up too long, simply use a knife to 'cut' the fresh powder away from the ignited portion to use later.    110 reviews $3 – $99 $3 – $99 Out of stock Sold out 100%  Sold Out 100%  Sold Out $56 – $112 Out of stock Talismanic Perfumes of Mercury in Gemini Mercury in Gemini, Sold Out, Talismanic Perfumes The triumphant post-relocation return of Elizabeth Barrial/ Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab/ Twilight Alchemy Lab! How curiously Mercurial ANGELOS ATHANATON This oil is utilized to facilitate effective communication in every medium, ensuring that you are able to bring your ideas to light coherently and concisely with no misunderstanding. It assists in disseminating ideas and bringing them to a larger audience, and is a confidence booster and a boon to speechwriters, orators, performers, educators, and anyone that wants to transmit data with additional clarity and reach. If you want to be a sparkling conversationalist, this oil’s for you. Frankincense tears and essential oil (Boswellia sacra), geranium essential oil (Pelargonium graveolens), clove essential oil (Syzygium aromaticum), palo santo essential oil and chips (Bursera graveolens), Croatian blue chamomile essential oil and flower (Matricaria chamomilla), lavender essential oil (Lavandula angustifolia), parsley root (Petroselinum crispum), dill seed (Anethum graveolens), dried orchid petals from the TAL garden (Orchidaceae spp), orris absolute (Iris pallida), sage essential oil (Salvia officinalis) and white sage from the TAL garden (Salvia apiana), Australian sandalwood (Santalum spicatum), wild-harvested California palm fronds, and white vegetal musk. TALARIA Talaria is an indispensable travel oil, used to help ensure safety, good fortune, swift and dependable passage, and overall harmony during your journeys. This oil blasts through obstacles, opens roads, and helps alleviate travel anxiety. Comfrey root and leaf (Symphytum officinale), lavender essential oil (Lavandula angustifolia), lemongrass essential oil and leaves from the TAL garden (Cymbopogon flexuosus), camphor essential oil (Cinnamomum camphora), bladderwrack (Fucus vesiculosus), frankincense tears and essential oil (Boswellia sacra), gum mastic (Pistacia lentiscus var. Chia), bergamot essential oil (Citrus bergamia), lemon essential oil and peel (Citrus x limon), and abre camino herb (Koanophyllon villosum). Snatch your amber apothecary 5 ml bottle is $56, or as twin sets Note that about half as many were poured for this series compared to more recent BPALs, so they will go fast AND have good Secondary Market potential! The last few Talaria have been posted - please note that the labels are a little scuffed / not perfect! 27 reviews $56 – $112 $56 – $112 Out of stock SALE! .yith-wcbm-badge-86301{--badge-discount-text : 'Discount';--badge-up-to-text : 'Up to';--badge-primary-color : #f4b712;--badge-text-color : #ffffff;--badge-secondary-color : #926d0a;--badge-secondary-light-color : #aa800c;--badge-secondary-dark-color : #7a5b09;--badge-tertiary-color : #614907;--badge-triadic-positive-color : hsl(133 , 91% , 51% );--badge-triadic-negative-color : hsl(-47 , 91% , 51% );--badge-analogous-positive-color : hsl(73 , 91% , 51% );--badge-analogous-negative-color : hsl(13 , 91% , 51% );--badge-complementary-color : hsl(223 , 91% , 51% );} .yith-wcbm-badge.yith-wcbm-badge-css-1 { overflow: auto; background-color: var(--badge-primary-color, #3a86c4); } .yith-wcbm-badge.yith-wcbm-badge-css-1 div.yith-wcbm-css-text { padding: 6px 8px; } $3 – $99 Select options Froggy Subset 30% OFF, Anointing Oils, Available, Flagship, Incense, Mercury in Gemini, Powders, Re-Labeling *SALE*, Spell Soaps "Froggy" was supposed to be a working title, but a more highfalutin one hasn't presented itself yet! We reserve the right to change its name at a later date ; ) "From the works of Mercury, inscribe the figure of a frog on an emerald... Whoever carries this stone will be offended by none; nay, people will speak well of them, and they will say good things about all their works." — Picatrix, Pingree edition "A frog engraved on a beryl, will have the power to reconcile enemies and produce friendship where there was discord." — Book of Wings, Rabbi Ragiel Consecrated herbal blend and Anointing Oil from our Mercury in Gemini election, with the addition of witch grass, myrrh, hydrangea root, motherwort, anamu, devil's shoestring, rattlesnake root, deer's tongue, witch hazel, honey powder, slippery elm, and blessed thistle. Moss agate, tree agate, labradorite, and emerald. Violet leaf, pink lotus, and angelica root. Variegated green leaf. Two mummified frogs and two frog skeletons (ethically obtained, natural causes). A subset for the wise selection of word and deed, for reputation management, reconciliation, and greasing the wheels of difficult conversations/ dynamics. The Eirene of the Mercury in Gemini series, except for slyer, and more cunning. For the casting of Mercurial glamours... the "witchiest" of its Mercurial ilk. Wear or take a smoke bath before social occasions, important discussions, or simply going about your daily business. Good for adding safety rails to the act of socializing, and for solitary endeavors involving writing, contemplation, meditation, or ritual. Use as an offering, dressing, or fumigant in works of magic toward compatible ends. Froggy Anointing Oil: 1/2 oz Standard Vial for $80, 10 ml "flawless glide" Steel Roller for $65, or 5 ml Mini for $33 Froggy Incense-Powder hybrid: 1/2 oz Vial for $33, or 2 oz bulk pot for $99 Froggy Spell Soap: 2" x 1" disc for $48 (please view important tips here) Note that Sphere + Sundry's Incense Powders are designed to be burned *without* charcoal, on beds of premium ash in a firesafe dish or plate. Pour ash, then pat or use a tool to create a relatively smooth surface. Pour the desired amount of Incense Powder into the palm of your non-dominant hand, and use the other to assemble a thin peaked mound, line, or sigil, pinch by pinch. These can be quite thin if desired. The neater and more ridged your shape is, the better it will burn! Light the top of the ridge to ignite. Taking time to prepare Incense in this way can be a meditative and centering experience, and allows the practitioner to create custom burn times with zero waste. If your line ends up too long, simply use a knife to 'cut' the fresh powder away from the ignited portion to use later.  64 reviews $3 – $99 $3 – $99 Select options Sold out Restock Incoming - Join List $33 Out of stock Mercury in Gemini Ritual Honey Available, Honeys, Mercury in Gemini Organic honey infused with fumigated, consecrated Mercury in Gemini herbal mix. Strained and given the gift of a high-grade keepsake opal. Use for honey pot spells, as an offering to spirits for Mercurial favors, or as a component in spell bottles or mojos. Please Note: This was not created in a commercial kitchen to GMP standards, so it is not suitable or intended for consumption. Use externally to anoint yourself or objects. Keep this (and all our wares) out of reach of children. Any internal consumption undertaken at the user’s sole risk and liability. Offered in a 2 oz glass pot for $33 4 reviews $33 $33 Out of stock SALE! .yith-wcbm-badge-86301{--badge-discount-text : 'Discount';--badge-up-to-text : 'Up to';--badge-primary-color : #f4b712;--badge-text-color : #ffffff;--badge-secondary-color : #926d0a;--badge-secondary-light-color : #aa800c;--badge-secondary-dark-color : #7a5b09;--badge-tertiary-color : #614907;--badge-triadic-positive-color : hsl(133 , 91% , 51% );--badge-triadic-negative-color : hsl(-47 , 91% , 51% );--badge-analogous-positive-color : hsl(73 , 91% , 51% );--badge-analogous-negative-color : hsl(13 , 91% , 51% );--badge-complementary-color : hsl(223 , 91% , 51% );} .yith-wcbm-badge.yith-wcbm-badge-css-1 { overflow: auto; background-color: var(--badge-primary-color, #3a86c4); } .yith-wcbm-badge.yith-wcbm-badge-css-1 div.yith-wcbm-css-text { padding: 6px 8px; } $36 – $64 Select options Bath Salts of Mercury in Gemini 30% OFF, Available, Bath Salts, Mercury in Gemini, Re-Labeling *SALE*, Salts Consecrated organic and wildcrafted herbal matter and Anointing Oil from our Mercury in Gemini election, mixed with Dead Sea salts, honey powder, abre camino, and a small amount of biodegradable glitter for multi-faceted pizazz. An inner-child's delight! Clarifies, elevates, and sweetens. Quickens the mind and opens the way for new ideas and possibilities. Cuts through heaviness and stagnation with a Mercurial wink of holographic glitz. Relaxing, yet lightly stimulating. Tension melts away. Youthful spirits restored. Great for routine use, or as part of the Ritual Bathing protocol. Offered in an 8 oz flip-top jar for $36, 16 oz bulk pot for $64, or unbreakable 18 oz (by weight) refill bundle for $56 Note that reusable muslin bags are available as accessories, if you'd like to bathe without leaving herbal residue behind in the tub or going down the drain. They also work wonderfully as body scrub bundles for using magical Bath Salts in the shower, or for small travel portions without fear of glass breaking! 5 reviews $36 – $64 $36 – $64 Select options SALE! .yith-wcbm-badge-86301{--badge-discount-text : 'Discount';--badge-up-to-text : 'Up to';--badge-primary-color : #f4b712;--badge-text-color : #ffffff;--badge-secondary-color : #926d0a;--badge-secondary-light-color : #aa800c;--badge-secondary-dark-color : #7a5b09;--badge-tertiary-color : #614907;--badge-triadic-positive-color : hsl(133 , 91% , 51% );--badge-triadic-negative-color : hsl(-47 , 91% , 51% );--badge-analogous-positive-color : hsl(73 , 91% , 51% );--badge-analogous-negative-color : hsl(13 , 91% , 51% );--badge-complementary-color : hsl(223 , 91% , 51% );} .yith-wcbm-badge.yith-wcbm-badge-css-1 { overflow: auto; background-color: var(--badge-primary-color, #3a86c4); } .yith-wcbm-badge.yith-wcbm-badge-css-1 div.yith-wcbm-css-text { padding: 6px 8px; } Less than 3 $33 – $78 Select options Mercury in Gemini Body Butter 30% OFF, Available, Body Butters, Face + Body, Mercury in Gemini, Re-Labeling *SALE* Organic and wildcrafted chickweed, lemongrass, bayberry root, and seeds of caraway, fennel, celery, and coriander were fumigated with frankincense during our Mercury in Gemini election, combined with a proprietary blend of safflower, sweet almond, apricot kernel, and jojoba oils. These were left to incubate for many, many moons, and then combined with organic shea butter and coconut oil before being whipped with a refreshing, stimulating blend of Mercurial essential oils. Brings speed to the thought process, bounce to the step, and lightness to being. Diurnal or social use advised! Offered in a 2 oz pot for $33 or a 6 oz bulk pot for $78. Important note: Body Butters are prone to melting in transit during hot weather, especially when shipped ground and/ or not collected immediately!  They are whipped (like cream) to create a soft, spreadable texture. When Body Butters melt in transit, the air within gets separated from the oil base, making the jar *appear* less full. Rest assured that we never send "half empty" Body Butters. You are getting the *same amount* of product when this happens. None leaked if the exterior of the jar and label are not oily. Your Butter can be restored by putting it into the refrigerator and re-whipping it, or used as-is, whatever you prefer! It retains its magical and herbal potency regardless of air content.  Refunds or replacements are not given for items that melt in transit. Only the Client understands what the weather is like in their area around the time they order, what their personal mail scenario is (put inside a climate controlled building or likely to be left in a hot mailbox?), and what type of shipping they choose. If your order qualifies for free shipping, please add your preference as a note if you have one. You can also refrain from obtaining items that may melt in hot conditions by saving those acquisitions for cooler weather.  Thank you for understanding! 14 reviews $33 – $78 $33 – $78 Select options Sold out Restock Incoming - Join List $88 – $168 Out of stock Mercury in Gemini Candles Available, Candles, Mercury in Gemini Sphere + Sundry's first dual-toned candles! Beeswax poured over consecrated Mercury in Gemini herbal mix, ground opal, and abre camino, the white base poured during the election and a second bright orange in a follow-up hour of Mercury. Like gigantic candy corns, crowned with variegated blue leaf. Burn during Mercury rituals and attunements; use the flame as a focal point of meditation; light sigils and petition papers ablaze with its sacred Mercurial fire; burn in the background during brainstorming sessions, conversations of financial/ transactional import, or during classes, podcast appearances, Zoom meetings, and the like. Creates an uplifting atmosphere, full of possibility. Encourages conversation, multi-tasking, and linguistic dexterity. Opens the way. Offered in a 2 oz glass jar for $88, or 9" slim vigil for $168 12 reviews $88 – $168 $88 – $168 Out of stock Sold out Restock Incoming - Join List $35 – $60 Out of stock Mercury in Gemini Attuning Tincture Available, Mercury in Gemini, Tinctures 100% organic and/ or wildcrafted herbal ingredients: mullein, skullcap, lemongrass, wormwood, lungwort, caraway seed, fennel seed, celery seed, white gold, red gold, yellow opal, and sour patch kids. Fumigated with frankincense at the height of our Mercury in Gemini election, and covered in high-grade vodka. Though we cannot recommend Tinctures procured from us for your internal consumption (because they were not created to GMP standards), we can say that Talismanic Attuning Tinctures are designed to work in homeopathic doses. 1-3 drops at a time in a glass of liquid or under the tongue will do. That being said, anoint that which you do not want getting oily… Offered in a 1/2 oz glass jar with dropper cap for $35, or 1 oz for $60 Please Note: To promote the longest shelf-life possible and reduce the likelihood of leaking during transit, this Tincture now arrives sealed with a flat closed cap, with a glass dropper bulb + 5 ml Mini vial for collecting the displaced excess on the side (for travel or gifting!). We suggest only inserting the bulb during periods of routine application, and keeping the flat cap for times of dormant or less active use, especially since droppers can allow for evaporation and discoloration over time. Disclaimer: While this does not contain anything inedible or poisonous, it was not created in a commercial kitchen to GMP standards, so it is not suitable or intended for consumption (legally speaking). Use externally to anoint yourself or objects. Keep this (and all our wares) out of reach of children. Any internal consumption undertaken at the user’s sole risk and liability. Over time, the natural herbal components in this formulation will create a residue on the inside of the glass vial, causing it to look cloudy. This is entirely normal! 16 reviews $35 – $60 $35 – $60 Out of stock Sold out Restock Incoming - Join List $30 – $75 Out of stock Water of Mercury in Gemini Available, Mercury in Gemini, Sprays + Hydrosols, Waters Dill, wormwood, parsley, marjoram, bayberry root bark, mullein, skullcap, and seeds of fennel, caraway, and celery, along with opal and sour patch kids, distilled via copper alembic in water freshly harvested from Mt. Shasta. Finished with grain alcohol to help preserve, colloidal gold, and colloidal silver. Use as an aura or body spray for a Mercurial boost, to help clear the field of stuck energies. Can also be sprayed over altars, desks, and throughout conference booths or shopping areas to stimulate commerce and conversation. Offered in a 1/2 oz travel or sample size for $30 or full 2 oz for $75, featuring a keepsake opal. 15 reviews $30 – $75 $30 – $75 Out of stock Sold out Restock Incoming - Join List $33 Out of stock Mercury in Gemini Bath Bombs Available, Bath Bombs, Mercury in Gemini Debuting for the first time with an appropriately effervescent series, Sphere + Sundry is excited to add BATH BOMBS to our ever-expanding roster of astrally-enchanted offerings! If Clients enjoy these, more can be added in the future — including for pre-existing series ; ) Chickweed, lemongrass, bayberry root, and seeds of caraway, fennel, celery, and coriander were fumigated with frankincense during the height of our Mercury in Gemini election, combined with the same Oil base used in the Body Butter. This (powdered) and a small amount of the Mercury in Gemini hydrosol were the magical foundation in this long-fizzing Bath Bomb formula, alongside biodegradable glitter and genuine abre camino leaf. Has energetic cleansing properties, as well as nourishes and softens the skin. Adds a light and bubbly sensation to the auric field, and enhances one's ability to think and move as if lent the Messenger's own Winged regalia. Reduces aches and pains, and restores a certain youthfulness to appearance and outlook. A great bath to take standalone before Mercurial special occasions, or to help overcome obstacles and general obstinance, as-needed or in the hour of Mercury. Works wonderfully as a fun spin on the full Ritual Bathing protocol. Salt (enchanted or non-) can also be added for increased energy clearing potency. Offered in a 2.5" sphere for $33 3 reviews $33 $33 Out of stock Sold out Restock Incoming - Join List $99 Out of stock Mercury in Gemini Anointing Oil Mini Set Anointing Oils, Available, Mercury in Gemini Each Anointing Oil in the Mercury in Gemini series, in an adorable lil' 5 ml Mini. Offered for $99 17 reviews $99 $99 Out of stock SALE! .yith-wcbm-badge-86301{--badge-discount-text : 'Discount';--badge-up-to-text : 'Up to';--badge-primary-color : #f4b712;--badge-text-color : #ffffff;--badge-secondary-color : #926d0a;--badge-secondary-light-color : #aa800c;--badge-secondary-dark-color : #7a5b09;--badge-tertiary-color : #614907;--badge-triadic-positive-color : hsl(133 , 91% , 51% );--badge-triadic-negative-color : hsl(-47 , 91% , 51% );--badge-analogous-positive-color : hsl(73 , 91% , 51% );--badge-analogous-negative-color : hsl(13 , 91% , 51% );--badge-complementary-color : hsl(223 , 91% , 51% );} .yith-wcbm-badge.yith-wcbm-badge-css-1 { overflow: auto; background-color: var(--badge-primary-color, #3a86c4); } .yith-wcbm-badge.yith-wcbm-badge-css-1 div.yith-wcbm-css-text { padding: 6px 8px; } $30 – $90 Select options Mercury in Gemini Powder 30% OFF, Available, Flagship, Mercury in Gemini, Powders, Re-Labeling *SALE* Organic and wildcrafted herbs fumigated with frankincense during our Mercury in Gemini election, later powdered and mixed with 24k gold, white gold, yellow opal, and naturally molted Green Amazon parrot feathers (tip of the hat, Harley!). Sprinkle in shoes, your wallet or register, use to dress candles, and in any way magical powders are oft' employed. 100% pure and uncut ingredients, never any fillers. Combine with cornstarch, rice powder, or the medium of your choice to create a nearly infinite supply of sachet powder. Offered in a 1/2 oz glass vial with variegated blue leaf for $30, or 2 oz bulk pot for $90 3 reviews $30 – $90 $30 – $90 Select options Sold out 100%  Sold Out $1,988 – $3,688 Out of stock Mercury in Gemini Altar Box Sets Altar Boxes + Ritual Sets, Mercury in Gemini, Sold Out, Talismans + Reliquaries One of everything in the Mercury in Gemini series, in Small or Large form (where there is size variation; otherwise, just the 1 size). This includes both BPAL perfumes, Loaded D8 Edition Divination Dice, and Small or Ornate Talisman, as detailed in the Dropdown. Anointing Oils are added standalone, so that Clients can make their own selections (Rollers, Standards, Minis). Includes a beautiful Quicksilver-toned wooden box to store your goodies, coated in rainbow holographic mica that sparkles in the sunlight. Small + Standard Talisman:  $1,988 Large + Ornate Talisman: $3,688 No reviews $1,988 – $3,688 $1,988 – $3,688 Out of stock Sold out 100%  Sold Out $888 – $2,000 Out of stock Mercury in Gemini Talismans Mercury in Gemini, Sold Out, Talismans + Reliquaries From the forge of the inimitable Tony Mack: Modeled in hard carver’s wax and cast in Mithraic silver [an alloy of majority silver with a portion of gold, palladium, copper, and tin] with calcined salt of coriander, spikenard, grapevine, and clove. Mercury governs among the metals [besides quicksilver] those which are mixed and alloyed. Casting was accompanied by suffumigation of frankincense and S+ incense Exalted Mercury. Mercury in Gemini Ornate Talismans — $2,000 The talismans take the Form of a stylized glyph of mercury. In the center of the pendant is a century old 2-franc coin, struck with the image of an enthroned Mercury holding a caduceus. The coin was lathe-polished, hammered into a dome shape and prong-set over a bed of frankincense, eleuthero root, S+ exalted mercury powder, and striped agate. The lower part of the pendant consists of two serpent motifs surrounding a crystal lens. Among the things under the rulership of mercury are glass and coins struck with image and number. On the back of the pendant is an engraving in relief a character of Mercury from book I chapter 33 of Agrippa's Three Books [as shown in the Eric Purdue translation]. The bale of the pendant is set with a 1.2 carat emerald, the gemstone associated with mercury in the Jyotish tradition, as well as book II chapter 10 of the Latin Picatrix. Mercury in Gemini Talismans — $888 Taking the Form of a stylized glyph of mercury. In the center of the pendant is a century old 1 franc coin, struck with the image of an enthroned Mercury holding a caduceus. The coin was lathe-polished, hammered into a dome shape and prong-set. The lower part of the pendant consists of two serpent motifs surrounding a crystal lens. Among the things under the rulership of mercury are glass and coins struck with image and number. Each talisman arrives in a keepsake necklace box bearing a wax seal of the glyph of Mercury and includes a 20" silver chain. Includes a vial of Mercury in Gemini Powder blend (Talismans love resting in beds of related herbal matter).   1 review $888 – $2,000 $888 – $2,000 Out of stock SALE! .yith-wcbm-badge-86301{--badge-discount-text : 'Discount';--badge-up-to-text : 'Up to';--badge-primary-color : #f4b712;--badge-text-color : #ffffff;--badge-secondary-color : #926d0a;--badge-secondary-light-color : #aa800c;--badge-secondary-dark-color : #7a5b09;--badge-tertiary-color : #614907;--badge-triadic-positive-color : hsl(133 , 91% , 51% );--badge-triadic-negative-color : hsl(-47 , 91% , 51% );--badge-analogous-positive-color : hsl(73 , 91% , 51% );--badge-analogous-negative-color : hsl(13 , 91% , 51% );--badge-complementary-color : hsl(223 , 91% , 51% );} .yith-wcbm-badge.yith-wcbm-badge-css-1 { overflow: auto; background-color: var(--badge-primary-color, #3a86c4); } .yith-wcbm-badge.yith-wcbm-badge-css-1 div.yith-wcbm-css-text { padding: 6px 8px; } $56 – $96 Select options Mercury in Gemini Salve Re-Labeling *SALE*, 30% OFF, Available, Mercury in Gemini, Salves Gives your feet wings! Organic and/ or wildcrafted chickweed, lemongrass, bayberry root bark, caraway seed, fennel seed, celery seed, and coriander seed in certified organic extra-virgin olive oil, following fumigation of frankincense and ritual consecration during our Mercury in Gemini election. Combined with organic beeswax and essential oils, before being poured, and finally, crowned with variegated blue leaf. Like Regulus III and Exalted Mercury, this is best applied during the day time, as its effects are lightly stimulating, rather than sedative. Works wonderfully when used before putting socks on and setting out for the day, as it greases the Mercurial wheels and makes getting from point A to point B easier, faster, and certainly more magical! Brings luck, communications, and money. Use before vending, working trade shows, or when you'll be on your feet a lot. Helps keep pain at bay. Offered in a 2.5 oz tin for $56 or 4 oz bulk pot for $96 17 reviews $56 – $96 $56 – $96 Select options Sold out 100%  Sold Out $288 Out of stock Loaded D8 Divination Dice Collaborations, Mercury in Gemini, Powders, Sold Out A collaboration arranged by the Winged Messenger himself... Sphere + Sundry welcomes for the first time Kit Cox of Tabletop Gems, who gracefully slid into our DMs inquiring about a potential collaboration right as we initiated pre-production for this series, *not knowing* there had been a full set of D&D dice on Mercury in Gemini's working altar during the operation! These beautiful D8s were cast in the hour of Mercury, with Mercury in Gemini Powder imbuing. They are loaded for divination purposes, where choices can be assigned to odd or even numbers, or a list of numerical options. They can also be carried on one's person as a curio for improving one's Mercurial odds, or otherwise kept on a Mercury Altar. The vast majority of these went to Altar Box Sets, but a few are available standalone. If people have good results, we will do more in the future! Available for $288 1 review $288 $288 Out of stock SALE! .yith-wcbm-badge-86301{--badge-discount-text : 'Discount';--badge-up-to-text : 'Up to';--badge-primary-color : #f4b712;--badge-text-color : #ffffff;--badge-secondary-color : #926d0a;--badge-secondary-light-color : #aa800c;--badge-secondary-dark-color : #7a5b09;--badge-tertiary-color : #614907;--badge-triadic-positive-color : hsl(133 , 91% , 51% );--badge-triadic-negative-color : hsl(-47 , 91% , 51% );--badge-analogous-positive-color : hsl(73 , 91% , 51% );--badge-analogous-negative-color : hsl(13 , 91% , 51% );--badge-complementary-color : hsl(223 , 91% , 51% );} .yith-wcbm-badge.yith-wcbm-badge-css-1 { overflow: auto; background-color: var(--badge-primary-color, #3a86c4); } .yith-wcbm-badge.yith-wcbm-badge-css-1 div.yith-wcbm-css-text { padding: 6px 8px; } $32 – $96 Select options Mercury in Gemini Kolonía 30% OFF, Available, Kolonías, Mercury in Gemini, Re-Labeling *SALE*, Waters Water freshly harvested from Mt. Shasta with grain alcohol, colloidals of silver and gold, opal, and Mercurial essential oils. Consecrated during the Mercury in Gemini election. Cleansing the vessel with this Kolonía helps purify the Mercurial within your own bodily Sphere, and open the way for clear thinking, communications, commerce, eloquence, productivity, travel. Supremely energizing, clarifying, and invigorating! It also functions to sanctify the hands before Mercurial works. Best practice with any Kolonía is to seal the auric body after use. This is easily achieved by using any Anointing Oil, Salve, or even Body Butter which supports your chosen aims, to address your state in the moment, or for supporting longer-term goals… Cleanse your wallet, purse, and keys to clear out stagnant, blocking energies, to increase the rate of exchange, open the way for material gain, and expedite getting from point A to point B. This can also be used to clear the field of malfunctioning electronics, to help troubleshoot connectivity issues and expedite problem solving.  It functions as a purifying and priming wash for tools, talismans, and raw materials. It can also be added to an essential oil diffuser to fill an atmosphere with energizing, talkative, and stimulating Mercurial energies. Turkish colognes are often sprinkled upon the hands before entering households and business establishments, providing natural sanitation and also a delightful scent. ⠀ ⠀ Sphere + Sundry’s talismanic Kolonías can be used in such a way, or as Celestial Florida Waters for energetic cleansing — promoting clarity and way-finding, as life demands or before ritual. ⠀ ⠀ Doing the following makes it difficult for nasties to glom on or penetrate the auric body, and establishes a clean slate which potentiates the efficacy of other materia…⠀ ⠀ Shake well to integrate and disburse organic essential oils, colloidal metals, and botanically derived colors.⠀ ⠀Quick Kolonía Clearing Protocol ⠀ ⠀ Sprinkle about a half teaspoon onto the palm of the hand and gently rub both together for 5-10 seconds, coating tops and bottoms. The hands can float 2 inches from the body or lightly skim it.⠀ ⠀ Stand and run your palms from the crown of your head down the back of it, then start from the top again, going down the sides, the front of the face and down body, all the way to the tops of your feet. Sweep multiple times. ⠀ ⠀ If you feel any areas “sticking”, continue stroking until energies disperse, and then proceed with additional downward sweeping.⠀ ⠀ Continue skimming downward, running your cologned hands across every surface area, including under the arms, groin, between the legs, and rear, concluding with the bottoms of the feet by lifting them. You can “flick” the energy off if it feels right, or it will dissipate naturally, however you prefer.⠀ ⠀ Take 10-30 seconds to close your eyes and integrate the cleansing, feeling the shift, and thank your chosen Power for the cleansing and protection it provided, sealing the auric body from negativity.⠀ ⠀ Kolonías also serve to anoint and sanctify the hands, and can be used before performing energy work, ritual work, or any activity related to each series’ arcana – on oneself, one’s clients, or loved ones. They can be used to cleanse objects, spaces, and add oomph to spiritual baths, as well as added to floor washes, essential oil diffusers, or dishes of water kept at the bedside and entries. ⠀ ⠀ Extraordinarily simple, versatile, effective, and p o t e n t . Arrives in your choice of 1.7 oz woozy bottle with orifice reducer for $32, or 5 oz bulk for $96 19 reviews $32 – $96 $32 – $96 Select options SALE! .yith-wcbm-badge-86301{--badge-discount-text : 'Discount';--badge-up-to-text : 'Up to';--badge-primary-color : #f4b712;--badge-text-color : #ffffff;--badge-secondary-color : #926d0a;--badge-secondary-light-color : #aa800c;--badge-secondary-dark-color : #7a5b09;--badge-tertiary-color : #614907;--badge-triadic-positive-color : hsl(133 , 91% , 51% );--badge-triadic-negative-color : hsl(-47 , 91% , 51% );--badge-analogous-positive-color : hsl(73 , 91% , 51% );--badge-analogous-negative-color : hsl(13 , 91% , 51% );--badge-complementary-color : hsl(223 , 91% , 51% );} .yith-wcbm-badge.yith-wcbm-badge-css-1 { overflow: auto; background-color: var(--badge-primary-color, #3a86c4); } .yith-wcbm-badge.yith-wcbm-badge-css-1 div.yith-wcbm-css-text { padding: 6px 8px; } $30 – $90 Select options Mercury in Gemini Incense 30% OFF, Available, Incense, Mercury in Gemini, Re-Labeling *SALE* Organic and wildcrafted herbs fumigated with frankincense during our Mercury in Gemini election, later powdered and mixed with additional frankincense, 24k gold, white gold, yellow opal, and naturally molted Green Amazon parrot feathers (tip of the hat, Harley!). Burn as an offering to Mercury. Bathe in this smoke or waft it through a room before Mercurial activities and ritual. Use as a fumigant for your own Talismans, spell bottles, and like, or use to activate sigils. Offered in a 1/2 oz glass vial with variegated blue leaf for $30, or 2 oz bulk pot for $90 Note that Sphere + Sundry's Incense Powders are designed to be burned *without* charcoal, on beds of premium ash in a firesafe dish or plate. Pour ash, then pat or use a tool to create a relatively smooth surface. Pour the desired amount of Incense Powder into the palm of your non-dominant hand, and use the other to assemble a thin peaked mound, line, or sigil, pinch by pinch. These can be quite thin if desired. The neater and more ridged your shape is, the better it will burn! Light the top of the ridge to ignite. Taking time to prepare Incense in this way can be a meditative and centering experience, and allows the practitioner to create custom burn times with zero waste. If your line ends up too long, simply use a knife to 'cut' the fresh powder away from the ignited portion to use later.  7 reviews $30 – $90 $30 – $90 Select options Talismanic elections for Mercury have been scarce since Sphere + Sundry’s inception; especially from the Gemini side. Austin had initial doubts we’d be able to secure a maiden series for it in 2022, but a second*, closer inspection revealed otherwise. Despite Exalted Mercury being created later, it did end up being released first. You might recognize the antique door used as Mercury in Gemini’s altar behind the working area in the photos. I liked the idea of using a horizontally suspended door as our base of magical operations (in this case) because of all it represents: Mercury commands places of ingress, and no single locale represents that more classically than literal doorways. That this particular door was lacking its hardware was even better, since the hinges and metal that attach a door to its structure are the distinctly Virgoan components. The stabilizing, trusty, and well aligned bits that make serving its worldly function possible. The open Air that comprises the door-way — the binary of a door being open, or closed (and anywhere in between) are where the Gemini (and everyone!) comes in. The side with the knob that fingers dexterously squeeze, following the turning of dynamic pins within the locking mechanism. Lines of actual code which form manifest riddles that the right key holds the answer for. Application of technology confirms one’s identity, or at least authority to gain entry, which nowadays could look less like an actual key and more like a numerical sequence, a mysterious fob, phone app, or even a fingerprint. What that tells us about Keys as a magical concept and methods of gaining access to places, powers, and whatever one wills is ripe for rumination. — Come June 23rd 2022, the day of the operation, half of the herbs still hadn’t been delivered. Tracking showed the dread “In transit, arriving late” status, as opposed to an actual delivery date. Suspended in a state of Mercurial purgatory. “Watch them show up right as we finish…” quothe the Mage The Way (well, truly, and quite obviously!) Opened, this was the first of an incredible array of synchronicities that confirmed the working had indeed been successful. Needing to incorporate our new arrivals into the consecrated herbal matter was itself the second* major instance of dual processes and twin manifestations taking the place of what is typically one. Which brings us to Mercury’s… eccentric, relationship to numerical associations. On the one hand, we have The Twins — Gemini’s Zodiacal mascot(s). Twins = two people or things, that are also one. That they are a matching set unifies them as compared to distinctly unrelated entities. The Two + the One = Three; another number very commonly attributed to our planetary patron, in the form of, for instance: Hermes Trismegistus, meaning Hermes [who is] Thrice Great or Triply Wise. The flow of creation follows: first, there was nothing [the BBV, or the Big Black Void; all-potential and yin-filled fecundity; a Moon so dark she doesn’t even exist yet], then, there was the initial spark or big bang [light, heat, sound; the yang-driven impetus; the first Star], followed by whatever other forms that coupling began to generate [rapidly and exponentially no doubt; Mercury; the once and eternal child]. The original quintessential pairing (Adam and Eve #classic) is compulsively and distinctly male and female, because historically and archetypally, the union of Man and Woman (seed + egg) is what produces literal children. But once creation gets going, it gets WILD! It doesn’t need to stay binary any longer (and so it doesn’t!). ALL KINDS of exceptions and permutations begin arising, which aligns Mercury with Queerness as the distinct *3rd* category. The both and/ or, the neither. Otherness made flesh. Mercury’s astro-magical number is 8 (which is why we collaborated with Tabletop Gems to create Loaded D8 Divination Dice for this series ((after Kit slid into our DMs during pre-production, *not knowing* a set of D&D dice had been on the working altar!)). Why 8? — there are a lot of reasons, including Agrippa’s (Eric Purdue translation, naturally). But the point about Mercury and numbers is that it includes EVEN numbers (the first is 2… the twins…) and ODD numbers. Mercury rules children between the ages of when they can walk + talk (/start making chaos and relentlessly asking WHY?!), and when the hormones that come to bifurcate the sexes kick in. That’s another reason Mercury aligns with gender, or rather, not-gender as a first-principle. Kids at that age should be kids first and foremost, and in an ideal world, their cares should be about childish things; the need is learning and gaining experience, which is a natural “consequence” of non-directed or gently guided play. Children are drawn to this series, and it acts as a great counter-balance to stagnancy, obstinance, and age-related inflexibility in all dimensions. It promotes plasticity and youthfulness across the spectrum, including releasing muscle tension and old manners of thinking. Saturn and Mercury both share this “neutered” quality, but from different ends of the lifespan. Life before hormones kick in and life after hormones… calm tf down. They are, in many ways, counter to one another. Circling around to something that comes dangerously close to actually discussing this series… Mercury in Gemini talismans + materia serve as free passes for the inner child (and the ever-emergent-Self) to do as it will, in order to find its Way. It’s less responsible and focused than Mercury in Virgo, because its job is to have myriad experiences for the sake of them, rather than having the end-goal of curating something orderly and functional. It’s not being judged, or judging itself. It’s trying and experiencing and seeing what sticks. This relates to Gemini being the more primitive, less refined form of Mercury (coming earlier in Zodiacal order), which gives it a super refreshing “low stakes” vibe. In the best way possible. That didn’t work out, omg no problem! Cool experience, my dude! Learned somethin’ super interesting. Next! This is great for learning to take yourself, others, and life’s senseless circumstances less seriously, and results in the kind of breakthroughs and power-ups that come as a result of *not trying* for anything specific, or over-producing. The person who spends years desperate for a partner, and 2 days after “giving up”, a froggy shows up that just so happens to be Prince (or Princess!… or Princex!) Charming. [Matthew McConaughey voice] Green light after green light! Wide open roads! Skeleton keys to doors unknown! Being in flow… Mercury’s own Magic… Austin did a little write-up about the election for us. He also has a new website and class downloads! Thanks in no small part to this Mercury in Gemini launch cycle, which has been great for inspiring good ol’ fashioned web work. Anyway: Mercury is in truly excellent condition in this election. The quicksilver planet is at home in Gemini, in the 10th house in both whole-sign and quadrant styles of division. Morning-rising, in a diurnal sign, and in day chart, Mercury is also perfectly in-sect. Furthermore, Mercury is not only in the 10th and ruling it, but is also the ruler of the Virgo Ascendant, giving the fleet-footed planet tremendous authority. Another trio of factors further support Mercury. Venus is keeping Mercury company in Gemini, offering ease and charm via benefic co-presence. Jupiter is in a sextile with Mercury, providing scope and confidence, and finally, Mercury is itself tightly conjunct Aldebaran, a royal star, granting the swift planet additional power and authority. The Moon in this election is more waned than ideal. This lack of light is, however, compensated for by its exaltation and a strong, harmonious configuration to the Ascendant. The Moon is in Mercury’s decan, while the ruler of the Moon, Venus, is co-present with Mercury and ruled by them, providing a strong set of linkages between the Mercurial power available and the Moon’s capacity for manifestation. The Dragon’s Head and Uranus share Taurus with the Moon, but are in a different mansion, and well beyond a day’s motion away, preserving the silver light from corruption, and removed from Venus by sign boundary. The Moon herself is occupied with a tight sextile to the Sun, providing a stabilizing note of solilunar harmony. The earth-sign rising, Taurus Moon, and Aldebaran conjunction all serve to ground the super-charged Mercury, helping to translate mental motion into effective action and reify thinking into solid plans and processes. These same factors make our election most excellent for financial applications. It also resulted in an incredibly illuminating interaction with a very knowledgeable, generous, and perfectly rotund cheesemonger(!) at the store the other day. Other syncs include Austin and I receiving twin(!) book offers from a major publisher during this cycle, which bodes well for those who are also writers in terms of productive engagement with this series. And the craziest door-key experience (the same ones that were *on* the altar!) playing out so literally I’ve gotta save it for another time when we can share more of the context. The time-warps and magical manifestations this series brings are almost psychedelic in “reality”-piercing potency. Forgive this write-up for being scattered but that’s MERCURY IN GEMINI, BABY! Get into it! (yuh) This influence is a pun and sync FACT’RY. Don’t blame me when you start mixing colors you didn’t used to and randomly bursting into song. LET YOUR INNER CHILD LIIIVE! This energy is light on its feet, effervescent, and very good natured, fantastic for all the Mercurial™ things, and yet still very capable of being a force for productivity and focus, when supportively channeled. Good for merchant-ing, facilitating transactions, and communications. Tends to show up in twin or duplicate ways, of course. This one can register as more “wearable” or even “forgettable” once it’s going, compared to Exalted Mercury. It’s still very strong, but in a less… overbearing or nit-picky way that makes it easier to ride along with, and a more reliably good time. It’s almost a little Quicksilver Tongue, but if Mercury was 10x stronger than all the other influences. Venus and the Moon lend this charge a pleasant, friendly groundedness rarely held in Air-based elections — but Taurus is much more chill about stuff than Virgo is, so it’s a cozy, satisfied Earth that offers a nice counter-balance to the scattered-ness Gemini is prone to. If anyone is choosing between the two, this is the better investment if more key planets are in Gemini, or Gemini is just a better house for you (1st, 5th, 9th, 10th, 11th). Or Exalted Mercury if the opposite is the case. They are both really nice though – it’s totally worth having ~both~ for learning more about the differences between how the signs go about things, and for the different lived-experiences they provide. As far as stimulation goes, Gemini is like coffee — great for some day-to-day pep in your step, a little luck, and very literal AstroGlide with all the Mercurial things life entails, whereas Virgo is like a study drug. Take it with a purpose, to cram info or productivity, but daily use over time can result in more wear and tear. At the same time, depending on how some people are wired (and what’s going on with the natal!), Mercury materia might make them calmer than usual, how stimulants do for those with ADHD. Can’t wait until reviews come in letting us know how it hits! One little tip, is that sometimes as we’re finding our way not everything works out. It’s not supposed to!  Try Locks you encounter — paths that don’t seem open to you — a few times, and if it’s not working, try something else. Maybe come back to the same lock later once conditions have changed, or once you find new Keys in your revolutions. Make offerings and pray to Mercury and Mercurial Spirits, in addition to passive use of the materia. Remember that we’re always fighting against the currents of natal influences, transits, and whatnot, and that we have to be smart in playing our part and being a good dance partner with the Powers we employ. Yet… trust the process ; ) After a relocation hiatus, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab is BACK with a twin set of talismanic perfumes from the election, and we are over the moon to have the band back together again! Undying love to our friends at BPAL <3 Tony Mack outdid himself once again with these stunning Talismans. It is *so cool* and *such an honor* to feature his incredible handiwork. To the Team that makes serving our Clients possible, thank you. None of this would be possible without your skill, intelligence, and dedication. You are tremendously appreciated. 90% of the Plus Member orders have already gone out, so shipping begins the second orders start flowing! You’ll get an email and a tracking number when yours ships! For information about processing times and current status updates, please refer to the Announcements area of the S+ Help Center!

By Keith Mahne The 1963 issue of National Geographic magazine provided an amazing snapshot of what the Disney company was like in '63. This lavish article your about to see is all about Walt Disney and Disneyland. The article is truly spectacular at 50 pages in length! Including some of the best photos of Disneyland at that time, it also boasts a three page fold out map of the park and, on the reverse side, a nice three page panorama shot of the Rivers of America. Let's take a look at it all in today's new article... The Magic Worlds of Walt Disney By ROBERT DE ROOS Illustrations by National Geographic photographer THOMAS NEBBIA ONE AUTUMN EVENING in 1928, a new actor appeared at the Colony Theatre in New York in a movie called Steamboat Willie, the first cartoon ever produced with sound. He had ears bigger than Clark Gable’s, legs like rubber hose, a grin wider than Joe E. Brown’s, and a heart of gold. His name was Mickey Mouse. Beginning that night, Mickey and his creator, Walt Disney, grabbed the world’s funny bone and have never lost their grip. The New York Times praised the new film as “ingenious.” “A wow!” cried the Weekly Film Review. Thus was born history’s most influential mouse. Mickey led the way in the development of animation as a new art, to the exploration of the world of animals and faraway people and of their adventures and geography. Mickey Mouse has skipped from triumph to triumph - always preceded by three words in big letters: “Walt Disney presents.” Mickey is featured in comic strips and books in 15 languages, became the star of television’s Mickey Mouse Club, and, finally, founded a magic kingdom called Disneyland. He is Topolino in Italy, Mik-kii Ma-u-su in Japan, Raton Mickey in Mexico, Micky Maus in Germany, Mikki Hiiri in Finland, and just plain Mickey in scores of other lands. He is known around the world - always with approbation and love. Mickey, a versatile fellow, has been everything from farmer and magician to great lover and fire chief. He has directed planets and comets in their courses. He has defied time, space, and gravity. But, though bound to win, he has always fought the clean fight. True to character, “Mickey Mouse” was the designation in World War II for diagrams of convoy movements toward Normandy’s D-day beaches, and Mickey rode into battles as the insigne on hundreds of ships and planes. When King Bhumiphol of Thailand presented Walt Disney with a medal, he said quietly for Walt’s ear alone: “This is an honor from my government, but more than that, it comes from me. I grew up on your cartoons.” Franklin Roosevelt demanded Mickey in the White House. Dowager Queen Mary of Britain liked to find Mickey on the bill when-ever she went to the movies. It can be said that Walter Elias Disney, the man, and Mickey, the mouse, have made a lasting impact on mankind. 700 Awards From Around the World Last fall, in Walt Disney’s outer office at the studio in Burbank, California, I got a glimpse into the dimensions of this durable pair, 35 years after the mouse clicked in the fertile Disney mind. In cases ranged along the walls, on shelves and tables are some of the more than 700 awards the Disney organization has received (page 167). There are dozens of medals, citations, and plaques from appreciative governments attesting the international amity created by Disney’s make-believe characters Mickey, Donald, Goofy the dog, and all the others. Walt once sent a proud director home with a newly won Oscar. “How did the family like it?” he asked next day. “The kids weighed it first thing,” the director said. “You might like to know an Oscar weighs 6 pounds, 12 ounces on our bathroom scale.” The awards from the film industry mean most to Walt. But he is proud that conservation groups have also recognized his interest in protecting wildlife. He is proudest, perhaps, of the Audubon Society Medal awarded in 1955. Walt’s office has become so crowded that recently four cabinets of awards were placed in the studio commissary. Some of the employees promptly nicknamed the commissary “the awards room.” Disney Films Used in Teaching Although Walt constantly denies he is an educator, his nature films, which he calls True-Life Adventures, have received accolades from educators. Films like Seal Island, In Beaver Valley, and The Living Desert were pioneering achievements. Walt’s early edict for them and all the True-Life Adventure pictures was to get the complete natural history of the animals with no sign of humans: no fences, car tracks, buildings, or telephone poles. This concept, plus the intimacy, the extreme close-up view of the animal, completely won the public. The True-Life Adventures; films of the nomadic Blue Men of Morocco, Japanese fishermen, Siam, the Alaskan Eskimo, and Switzerland; Donald Duck’s adventures in Math-magic Land; the man-in-space series, with technical advice by Wernher von Braun; Disney safety films, and many others are a solid part of the curriculum for thousands of school children, not only in the U. S. but abroad - including countries under Communist control. I first saw Walt Disney sitting at a low coffee table, wearing his usual working garb: a short-sleeved sport shirt with a woolen tie, slacks, and a sleeveless alpaca sweater. An aerial photograph of Disneyland dominated one wall. There were photographs of his family, including his five grandchildren; the Disney coat of arms; his first Academy Award. “That first Oscar was a special award for the creation of Mickey Mouse,” he said. “The other Academy Awards belong to our group, a tribute to our combined effort. The whole thing here is the organization. And the big problem was putting the organization together. “Look at Disneyland,” he went on, waving toward the aerial photograph. “That was started because we had the talent to start it, the talents of the organization.” “What’s your role?” I asked. “You know, I was stumped one day when a little boy asked, ‘Do you draw Mickey Mouse?’ I had to admit I do not draw any more. ‘Then you think up all the jokes and ideas?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t do that.’ Finally, he looked at me and said, ‘Mr. Disney, just what do you do?’” ‘Well,’ I said, ‘sometimes I think of myself as a little bee. I go from one area of the studio to another and gather pollen and sort of stimulate everybody.’ I guess that’s the job I do. I certainly don’t consider myself a businessman, and I never did believe I was worth anything as an artist.” Until a few years ago, Walt was president of the company, Walt Disney Productions. He resigned and was made board chairman. His older brother Roy became president. Then Walt, tired of signing things, resigned as chairman too. Walt laughed at the memory. “Now my only title is executive producer. I’m the boss of everything that’s produced here. I work on story ideas and gags; I work on every script, writing dialogue and planning scenes. When the story is set, I turn it over to the boys, and they make it. “We film 25 new stories for television and six feature-length pictures a year - and, of course, we think up ideas for the park, Disneyland. The corporation gets its vitality from what we create.” The corporation exhibits considerable vitality: In 1962 this magic world showed a gross income of $74,059,000—more than $20,000,000 from Disneyland alone - and a net of $5,263,000. The Secret Life of Mickey Mouse All this vitality stems from a mouse that was conceived in desperation, gestated in secrecy, and almost died at birth. In the fall of 1927, Walt Disney returned to Hollywood from New York without a staff and without a star. He had gone east to negotiate a new contract for his series Oswald the Rabbit. His distributor refused to meet his price and threatened to lure his whole organization away. “I’ve already signed all your animators,” the distributor told Walt. Walt and Lillian Disney, his bride of two years, had a doleful trip across the continent. Walt needed a whole staff of animators. He also needed a new character fast. The idea for Mickey Mouse was born on the train. “I’ve got it,” Walt told Lilly. “I’ll do a series about a mouse. I’m going to call him Mortimer Mouse.” Lilly Disney frowned. “I like the idea, but Mortimer sounds too dignified for a mouse.” Walt thought a few minutes. “All right, we’ll call him Mickey Mouse. Mickey has a good, friendly sound.” In Hollywood, Walt and Roy Disney and chief animator Ub Iwerks, now director of technical research, began work on Mickey. The defecting animators were still at the studio finishing the Oswald contract, and Walt did not want them to know he was starting a new series. So Ub Iwerks was sequestered in a locked office, and there in four hectic weeks, he animated an entire Mickey Mouse cartoon. That first Mickey was entitled Plane Crazy, a bit of nonsense inspired by the Lindbergh flight. To get the drawings inked and painted on celluloid for the camera, Walt set up tables in his garage at home. There, Lillian Disney, her sister, and Roy’s wife Edna did the job. A cameraman returned to the studio at night to put the pictures on film. When Walt took the movie to New York, distributors were not interested. They were also not interested in a second Mickey, produced while Walt was traveling. Mickey Saved by Plinks and Toots Mickey was close to death. But he was literally saved by the bell - bells, whistles, plinks, and toots. Sound had made its first real impact on motion pictures with the release of The Jazz Singer in the fall of 1927. Walt decided to try it. He and Iwerks rigged a homemade radio with a microphone. They put up a white sheet as a screen and, with two helpers, stood at the mike behind it with noisemakers, a mouth organ, and a xylophone. For six hours, Roy projected a short bit of animation from Steamboat Willie, the third Mickey film. The sound makers watched the image and whanged away. It was ragged, but it convinced them that sound was for cartoons. Walt hurried to New York with the film, and there Steamboat Willie was completed with sound. And it was ingenious and funny sound which transcended the mere novelty of actors singing or mouthing lines. Sound was added to the first two Mickeys. Suddenly and dramatically, evervbody wanted the talking mouse. Walt and the mouse have come a long way since. Nothing about Walt Disney’s background easily explains his success, though he began to draw at an early age. His father, Elias Disney, was a carpenter in Chicago when Walter Elias Disney was born there in December of 1901. When Walt was four, the family there were three older brothers and a younger sister moved to Marceline, Missouri. Walt still recalls the horsecar ride to the railroad station. At Marceline, one of Walt’s first chores was to herd the pigs on the family farm. The Disneys were forced to sell the farm, and in 1910 moved to Kansas City, Missouri. There Walt’s father bought a paper route with 800 customers. Roy and Walt were delivery boys. They started work at 4:30 in the morning and made their rounds on foot. The family moved back to Chicago in 1917. Walt went to high school, attended the Academy of Fine Arts, and took correspondence courses in cartooning. He also worked at the post office sorting mail and delivering letters. “As long as I can remember, Walt has been working,” Roy Disney told me. “He worked in the daytime and he worked at night. Walt didn’t play much as a boy. He still can’t catch a ball with any certainty.” When Walt was 16, he joined an American Red Cross unit as an ambulance driver, but he did not set overseas until after the Armistice. He had 11 months in France, then went to Kansas City and set up as a commercial artist. He finally landed with the Kansas City Film Ad Company in 1920, preparing animated commercials for silent-movie houses. Walt recalls those days. “The pull toward Hollywood became strong. Animation was big there, and if I couldn’t be successful at that, I wanted to be a director or a writer.” In 1923 he went off to Hollywood with $40 in hand, and for two months tried to hitch on at the studios. His $40 disappeared. “Before I knew it, I had my animation board out,” Walt recalls. He finally got an offer for twelve cartoons - Alice in Cartoon-land at $1,500 each. “I talked my big brother Roy into going in with me,” Walt told me. “I couldn’t get a job, so I went into business for myself.” Business was good. Alice was followed by the successful Oswald the Rabbit series. Then came Mickey. “The mouse gave us an opportunity to improve the cartoon medium,” Walt says. Experiment and expansion began in 1929 with the first Silly Symphony, in which music played a key role. Walt worked at the studio all day and every night. Only in recent years has he mastered the compulsion to work all the time. “I still take scripts home,” he told me, “but I don’t read them at night. It’s a temptation to peek, but I wait until morning. I used to read at night and then worry until morning. I used to be tied up all night, but no more.” Donald Duck Becomes a Star Walt’s next enthusiasm was Technicolor’s new three-color process for film. A Silly Symphony, Flowers and Trees, was already fully photographed in black and white. Walt decided to remake it in Technicolor. It was a gamble, since Technicolor was extraordinarily expensive. The picture was made in color and caused a revolution in the animated-cartoon industry. In 1932 it became the first cartoon to win an Oscar. Some of Walt’s funniest pictures were Silly Symphonies - notably The Three Little Pigs and The Tortoise and the Hare. In 1934 Donald Duck made his first sputtering appearance in The Wise Little Hen. That egregious fellow became an immediate hit—and now has surpassed Mickey as the star of the stable. “We’re restricted with the mouse,” Walt told me. “He’s become a little idol. The duck can blow his top and commit mayhem, but if I do anything like that with the mouse, I get letters from all over the world. ‘Mickey wouldn’t act like that,’ they say.” Scenes Gain Depth and Motion As the pictures were ground out, the art of animation progressed. Characters were being drawn in the round and in perspective, as contrasted with the first flat figures. But Walt was never satisfied. “I knew that locomotion was the key,” he told me. “We had to learn to draw motion. Look, pull your hand across your face and you’ll see what I mean. You don’t see a single hand; it’s sort of stretched and blurred. We had to learn the way a graceful girl walks, how her dress moves, what happens when a mouse stops or starts running.” Disney set up an elaborate school for his artists. “It was costly, but I had to have the men ready for things we would eventually do.” What “we would eventually do” was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first feature-length cartoon. When word of this project got around Hollywood, many movie people said Disney was making his biggest mistake. “They were thinking of the short - thought we were just going to string some together,” Walt said. “But we had a story to tell. They couldn’t get that through their heads.” While his artists were training, Walt had technicians working on a new kind of camera he planned to use for Snow White. He was no longer satisfied with just round figures; now he wanted the illusion of depth. To achieve this, he developed the radically different “multiplane” camera and won an Academy Award for it. In photographing animated films, three separate drawings are usually involved, each done on a sheet of transparent celluloid. One shows the foreground, one the animated figures, and the last the background. Before the multiplane camera, the three celluloids were simply stacked together and the camera shot through them all, giving a flat image. With the multiplane, more than three celluloids could be used, and they could be placed in different planes, sometimes as much as three feet apart. The camera could focus in and out among these planes to give an astonishing effect of depth and motion. Snow White brought up a new problem. “We had to learn how to put personality into the characters,” Walt told me. “Up to Snow White, we’d just had stock characters.” A Disney artist enlarged on the theme. “Remember in Snow White when the dwarfs had the pillow fight and Dopey ended up with a single feather?” he asked. “Remember how he fluffed it out and lay down with it under his head? It was funny, but more, it was Walt’s way of expressing what kind of character Dopey is and creating audience sympathy for him.” Snow White cost one and a half million dollars, and the bankers became restive before it was completed. Walt reluctantly had to show a man from the bank the unfinished product to try to retain their confidence. “We needed a quarter of a million dollars to finish the picture, so you can guess how I felt. “He sat there and didn’t say a word,” Walt told me. “Finally the picture was over and he walked to his car, with me following him like a puppy dog. Then he said, ‘Well, so long. You’ll make a pot of money on that picture.’ So we got the money.” Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs went on to make theatrical history and brought many honors to Disney. In 1938 Yale gave him an honorary master of arts. In presenting him as a candidate for the degree, Professor William Lyon Phelps said: “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin, and Walter Disney has charmed millions of people in every part of the earth… He has endeared America to the hearts of foreigners.” That same year brought honorary degrees from Harvard and the University of Southern California. (In 1960 Walt received an honorary diploma from the Marceline, Missouri, high school, which was pleasant, since he had never finished high school.) After Snow White came other feature-length cartoons: Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Bambi. Fantasia, released in 1940, started out to be a kind of super Silly Symphony for Mickey Mouse, with Leopold Stokowski directing a full orchestra in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Walt built it into something more, a brilliant combination of animation and fine music from Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Fantasia introduced stereophonic sound 15 years before it was generally used in motion pictures. Bambi Points Way to Nature Films Bambi was the fictionalized story of a deer, and the animal studies it involved made it the forerunner of one of Disney’s” most important contributions: the True-Life Adventure films, about live animals in nature. “One thing always leads to another around here,” Walt told me. “In Snow White, we had cute little animals, more on the fantasy side. In Bambi we had to get closer to nature. So we had to train our artists in animal locomotion and anatomy.” Walt introduced live animals into the studio, deer and rabbits and skunks. “But they were no good,” he says. “They were just pets. So we sent the artists out to zoos, and all we got were animals in captivity. Finally, I sent out some naturalist-cameramen to photograph the animals in their natural environment. “We captured a lot of interesting things and I said, ‘Gee, if we really give these boys a chance, I might get something unique!'” But the war intervened: Walt Disney Productions became virtually a war plant for the duration. Disney training films for the Army and Navy, pictures for bond drives, and similar projects made an important contribution to our war effort. As one of his first postwar projects, Walt sent Alfred Milotte and his wife Elma to Alaska. They sent back miles of film. In the footage or mileage Walt stumbled on one of the great stories of nature: the saga of the fur seals coming up from the sea to crowded island beaches in the Pribilofs, there to calve and mate. The Milottes caught the cruel and mysterious reality of the fur seal - the courting and mating, the fury of the bulls defending their harems against bachelor seals, with babies being trampled and crushed in the turmoil. And, in the end, the eerie disappearance of the herds into the sea. The picture was Seal Island. It won an Oscar as 1948’s best two-reel subject. This success was followed by another, In Beaver Valley. Walt will go to the nth degree to get perfection, and for this film he kept cameraman-naturalist Milotte in the wilds for more than a year, studying the beaver’s life habits as he photographed. Out of Milotte’s footage came the story of a talented, fascinating animal. The True-Life Adventure pictures used techniques learned in cartoons. “Any time we saw an animal doing something with style or personality say a bear scratching its back we were quick to capitalize on it,” says a Disney writer. “Or otters sliding down a riverbank humorous details to build personality. “This anthropomorphism is resented by some people they say we are putting people into animal suits. But we’ve always tried to stay within the framework of the real scene. Bears do scratch their backs and otters are playful.” Old Indian Trick Still Works The cameramen spent months in primitive areas, in African heat, in Alaskan blizzards, in South American jungles. A film by Murl Deusing for a National Geographic Society lecture formed the basis of many important sequences in Nature’s Half Acre, and many of the Society’s lecturers over the years have contributed footage to Disney nature films. Disney’s cameramen-naturalists worked with telescopic lenses, zoom lenses, time-lapse cameras, and underwater cameras; from behind elaborate blinds, high in the treetops, and from fixed platforms. Tom McHugh, photographing a buffalo herd for The Vanishing Prairie, found he could not get close enough, even with a telescopic lens. Then he remembered an Indian trick. He covered himself with a buffalo skin and sneaked in for close-ups. James Algar, the writer and director of The Vanishing Prairie, recalls being surrounded by the torrential rush of buffalo. “I’d always heard of the thundering herd, and the herd thundered all right. But what I had never heard of was the sibilant, silken swish which accompanies the stampeding buffalo. It was even more terrifying than the thunder.” Alfred and Elma Milotte spent almost three years in Africa photographing The African Lion. One of their notable sequences shows a rhinoceros bogged in a water hole, helpless and raging. The, exertions and grunts of the doomed rhino attracted an audience of jungle creatures. Birds added their raucous cries. Antelope watched. An elephant surveyed the scene, panicked, and ran away. A baboon sat on the bank thoughtfully, as though trying to contrive some plan that would be of help. Enraged Rhino Charges Benefactors In the film the rhino was left to die. Actually, the Milottes decided to rescue him. Dodging the desperate animal, they got a stout rope under his head and rump, tied the line to a truck, and pulled him free. The rhino was ungrateful. Once on dry land, he charged the truck, and they barely managed to get away. The Milottes brought back much distinguished footage. They recorded a leopard lurking in a thorn tree above a herd of wildebeests, showed him drop on a calf and drag it back into the tree for his meal. They also filmed the kill of an antelope by a lion. Other outstanding film records were produced by Disney’s naturalist-photographers: a bobcat in hot pursuit of a marten; the private lives, births, mating, and the search for food of the pine squirrel, golden eagle, raccoon, and crow; a goshawk striking a flying squirrel in mid-air. They also recorded a goshawk slamming into photographer Paul Kenworthy’s shoulder as he worked high in a tree to film close-ups of its young. As the technique improved, the photographers worked in compounds sometimes as big as 50 acres. “It was a short cut” a writer told me. “We’re not faking nature. We gave the animals the opportunity to appear before the camera. “Take the spectacular shot of the screaming bobcat scrambling to the top of a saguaro in The Living Desert. It may have been taken in a compound but it wasn’t faked. The cat streaked up that cactus because he was frightened by wild pigs. “When we follow the animals underground, we of course expose their tunnels. In Perri, the squirrel goes underground. We spent days conditioning her to the bright lights needed for color photography. Then, when we came to shoot, she didn’t pay any attention to us. We wondered if she had needed conditioning at all.” “Our naturalist-photographers probably wound up knowing as much about animals they photographed as anyone around including the scientists,” Walt said. “I don’t think there’s an animal on the North American Continent we don’t have coverage on.” Merely documenting the lives of wild creatures was not enough. The cameramen’s footage contained drama, but it took the dramatist’s hand to make it coherent. A fascinating fragment of one of Walt Disney’s critiques taken down during a screening of The Living Desert survives and shows him at work: “In sequence where tortoises are courting, Walt said: They look like knights in armor, old knights in battle. Give the audience a music cue, a tongue-in-cheek fanfare. The winner will claim his lady fair…. “Pepsis wasp and tarantula sequence: Our heavy is the tarantula. Odd that the wasp is decreed by nature to conquer the tarantula. When her time comes to lay eggs, she must go out and find a tarantula. Not strength, but skill helps her beat Mr. Tarantula…. “Then the hawk and the snake. Our other heavy is the snake…. With wasp and tarantula it’s a ballet or more like a couple of wrestlers. The hawk should follow. Tarantula gets his and then Mr. Snake gets his… Pepsis wasp doesn’t use brute strength, but science and skill. Should be ballet music. Hawk uses force and violence. One could follow the other and have a different musical theme as contrast.” Nature Documentaries With a Plot Walt has an amazing capacity to dramatize his work. When he is in a story conference, he takes the parts himself. Before Snow White he gave a four-hour performance of the entire picture, taking all the parts from Snow White to the smallest rabbit. “That one performance lasted us three years,” an animator told me. “Whenever we’d get stuck, we’d remember how Walt did it that night.” Next Walt Disney laid plans for a new kind of animal picture. “We decided to combine nature’s truth with fiction,” Walt told me. “We would use the documentary material straight from nature, but give it a plot.” Perri, the story of a squirrel, by Felix Salten, who also wrote Bambi, was the first of these. Naturalist-photographers spent three and a half years in the Uinta Mountains of Utah, filming the life cycle of every animal in the cast. They sent back more than 200 miles of film! “Just viewing their films took weeks,” Winston Hibler, the co-producer, told me. “Then it took painstaking editing to fit the film to the story. And by adding music and animation, we produced a paradox a true-life fantasy.” Petri was followed by a continuing series of similar pictures that tell stories about animals in relation to man. “The animals have names and we kind of pull for them,” a writer told me. “Stories are believable as long as-the audience knows the things actually happened. We have to contrive to get the animals to do what the plot calls for without their appearing to be trained animals. But we aren’t asking them to talk. “In The Legend of Lobo, for example, the script called for the main character, the wolf, to walk a narrow log spanning a deep chasm. This was achieved by training the wolf, first to walk across a log near the ground, then to continue to cross the log as it was raised higher and higher. “When the picture was shot, the wolf actually crossed a log about 75 feet long spanning a chasm several hundred feet deep.” From animal pictures Walt Disney has gone on to live-action pictures about people on an astounding variety of subjects. Disney stuck to timeless pictures at first: Treasure Island, Robin Hood, and Davy Crockett films which can be released many times. “Then I got to thinking, ‘When it comes to making comedy, we’re the ones'; so we did The Shaggy Dog. So far it’s been seen by 55 million people.” The live-action comedies closely follow the Disney cartoon techniques. “We’ve always made things fly and defy gravity,” Walt told me. “Now we’ve just gone on to flying flivvers, floating football players, and bouncing basketball players.” The geographic scope and variety of the Disney activities are awesome. Besides a company in the Burbank studio filming a new movie called Summer Magic, Walt had camera crews in Florida, Yellowstone Park, and New England, a complete production unit in Canada for The Incredible Journey, a production unit in Majorca and another in Vienna, a feature cartoon in the works, plus four television cartoons, and a Western being shot at the studio ranch. I had been told that Walt makes all major decisions on all his pictures, and I wondered how he kept track of things. I found out when I sat in with him as the “dailies” excerpts from various pictures were projected. About fifteen of the staff musicians, directors, song writers, producers, and writers came in. We listened to Burl Ives sing “The Ugly Bug Ball” a dozen times as the camera covered him from different angles. Sad Sam, the original shaggy dog, appeared on the screen with a caterpillar on his nose. We saw a scene from a Western played over and over from different points of view. The dogs in The Incredible Journey went through their paces. Disney himself, in full color, flashed on the screen in a lead-in for his television program, The Wonderful World of Color. He began suavely and then blew his lines. “I’m not only getting wrinkles,” he said from the back of the room, “I’m losing my eyesight, too.” He told a cameraman, “Don’t use that diffusion on me. I look out of focus. Let the wrinkles show.” We were in the projection room two hours. This, I learned, was how Disney keeps on top of his many projects. His men send their product to be appraised. A shipment of film from Europe arrives every Tuesday. Walt also makes frequent trips to Europe and flies key personnel to the studio for conferences. He is not a memo-writing man. “After we tie down the shooting script, it’s up to the boys to make the pictures,” Disney told me. “If they run into trouble, I always tell them, ‘If you bring me a problem, have a solution.’ Lots of times, their solution is the answer and it’s just a matter of saying O.K.” Magazine a Friend to Researchers On one of my first trips around the studio, I saw the National Geographic almost everywhere I went: in the animators’ offices, in the machine shop, on writers’ desks. I saw it in the wardrobe department, where it’s used in designing the correct clothing for various countries, and in the staff shop at Disneyland, where the realistic animals are cast for Adventureland. “Looks like I planted them,” Walt said, “but we really use the Geographic. We couldn’t be in business without it”. When I dropped into the library to inquire about the meticulous research that backs up every Disney picture, Koneta Roxby, the chief of research, told me: “The Geographic is one of our basic research sources. We use it almost every day. “We certainly used it when Disneyland was being built,” she went on. “This library was a madhouse. There would be ten or fifteen people waiting in line for research materials and, of course, the phone rang every minute.” Disneyland really started more than 20 years ago, when Walt got the idea for an amusement park that grownups as well as children would enjoy. “I had all my drawing things laid out at home, and I’d work on plans for the park, as a hobby, at night.” At the time, amusement parks were dying all over the country. “I talked Disneyland, but no one could see it,” Walt recalled. “So I went ahead and spent my own money.” In 1954, for the site of his kingdom, Walt bought 244 acres of land mostly orange groves miles from Los Angeles, near Anaheim, California. “I wanted flat land that I could shape” he said. He surrounded the entire park with a high earth embankment. “I don’t want the public to see the real world they live in while they’re in the park. I want them to feel they are in another world.” When the preliminary plans for the park were completed, the cost estimate was $4,700,000, but Joe Fowler, who is in charge of Disneyland, says, “That was only a guess.” The over-all cost to date is approximately forty-four million dollars! Disneyland: the Geography of Imagination At the Disneyland opening, in July, 1955, a year after the first orange tree was uprooted, Walt said, “Disneyland will never be completed. It will grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.” It seemed, at the time, a pleasant sentiment, but few took it literally. Walt did, and that is why Disneyland remains unique; he is forever enlarging it. Now he is building an old New Orleans Square, complete with a bayou boat ride. Disneyland, on a fall day, is full of warmth and zest. I paid my respects to the giant portrait of Mickey Mouse, in living flowers, that adorns the slanting earth embankment at the park’s main entrance. I stepped into the Town Square and right into Walt Disney’s childhood: The Square with its red-brick Victorian elegances is a distillation of Walt’s early memories of Chicago and Marceline and Kansas City shortly after the turn of the century. A gaily cockaded band was tootling. A horsecar rolled along, the horse’s rubber shoes making muffled thumps; a double-decked bus stood at the curb; and a balloon seller, hidden behind a great cluster of his wares, looked like a gigantic chrysanthemum. Over a loud-speaker from the Santa Fe and Disneyland Railroad station came the measured voice of the train announcer: “… now leaving for Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland all aboarrrd!” Main Street, U. S. A., sets the tone and pace of Disneyland: It is a place for strolling. People stop to peer into the windows of the apothecary shop and the old-time general store, and to look over the shoulder of a sidewalk artist as he sketches a portrait. Most of the visitors are grownups. As the park statistics prove, adult guests outnumber children three and a half to one. Visitors Fooled by Live Swans At the end of Main Street, faraway jungle noises made me turn to the left and enter Adventureland. I took the jungle river cruise aboard the sturdy river boat Ganges Gal, which chugged past menacing crocodiles, a ruined temple, and a group of bathing elephants. Gorillas and a tremendous African elephant roared from the tropical vegetation which choked the banks of the stream. There was some discussion among the passengers about the animals. Were they real? (They were, of course, animated.) But in Disneyland, it is sometimes hard to know where fantasy ends and reality begins. A little later, I watched a pair of ladies peer intently at the live swans sailing on the moat of Sleeping Beauty Castle. “They are not real,” one lady finally said with authority. I met Bill Evans and Ray Miller, landscape architects for the park, and complimented them on the effects they have created along the jungle stream. They have made Disneyland a must for visiting horticulturists. The park has close to 700 species of plants. It takes at least 30 gardeners to keep them in trim. We wandered to the base of the Swiss Family Tree House, which opened last fall. I asked what kind of tree it was. “It was modeled after the ban-van tree, Ficus benghalensis” said Ray Miller, “but we call it Disneyodendron eximius, which means an out-of-the-ordinary Disney tree.” The 70-foot tree is a copy of the Swiss Family Robinson’s tropic domicile, complete with furniture salvaged from their ship. I took a short cut through Frontierland (pages 183-5) just in time to be caught in the middle of a running gun fight between a rootin’-tootin’ sheriff and a Western bad man. Happily, they were using blank cartridges, or the slaughter would have been awesome. The Mark Twain, the stately white river packet, was just leaving her dock for a cruise on the Rivers of America. Across the water, I saw some energetic boys romping on Tom Sawyer Island, while others helped Indians paddle war canoes or rode the high-sided keel boats, the ones used in Disney’s Davy Crockett movie and television series. In Fantasyland I found myself face to face with larger-than-life-size impersonations of famous Disney characters: the Big Bad Wolf, one of the Three Little Pigs, Minnie Mouse. The Mad Hatter, his rubber jowls quivering, was trapped in a corner. He was having a hard time defending himself against a mob of children. The Most Marvelous Submarine In Tomorrowland, I boarded the submarine Skipjack, one of eight submersibles in the Disney fleet. It took me on one of the incredible journeys of the world, though it was made in a mere six million gallons of water rather than an ocean. The sub “went under” in a swirl of bubbles and sailed serenely (guided by sonar, the skipper said) through treacherous coral reefs ablaze with animated tropical fish. Giant turtles dined on sea grass. Barracudas, sharks, and a dangerous moray eel loomed from the shadows. In a plunge to the abyss, we saw phosphorescent creatures of the deep. We passed through the hull of a sunken ship and glimpsed chests filled with gleaming treasure. And, as the skipper explained that we could not expect to see mermaids since they were only figments of imagination, we nosed impolitely into a mermaids’ boudoir. The sub visited the lost continent of Atlantis, went under the polar ice cap, and finally passed what may be the largest sea serpent in the world. Certainly the largest cross-eyed sea serpent. When I talked with Joe Fowler, the retired admiral who is vice president for Disneyland operations, he said his former Navy colleagues are delighted with the submarines. One, a sub skipper, said, “That’s the only time I’ve ever been on a sub and could see where I was going.” “We were apprehensive that some guests might suffer from claustrophobia in the subs,” Fowler told me. “But in my Navy experience, I had learned that few people suffer from claustrophobia if you have moving air and something to see. That’s why there’s an air jet in front of every porthole.” How to Build a Mountain Fowler has one besetting problem: “Almost everything we undertake in the park has never been done before,” he told me. He cited the Matterhorn as an example. The 146-foot-high mountain, which is one hundredth the height of the real Matterhorn, contains 500 tons of structural steel, and almost no two pieces are the same length, size, or weight. The Disney Matterhorn is a close copy of the real mountain. Disney designers studied hundreds of pictures of the rugged peak, pictures taken during the filming of Third Man on the Mountain. Like the original, it also has its mountain climbers, athletes in alpine attire who scale and rappel it eight times daily. Whereas the real Matterhorn is extremely solid, the Disneyland version is hollow and houses an exciting bobsled ride. I rode one of the bobsleds and was lifted high inside the mountain. Then my bobsled dipped over a sharp edge and I was on my own moving around curves, through icy grottos, past waterfalls, and under the Skyway’s ski-lift buckets, which take visitors through the mountain for a view of the ice caves. Finally my bobsled dashed into a tumbling mountain stream, which braked it, and the ride was over. One of the greatest attractions is the Disneyland-Alweg Monorail System which loops in and out of the park. Disney and Alweg engineers collaborated in the design, and the trains were built at the Disney studio. The monorail is the first of its type “piggy-back” design in which the cars are locked to the track. I rode the monorail from the Disneyland Hotel to the park several times. A uniformed girl handed me aboard the long silver train. It started gently, smoothly. We glided over the magic kingdom at 20 miles an hour, silently surveying the wonders below like some satellite from space. Most passengers, myself included, leave the monorail convinced it is the answer for rapid transit of the future. I wandered backstage at Disneyland to visit Bud Washo, the head of the staff shop. There I got a glimpse of the Disney future, though its subject matter in this case was the dim past. At WED Enterprises in Glendale, where all the design work for Disneyland is done, I had watched Blaine Gibson modeling a series of small-scale dinosaurs, cave men, and other prehistoric creatures. Now Bud Washo took me into a barnlike room where Gibson’s dinosaurs were being re-created life-size. An enraged Tyrannosaurus rex with a two-foot mouthful of six-inch teeth is something to stand beside even if it is just clay. Once the clay figures are completed, plaster molds are made, and then the carefully detailed skin is cast from 3/s-inch Duraflex, which Washo described as a “hot-melt vinyl reformulated for strength.” “Hardly anything affects it,” Washo said. “It can take weather, most oils, or gases. It’s enormously flexible and durable.” When the casts are finished, the figures are trucked carefully to the studio machine shop, where their animation machinery is installed. Dinosaur Will Go to World’s Fair I pointed to a sail-backed dinosaur which was being fitted into its skin and asked: “What will that one do?” “It will be able to swish its tail from side to side, open its mouth, flex up and down like a lizard, and the sail will sway,” Washo said matter-of-factly. “Where will the dinosaurs and cave men be used?” I asked. “They’re for the Ford Motor exhibit at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York,” Bud said. Plastic Birds Come to Life One day after lunch, Walt grabbed my arm. “Come on,” he said. “I want to show you something.” We walked in the bright sunshine between the stages on the movie studio lot and turned into the machine shop. Four elephants without skins sat in a row, gravely nodding their heads. On a bench lay what looked very much like a human hand, closing and opening silently. Farther down, a prehistoric man waved his arm; someone had incongruously placed a handkerchief in his hand. On the machinists’ benches stood a variety of plastic birds, opening and closing their beaks, turning their heads, and flipping their tails. Walt stopped to talk to a machinist. I looked at one of the birds. Without its feathers, the creature was a mass of wiring and air tubes. As I watched, this unearthly bird puffed out its chest and began to sing. A machinist told me that every bird contains five air lines and four sets of wires, plus a tiny loud-speaker. “This is the latest thing we’ve done with Audio-Animatronics,” Walt said. “We are using the new types of valves and controls developed for rockets. That way we can get extremely subtle motions.” “About that word,” I said, “Audio-Animatronics.” “It’s just animation with sound, run by electronics,” he smiled. “Audio-Animatronics. It’s an extension of animated drawings. “We take an inanimate object and make it move. Everything is programmed on tape: the birds’ movements, lighting effects, and sounds. We turn on the tape and the birds do their stuff. At the end, the tape automatically rewinds itself and starts all over again. With tape we could present a program of an hour and six minutes without repeating anything.” “Is anyone else doing this kind of thing?” “I don’t know anyone crazy enough,” Walt laughed. Disney Birds Sing Popular Songs Several weeks later, Walt invited me to the studio for a showing of the completed mock-up for the Enchanted Tiki Room, scheduled to open in the park this summer. Now all the birds had been bedecked in colorful feathers, and were individually lighted. Four macaws opened the show with a line of chatter and then swung into a lively calypso number, followed by Offenbach’s “Barcarole.” A fountain jetted in time to the music under colored lights. The fountain sent up a particularly high jet and, as it fell back into the bowl, a Bird-Mobile slowly descended from the ceiling, bearing yellow and white cockatoos. They broke loose with “Let’s All Sing Like the Birdies Sing,” and brought down the house. There was much more: songs sung by orchids and bird-of-paradise flowers; a rain storm; chants by tikis carvings representing various native gods accompanied by animated drummers. It is a tremendous show the climax of more than two years’ work at a cost of approximately a million dollars. Abraham Lincoln Returns to Life I went out into the street again with Walt and Wathel Rogers, who supervised the Enchanted Tiki Room. We entered another building and I got a shock; I almost bumped smack into Abraham Lincoln! The illusion was alarming. The tall, lonely man sits in a chair much as in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C. But this is no cold stone figure; this Lincoln is man-size and so realistic it seems made of flesh and blood. Wathel Rogers made adjustments at an electronic console, and Lincoln’s eyes ranged the room. His tongue moved as if to moisten his lips and he cleared his throat. Then with a slight frown, he clasped the arms of his chair, stood up, and began to talk in measured tones. “What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence?” he asked. And then he answered: “Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us….” To get an idea of the tremendous animation job this is, try it yourself. Sit in an armchair and pull yourself to your feet, observing how many muscles are called into play and the subtle balance required. The Lincoln skin is the same Du-raflex that has worked so well on the other Audio-Animatronic figures. “Duraflex has a consistency much like human skin,” Rogers said. “It flexes as well as compresses. Rubber, for example, will flex, but won’t compress correctly for our needs.” Rogers described the mechanics: 16 air lines to the Lincoln head, 10 air lines to the hands and wrists, 14 hydraulic lines to control the body, and two pairs of wires for every line. Rogers ran the Lincoln face through some of its 15 expressions. Lincoln smiled at me (first on one side of his face, then the other). He raised each eyebrow quizzically, one at a time, then, fixing me with a glance, frowned and chilled my marrow. And just to show he wasn’t really angry, he ended by giving me a genial wink. “Lincoln is part of a Disneyland project called ‘One Nation Under God;” Wathel Rogers explained. “It will start with a Circa-rama presentation of great moments in constitutional crises. “Circarama is a special motion-picture technique Walt developed for Disneyland and the Brussels World’s Fair. The Bell Telephone Circarama now at Disneyland tells the story of the great sights of America. It has a 360-degree screen. The audience is surrounded by the continuous action, as if they were moving with the camera and able to see in all directions. “The Circarama for the ‘One Nation Under God’ showing will have a 200-degree screen. After the Circarama showing, a curtain will close, then open again to reveal the Hall of Presidents. The visitor will see all the Chief Executives modeled life-size. He’ll think it’s a waxworks until Lincoln stands up and begins to talk.” Audio-Animatronic figures are now being planned for Disneyland’s French Quarter square in old New Orleans. They will also add chilling realism to the Haunted Mansion now under construction in Frontierland. (Visitors who ask about the mansion are told, “Walt’s out capturing ghosts for it now.”) Never Do the Same Thing Twice What next? Walt enjoys the past but he lives for the future. “The fun is in always building something,” he told me. “After it’s built, you play with it a little and then you’re through. You see, we never do the same thing twice around here. We’re always opening up new doors.” I asked him a doleful question, “What happens when there is no more Walt Disney?” “I think about that,” he said. “Every day I’m throwing more responsibility to other men. Every day I’m trying to organize them more strongly. “But I’ll probably outlive them all,” he grinned. “I’m 61. I’ve got everything I started out with except my tonsils, and that’s above average. I plan to be around for a while.” ##### Here are some close up shots at some of the pictures throughout this wonderful article: ********    Keith Michael Mahne is the owner and editor of Disney Avenue and the host of the Disney Avenue Podcast. He has made countless trips to the Walt Disney World resort since his first trip in 1989 at the age of four. Keith has a strong passion and respect for Walt Disney, the parks and resorts, and the men and women who help create them. He started Disney Avenue as a way to inform and entertain readers and to repay all those who make dreams come true every day.

By José Manuel Serrano Esparza. SPANISH VERSION Thirty years have elapsed since the death on March 14, 1980, of a great man, Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, near the Bering Sea, in an aircraft accident, when the Cessna 185 plane in which he was flying along with Teodoro Roa García, Alberto Mariano Huéscar (both of them being camera operators, focusers, photography directors and supervisors of the choosing of lenses and emulsions, together with the lighting, with Alberto having started as Teodoro´s assistant in 1974) and the American pilot Warren Dodson, crashed against the snowed ground twenty kilometers in the south of the Eskimo village of Shaktoolik (northwest of Alaska), while they were shooting one of the stretches of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, the most famous competition of this kind in the world, covering 1,200 miles between Anchorage and Nome. During twenty years of impressive activity between 1960 and 1980 (beginning with his famous radio broadcast programmes which caused a sensation through the first half of sixties - along with his first TV collaborations in the program Fin de Semana, with a space devoted to Nature which was offered live from the TVE studios in Paseo de La Habana-, becoming the link between Spanish villages and big cities in the maelstrom of the rural exodus of millions of people searching for better living conditions as new urbanites, and following with his fifteen consecutive years working making audiovisual productions for TVE until his untimely death in Alaska in 1980, being 52 years old), Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, currently considered thirty years after his death the most important naturalist and zoologist maker of documentary films on animals and wild life of all time along with Jacques Cousteau (a personal friend of his, in the same way as Conrad Lorenz) and Richard Attenborough, created the astounding figure of 500 documentary films for 10 TV series, some of them legendary and internationally acclaimed like Planeta Azul (1970-1973), Fauna Salvaje, Fauna Ibérica, El Hombre y la Tierra (1974-1980), etc, that won great quantity of accolades and international awards, foreseeing in decades the current worldwide global ecologist concern. EL HOMBRE Y LA TIERRA, A WORLD HERITAGE TV SERIES This mythical image of an Iberian wolf running at twilight and belonging to El Hombre y La Tierra TVE series, enhanced by the legendary musical score created by Antón García Abril, became the hallmark of Félix Rodríguez de La Fuente´s flagship production and literally stuck millions and millions of people to the screen all over the world, with a total of 124 chapters filmed in Spain (92), Venezuela (18) and Canada (14). Incredibly, 30 years after the death of the Spanish legendary naturalist, turned into great harbinger and standard- bearer of Ecologist Movement, this amazing production entirely shot in 35 mm with the cream of professional Mitchell and Arriflex cinematographic cameras and Carl Zeiss and Angenieux lenses available during seventies, goes on currently being in the top ranking of sales, now digitally remastered in DVD, frame by frame, both in image and sound, from the original 35 mm developed chemical emulsion colour negatives. Besides, Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, a tremendous driving force in himself regarding everything he did and featuring incredible strength, energy and versatility enabling him tackling the most manifold tasks at top-notch level, was the founder of the Spanish delegation of World Wildlife Fund and implemented campaigns against pollution, against the exsiccation of the National Park of Tablas of Daimiel, against the extinction of the asturcon horse, etc, also being a diehard activist against the slaughtering of whales because of commercial interests. Likewise, the unforgettable Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, guiding beacon and human icon for thousands and thousands of biologists, naturalists, zoologists, anthropologists, etc, both before and after his demise, not only in Spain but all over the world, was decisive in the fulfilment of the protection and survival of five wonderful species menaced with extinction: the Peregrine Falcon, the Royal Eagle, the Imperial Eagle, the Iberian Wolf and the Iberian Lynx. IMAGE QUALITY AND FILMING PARAMETERS COMPARABLE TO THE BEST PRODUCTIONS OF HOLLYWOOD CINEMATOGRAPHIC INDUSTRY On the other hand, as quoted by Kennart Smart (Director of National Geographic Nature Unit) Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente was the first naturalist pioneering the use of professional 35 mm movie cameras (until then the highest qualitative image levels in this domain were attained by 16 mm Bolex movie cameras with Kern Switar and Angenieux lenses) for making documentary films on animals in their environment, achieving to tell stories on animal behaviour that hadn´t been told ever before, and getting a sharpness, lack of grain and sharpness that marked a turning point in this scope, clearly beating even The Living Desert (1953) - a famous Walt Disney Productions 69 minutes documentary film on nature and fauna directed by James Algar and shot with ISO 12 16 mm Kodachrome film and Technicolor system on desert areas of USA, under a scorching sun, and whose remarkable definition made possible acceptable blow-ups to 35 mm for theatre projections-, and The Vanishing Prairie (1954), another outstanding 71 minutes Walt Disney documentary film entirely shot in 35 mm also in Technicolor system- that had been the reference in image quality regarding wildlife and nature films until the arrival of El Hombre y la Tierra, whose chapters were 100% shot with professional 35 mm cinematographic chemical emulsions between 1974 and 1980. ´The movies on Wildlife and Nature filmed by Dr. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente surprised us and drew our attention, because both the image and sound quality was fantastic. National Geographic worked with 16 mm cameras, and sometimes with Super 16 mm ones. It was apparent that Félix worked with very advanced and extraordinarily elaborate cinematographic techniques ´ Kennart Smart, Director of National Geographic Nature Unit. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente always strove after attaining the most tremendous levels of image quality feasible at his time, on a par with the most prominent Hollywood productions, using heavy 35 mm Mitchell and Arriflex professional cameras connected to the cream of Carl Zeiss and Angenieux cinematographic lenses and the best chemical emulsions available then, making strenuous efforts to take different very heavy cameras up to specific locations from which filming his mythical productions. One of them, El Hombre y La Tierra, was unanimously chosen in 2000 as the best TVE production in history by the Spanish Academy of Sciencies and Arts, and became quickly a world referent, being distributed in different languages to a lot of countries in which it often reached peak audiences, as happened in United States, where it was number one in the top ranking of documentary films broadcast on TV for millions of people, subsequently getting even further international fame and recognition, winning in 1975 the Great Prize of Montecarlo Rainiero Prince for the chapter titled "Prisoners of the Wood", the II Great Prize of Paris de L´Emision Scientifique de Television Centre National de la Recherche in 1977 for the chapter titled "The Social Hunter", the II Great Prize of Paris de L´Emision Scientifique de Television Centre National de la Recherche for the chapter titled "The Wise Vulture" in 1978 along with the Ondas, Antena de Oro and Golden TP 1976 to the Best Spanish National TV program. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente shaking hands with another world class naturalist: Jacques Cousteau. Both of them established a sincere friendship and mutual admiration. Suffice it to say that there were some directors of both TV and Salvat Ediciones Editorial in Spain who had the chance of watching projected inside a cinematographic room on a screen the 35 mm bobbins shot by Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente team in the jungle of Venezuela and they all coincided: those wonderful images showed virtually unbeatable resolving power, contrast, color depth and visual impact, it all being enhanced by the accuracy of the world class focuser Teodoro Roa, who was at the moment one of the few professional TVE camera operators specialized on filming animals. Dr. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente and the camera operator Teodoro Roa. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, Teodoro Roa and Alberto Mariano Huéscar. And they were right, because twenty six years had to elapse until the appearance of the high definition Heligimbal camera (able to turn 360º and featuring a very high quality zoom allowing to zoom in up to a distance of one kilometer with utter stability) introduced by the BBC in the first chapter of his television series Planet Earth in 2006 for somebody offering documentary films on wildlife and nature featuring comparable levels of spectacularity and innovation to those attained by Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente in its famous TV series El Hombre y La Tierra, though in terms of image quality, colour depth and above all impact, some Félix´s documentary series, above all El Hombre y La Tierra (both the chapters made in Spain and South America) shot with chemical 35 mm emulsion with Mitchell BNC and Arriflex cinematographic professional cameras won´t probably ever be beaten, thanks to its huge adaptability to any type of digital format that can appear in future, as was recently proved with the new DVD complete edition made by Divisa Ediciones - including all the chapters - of the aforementioned El Hombre y La Tierra series, with digitally remastered image by means of a last generation professional film scanner from the original 35 mm Kodak colour film reels developed in photographic laboratory during seventies and the four first months of 1980 and which were wisely kept by Genoveve Parmentier during almost thirty years, which has allowed through a highly updated digital technology a quantum leap in quality of image and sound (also remastered in a digital way from the excellent original Hi-Fi monophonic takes) in comparison with previous editions of El Hombre y La Tierra sold in analog VHS tape or the available youtube images, and the chance of relishing a terrific and fascinating audiovisual experience with any DVD or compatible Blu-ray player. THE DIGITAL IMAGE AND SOUND RESTORATION AND REMASTERING ON DVD OF EL HOMBRE Y LA TIERRA TV SERIES MADE BY DIVISA EDICIONES: A LANDMARK IN THE HISTORY OF AUDIOVISUAL PRODUCTIONS ON WILDLIFE AND NATURE The digital remastering and restoration on DVD of El Hombre y la Tierra (probably the most successful in history documentary TV series on wildlife and nature, watched during the second half of seventies by 800 million people in more than 40 different countries of the five continents, a figure which has outstandingly increased since the demise of the mythical Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, thanks to a number of further TV broadcasts) is one of the most important audiovisual projects devoted to wildlife and nature ever made in the world, and has been accomplished by Divisa Ediciones through the frame by frame professional digitization with a last generation film scanner with which every original 35 mm negative was scanned at 10 bits instead of 8, that are the usually delivered by a conventional system. That enabled working with a colour gradation of 1024 tonalities for each one of the primary RGB colours, instead of doing it with the 256 tones which would have been attained with an 8 bit device, in such a way that the maximum feasible quality was obtained for the next step: the colour correction, which was fulfilled by means of a professional last generation digital corrector able to work with infinite layers, irregular masks and tracking points to follow the movements, and after this colour correction was made, the images underwent a digital restauration phase with painstaking removing of unstability areas, emulsion scratches, dust specks, splicing locations, etc) of the original 35 mm reels. It all would have never been possible without the great foresight and wisdom of Marcelle Genevieve Parmentier, Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente´s widow, who has very carefully kept the many original Kodak 35 mm reels including the 124 chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra TV series (Venezuelan Wildlife, Iberian Wildlife, Canadian Wildlife and Alaska) filmed between 1974 and 1980. The collection is made up by a total of 25 DVD discs, encompassing the 92 chapters of Fauna Ibérica, the 18 of Venezuelan Fauna and 14 of Canadian Fauna, and also including a biography on Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente written by her daughter Odile. Poza de la Sal (Burgos). 2010. Foto: José Manuel Serrano Esparza Poza de la Sal (Burgos) . 2010. Foto: José Manuel Serrano Esparza Poza de la Sal (Burgos). 2010. Foto: José Manuel Serrano Esparza Poza de la Sal (Burgos). 2010. Foto: José Manuel Serrano Esparza Poza de la Sal (Burgos). 2010. Foto: José Manuel Serrano Esparza The image quality of these DVD discs is amazing, but bearing in mind that the most updated Blu-ray players can reproduce DVD discs at their standard resolution or have the player upscale the DVD playback signal to attain 720p/1080i or in some devices even 1080p, we can go a step beyond and watch these marvellous colour productions almost in HD to practical effects, reaching a level of image quality that can only be defined as extraordinary, greatly keeping the resolving power, contrast and aesthetics of image of the original professional cinematographic 35 mm films used with Arri and Mitchell movie cameras by Félix´s team during seventies. TOP-NOTCH QUALITY SOUND OBTAINED WITH PROFESSIONAL HI-FI MONOPHONIC NAGRA III NP AND NAGRA 4.2 REEL TO REEL TAPE RECORDERS BETWEEN 1974-1980 AND DIGITALLY RESTORED AND REMASTERED 30 YEARS LATER Since the beginnings of sixties, Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente becamed very fond of listening sounds produced by different animal species, recorded by the analogue tape recorders then available in Spain, whose variety and quality didn´t usually reach the level of fidelity craved for by Félix, a man gifted with high auditive capacity, being used to listening to the animals in their natural habitat and whishing at all cost to be able to reproduce with maximum feasible the wide range of sounds emitted above all by praying birds and mammals in their most diverse living circumstances for their subsequent study. After a lot of goings out to the countryside with different analogue to reel tape recorders and making many recordings without achieving the results he wanted, Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, with his typical stubborness and great autodidact ability, began to deeply study the professional sound recording systems existing by that time. Till then, studio cameras were soundproof and solved the initial problem of direct sound, but couldn´t be used outdoors. Félix had already in mind the creation of the documentary movies on fauna and nature filmed on wild landscapes, which would make him famous all over the world during seventies and who would turn him into the international referent in this scope, but before it, he had to find a solution for the recording of live sound in the outdoors documentary films he wanted to make: he needed noiseless cameras (he had also studied the various systems of synchronized sound and noise reduction blimps for 16 mm Bolex cameras) which could be used in all kind of biotopes, but besides, it was wholly necessary to have a professional high fidelity sound device getting the highest quality of sound, simultaneously being linked to the cinematographic 35 mm movie camera in such a way that it allowed the synchronizing of image and sound. Finally, in late sixties he chose the portable professional reel to reel Hi-Fi monophonic full track tape recorder Nagra III NP (1962), featuring a very high fidelity of sound and Neopilot crystal sync (enabling the 100% working at the same time of both the tape recorder and the 35 mm movie camera connected without any wire, through an electronic beep which was recorded on the tape each time that the movie camera began filming, which allowed for the later synchronization with the picture), which had been the qualitative pinnacle used by Hollywood cinema industry regarding professional sound in outdoor shootings since 1963. The Nagra III, whose first model had appeared in 1957, was one of the masterpieces of the famous based in Switzerland and Polish sound engineer Stefan Kudelski, who through a wise use of germanium transistors and a servocontrolled DC motor, along with a very hard aluminium chassis and above all a modulometer measuring the decibelic peaks, managed to create this legendary and very compact professional tape recorder, highly convenient to transport (it could use 12 cylindrical D batteries as a power supply) and using flexible cellulose acetate 1/4 inch tape. It was a very reliable and virtually indestructible contrivance, even under the hardest climate conditions, delivering an extraordinary sound quality that was only improved at those moments by the Hi-Fi stereo reel to reel Ampex 3-track (with Model 300-3 valve amplifier) heavy studio tape recorder used in the second half of fifties by the great sound engineer Lewis Layton to make the legendary RCA Living Stereo Sound recordings during the concerts of Fritz Reiner conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, along with other prominent world class musicians like Jascha Heifetz, Igor Piatigorsky, Artur Rubinstein, etc. The Neopilot synchronizing system boasted such a quality and accuracy that it was almost 20 years in the market being the flagship of the professional cinematographic domain until late eighties, when it was replaced by the standard timecode, while the professional analog 1/4 inch (6.35 mm) tape was progressively substituted by the DAT System since mid nineties. So as to realize the sound quality obtained by Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente with professional Nagra III reel to reel tape recorder (which would reach its apex with the tapes recorded by the sound technician Manuel Peña in the chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra deling with the acoustic war between night preying birds and rodents, as we´ll see later), it´s important to bear in mind that though modern high-end digital recorders are technically more precise, the qualitative building level and sound realism attained with the analog reel to reel Hi-Fi recorders made by Stefan Kudelski are simply superb and made up in 1957 at the moment of the launching of the model Nagra III a revolution in the concept of the highest level professional recording with portable devices, so they became the sound standard of Hollywood industry during sixties, seventies and eighties, three decades throughout which their sound quality was only beaten by the aforementioned High Fidelity Living Stereo Sound Recordings (firstly made with an Ampex-3 1/2 inch valve amplifier tape recorder and cardioid condenser Neumann U-47 and omnidirectional M-49/50 microphones), and above all since 1961 by the amazing Mercury Living Presence Stereo Sound Recordings firstly made with a 3 track valve amplifier Westrex 35 mm magnetic sound film recorder and omnidirectional Telefunken U-47, RCA 44BX, BK 5 and KM 56, using a three mike recording technique. Both the original three track RCA Living Sound recordings made on 1/2 inch (12.7 mm) tape and the three track Mercury Presence Sound Recordings made on large surface 35 mm celluloid, were subsequently mixed down to two tracks 1/4 inch (6.35 mm) tapes to get the masters for its stereo launching into the market. They were then with difference the world reference in terms of sound quality, but exceedingly large and heavy, using valve amplifiers, very expensive to maintain and impossible to transport to outdoors locations. That´s why the brainstorm of Stefan Kudelski, making the very small and portable Nagra III Hi-Fi monophonic recorder was immensely successful, since it was very convenient to take to any location irrespective of the climate conditions, was built like a tank, and the genius managed to get a great sound quality through the use of transistors, miniaturized components, optimized preamps, top class transformers and a very thorough circuitry with highly selected components, proved to be a great breakthrough. In the same way, between 1974 and 1980, during the shooting of a number of chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra, a professional monophonic Hi-Fi open reel Nagra 4.2 tape recorder (handled both by the aforementioned Manuel Peña and Antonio Torreblanca, another great sound technician and a collaborator of D. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente) was also used. The Nagra 4.2 had appeared in 1971. It featured silicon transistors and an antidistortion circuitry with optimized audiophile components, including new specifications and even improved the the excellent sound quality of the previous Nagra III (1957), Nagra III NP (1962) and Nagra-L (1968) models, as well as adding more powerful microphones, superior preamps and built-in equalizers. It can make recordings by means of microphones or through a signal line input, featuring three working speeds: 15" /sec (38 cm /sec) which is the one delivering more quality of sound, 7.5"/sec (19,05 cm /sec) and 3.75"/sec (9.5 cm/sec), NAB or CCI standard, along with two independent heads for recording and playback, modulometer and two microphone inputs (with different models of microphones preamplifiers available with Dynamic, T or Phantom power, depending of the type of microphone attached), and a further line input through a QCE cable. Besides, it can flawlessly work at temperatures between -20º C and 72º C (with cylindrical D batteries) and between -55º C and 71º C with external power supply. In the same way as the Nagra III NP, the Nagra 4.2 (in its NQL version featuring Neopilot system - with optional accessory QGX-3 Quartz Crystal Pilot Generator for wireless synchronized filming and selectable signal frequency between 50 and 60 Hz +- 0.001 % - which was the one chosen by Manuel Peña and Antonio Torreblanca, sound technicians of El Hombre y la Tierra) is very stable to extreme temperature changes and is built like a tank, but sporting the quality and thoroughness of a Swiss watch, boasting the quartz generated Neopilot 50/60 Hz system of synchronization to cinematographic cameras, as well as being able to work both with the external ATN-3 supply source and with 12 cylindrical D batteries inside. Sennheiser MKH 816T professional directional microphone, the model used by Manuel Peña and Antonio Torreblanca to record live outdoors sound, connected to the Nagra 4.2 with a three pin XLR cable. Appeared in 1975 and featuring a weight of 350 g, 55.6 cm in length and a diameter of 1.9 cm, it was one of the first superdirectional microphones launched into market, with a low impedance capsule design making it virtually immune to high humidity and condensation, and the typical special preamplifier for condenser microphones, built-in within its casing, and enabling the transmission of the signal through a cable. This kind of microphones only use resonators in the extreme high frequencies (where coloration phenomenon is not important), so they´re by far the best ones regarding fidelity and realism in the outdoors sound capturing, certainly extraordinary, with the added bonus of an excellent reproduction of the transient sounds. It was used in a lot of chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra at a speed of 38 cm/sec to achieve maximum feasible qualities sound registers on wildlife and nature locations. A Rycote windshield for professional Sennheiser MKH 816T similar to this was used by Manuel Peña and Antonio Torreblanca in different chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra. This accessory (completely surrounding both the microphone and its connector, creating a mass of still air around the mic) gives a great protection against noise brought about by strong winds, enabling its reduction up to 25 dB, which was specially useful during the shooting of El Hombre y la Tierra chapters made in Canada (Nahanni and Kluane National Parks) and Alaska, whose sound takes were made by Manuel Peña. Since the human factor was and goes on being the key element for the quality of sound recordings, a top-notch monophonic recording made during fifties, sixties and seventies by a qualified sound technician or engineer, can sound better than a CD, SACD or DVD-Audio recorded in late nineties or during the first decade of XXI Century with much more sophisticated and expensive means. And that is exactly what happened with the recordings made with Nagra III NP and Nagra 4.2 by Manuel Peña (a great sound technician and collaborator of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente) who made the sound recordings of all the 124 chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra Series (filmed in Venezuela, Spain, Canada and Alaska) between 1974 and 1980, without forgetting the invaluable help of Antonio Torreblanca and Manuel Barroso, who also cooperated with Félix in the sound side in some of his programs. It´also important to bear in mind that both the Nagra III NP and the Nagra 4.2 are professional full track recorders in which the 1/4" (6.35 ) tape is recorded on the whole width of its cellulose acetate surface, in only one way, so the quality and fidelity of the sound obtained are excellent. In the same way as happens with the digitally remastered impressive image quality of El Hombre y La Tierra DVD discs made by Divisa Ediciones frame by frame from the original 35 mm cinematographic chemical emulsions rolls (both the "normal" edition and the one recently launched into market in luxurious box for collectors), far superior to everything available before, both in VHS tapes and in youtube, the original 1/4 inch (6.35 mm) analogue tapes recorded in Hi-Fi with professional reel to reel Nagra tape magnetophones and also wisely kept through almost thirty years by Marcelle Genevieve Parmentier, has made possible Divisa Ediciones to digitally remaster such original sound, restoring the music, the effects and the narrations, mixing it all again to get top sound quality, as well as reducing to zero the residual noise inherent to every professional tape recorder (though in the Nagra III and 4.2 it was exceedingly low, because they were the elite of the portable recorders of its time, along with the Stellavox models) making possible today, more than thirty years later, the choice of two kinds of two very high quality digital sound listening when watching El Hombre y la Tierra DVD discs: a) Top-notch Digital Hi-Fi monoaural sound; b) Very good Digital Dolby 5.1 sound created from the original digitized and restaured Hi-Fi monophonic. Professional condenser directional MKH 816T microphone with its Rycote windshield and wool container. It was optimized for live recordings in outdoors locations and the sound quality achieved by this legendary microphone was so remarkable, that it was used during eighties by the Audubon Soctiety for the recording of sound registers produced by different species of birds, and even John Feith, the engineer that designed the noise reduction filter for Sony, is currently a enthusiast user of it. This combination was the outdoors world reference throughout the second half of seventies and well inside eighties, (until later models as the Sennheiser MKH 70 microphone sporting roughly half the weight, more accuracy and even more reduced levels of distorsion, were progressively replacing it), which gives an idea of the impressive level of sound quality craved for in every location and climate by the El Hombre y la Tierra team directed by Dr. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente. Antonio Torreblanca used highly skilfully the Nagra 4.2 connected to profesional directional Sennheiser MKH 816T microphone covered by a Rycote windshield to record all kind of natural ambient sounds in different chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra series, specially the ones dealing with the Iberian Wolf and filmed on River Dulce Valley, near the village of Pelegrina (Guadalajara), where Manuel Peña also took part in the sound register side. It must be underlined that David Attenborough also used the Nagra 4.2 for the sounds recording in its series on wildlife for the BBC Life on Earth (1979), adding the updating enabling the SMPTE timecode recording at the beginning of the eighties, though shortly after, he chose the Nagra-IV-S stereo with which aside from the built-in pilottone crystal synchronizing, it was possible the timecode recording since 1984. Therefore, it´s clear that in the same way as happened regarding image quality with his big Arri and Mitchell 35 mm cinematographic cameras, Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente attained the best sound quality available in the world with portable equipments until his death in 1980, making use of the best Nagra reel to reel professional tape recorders and being assisted by highly expert sound technicians like Manuel Peña and Antonio Torreblanca, getting a highly natural and dynamic sound featuring great definition, tonal neutrality and remarkable accuracy in the obtainment of the most delicate microinformations and all kind of details of different nature and wildlife locations. The internal construction of the Nagra III NP reveals a painstaking care in every aspect related to the high accuracy mechanics and its decisive influence in the sound, without forgetting the impeccable thoroughness in the welding points (a key side to maximize the top-notch quality sound performance). In this other image of the innards of the Hi-Fi monophonic Nagra III NP we can see the circuitry made with very high quality audiophile components. The analog cicuitry topology of both the Nagra III NP and the Nagra 4.2, handcraftedly made without any compromise, with exquisitely chosen electronic components, is very apparent while listening to these El Hombre y la Tierra DVD discs, whose sound realism makes us feel the emotion of the live recording experienced by Félix and his collaborators more than three decades ago, since it is a crystal clear sound reproducing in a very truthful way the acoustic atmosphere in the middle of nature of each one of the places where a live recording for every chapter was made, with a minimal degree of auditive fatigue after a lot of hours relishing these audiovisual troves in DVD format. Image of the Hi-Fi monophonic Nagra 4.2 showing the inner area of both its upper and lower area. In the same way as in the Nagra III NP, it excels because of its great beauty of design, the lavish abundance of aluminum and a mechanizing precision inherent to Swiss watch manufactures, made with long lived noble metals able to endure a hard outdoors professional use for decades. An inside detail of the Nagra 4.2 lower area in which highlight a very refined transistors electronics, a brainstorm by the genius Stefan Kudelski, exceedingly high quality audiophile components chosen because of their sound virtues after a number of listening hours, and a hugely sophisticated circuitry for the time merging a truly high fidelity sound personality with very advanced assembly techniques. A faultless construction, guaranteeing the preservation of its efficiency for many years. It´s important to bear in mind that though logically at present, already within XXI Century, a very high percentage of professional sound recording equipments are digital, it isn´t less true that a lot of sound engineers and technicians along with experts on sound effects, currently prefer using professional analog reel to reel Nagra tape devices for recording sounds with very wide dynamic range, which clearly proves the huge realism of the sound register, the true reproduction of the acoustic atmosphere where the recording was made and the live feeling they achieve, as well as being superior when tackling unexpected signal overloads. It´s likewise a sound image sporting an indescribable realism in the different sound planes, keeping a flawless stability irrespective of the listening volume, something that can be uttterly enjoyed with Home Cinema equipments, thanks to the excellent digitization implemented by Divisa Ediciones from the extraordinary original monophonic Hi-Fi sound takes made by Manuel Peña and Antonio Torreblanca with portable high end Nagra III NP and Nagra 4.2 on 1/4 ´(6.35 mm) analog tapes. Almost twenty years would have to elapse after the demise of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente until Chris Watson, probably the most important expert in the history of recording of sound for documentary films on wildlife and nature could improve the sound quality attained by Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente in El Hombre y La Tierra (1974-1980) in the David Attenborough´s The Life of Birds (1998) and The Life of Mammals (2002) series made for the BBC, respectively using the 16 bit solid state recorder and player Nagra ARES-C with Sigma-Delta AD/DA conversor and 16, 24, 32 and 48 kHz sampling frequencies with internal timecode and the Nagra DII with integrated 24 bit AD/DA converters, sampling frequency of up to 96 kHz stereo and obtention of the greatest dynamic range with a professional portable sound recorder, enabling to record a wider variety of sounds and using a significantly higher sound percentage, saving post production costs, and also featuring a built-in timecode. However amazing it may seem, Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente was sure that future audio market would greatly be defined in audiovisual terms and along with the maximum feasible image quality he also looked for the excellence regarding sound quality, both in the recording and playback of it. Therefore, both the users of large size plasma, LCD and LED TV Screens and the owners of Home Cinema Full HD equipments will relish not only a huge image quality sporting the excellent aesthetic qualities (colours saturation, exceptional sharpness, etc) inherent to the cinematographic 35 mm chemical emulsions, but also an impressive sound quality both when the main characters are the different animals and when Félix speaks, an utterly new experience now available to all the persons who watched the El Hombre y La Tierra TV Series during seventies, eighties and nineties in TV and VHS tape alike with a very inferior audiovisual quality which was at light years distance of the extraordinary quality of image and sound featured by these wonderful new DVD discs made by Divisa Ediciones. HUGE MEDIATIC IMPACT IN SPAIN AND MANY OTHER COUNTRIES OF THE FIVE CONTINENTS AND EVERLASTINGNESS OF HIS MESSAGE Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente made a tremendous impact both in the Spanish society and other millions of people living in different countries of the globe, by means of his very abundant appearances in a number of TV programs in late sixties and during seventies (stages which had been preceded by not less influent radio broadcast weekly programs on animals and nature), where he displayed his colossal knowledge on different zoological species both from the Iberian Fauna and from other continents alike, and he showed his millions of TV watchers the huge passion and stubborness with which he defended his conservationist and ecological ideas, his strenuous endeavours up to the last drop of his stamina to save animals in danger of extinction, his utter conviction and mastery on the topics he dealt with, his inexhaustible working capacity, his persistence steadily being the man assuming more risks to protect his teammates (for instance, during the shooting of anacondas rescue in Venezuela in one of the chapters of El Hombre y La Tierra, he´s always who takes each huge Eunectes murinus by the head and neck, a highly jeopardous action, as would be dramatically shown in the famous scene in which one of the powerful anacondas is about to kill him after loosing his grab and trying to bite Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente´s head, though he manages to push himself backwards in the last moment), his environmental concerns, his lifetime struggle for creating protected natural spaces and National Parks conceived as shrines for animals, his incredible enthralment and accuracy on speaking - always improvising without using any script or sheet of paper with data- always finding the appropriate word without repeating, putting all of his soul in everything he said on his beloved animals, the way in which he was identified as the pack leader by wolves, his love for children and so many more things. His message paid off, people haven´t forgotten him and more and more youngsters and adults alike are increasingly interested in the figure of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, a man of huge scientific and human stature whose remembrance goes on alive, because its message paid off and his flame shall never extinguish and whose pith has been masterly explained by Benigno Varillas in his great book Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente: His Life, A Message of Future, a 761 pages work that was very recently showed up on March 12, 2010 in trhe Ministry of Environment, Rural Environment and Sea Environment by the author, Marcelle Genevieve Parmentier and Odile Rodríguez de la Fuente, proving that thirty years after his death, the great Spanish naturalist and zoologist is more alive than ever, and which in my viewpoint makes up an indispensable reference for all those wishing to delve deeply into Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente life and work, along with a lot of sides regarding his character and unknown till now details on his biography, together with features clearly proving his very wide historical scope as a visionary man who anticipated in almost 40 years, since the beginning of sixties as to the tackling of ecological, environmental and scientific topics which would bring about a great social awareness already within the XXI Century. The first sample of this book was given in Poza de la Sal (Burgos) to Policarpo de la Fuente, Dr. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente´s childhood great friend, by Benigno Varillas. " I do remember that when I was a child, after having gone to the high barren plateaus of Poza de la Sal, my village, and already coming back home beyond evening, with the first stars, the village smelt in a remarkable way. It was the chimneys fire which then smelled of charcoal, boxwood trees, waterproofed cloths, firewood. The village smell, maybe merged with the baked bread smell and the somewhat acid and warm smell of the domestic livestock. The smell my village had every time I returned in the evenings touches me right down to the bottom of my soul ". Poza de la Sal (Burgos). 2010. Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza. WORLD TOP AUTHORITY IN THE KNOWLEDGE ON A LOT OF PREY BIRDS Dr. Felix Rodriguez de la Fuente holding his famous Peregrine Falcon "Durandal" (Falco Peregrinus). The great naturalist was one of the scientists signing in 1954 the Spanish Society of Ornithology. From this platform and thanks to the field studies he personally implemented, it was possible to protect both the Falcon Peregrine and the night prey birds in Spain in 1966, something for which was also highly instrumental the 1963 International Congress for the Protection of the Preying Birds in Caen (France), where he displayed his extraordinary research on the populations of Peregrine Falcon in Spain, an event very enhanced by Dr.Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente through his widespread worldwide relationships with other falconers and biologies (for instance, Michel Terrasse, VicePresident of Birdlife France was a great friend of his) fighting for attaining a change of mentality on preying birds, who were sadly deemed till then as harmful animals, so they were often killed by the use of poisons, shooting (even paying money for it) and pesticides. Always working at the end of his tether, Félix managed to achieve his goals in this regard, turning Spain into the flagship country on the study of prey birds through a wide assortment of conservationist laws. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente was always enraptured by the exceptional beauty and features of the Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus), and his idyl with this fairly beautiful bird prey began during thirties, being a little boy in Poza de Sal (Burgos), his native village, when one day, being by a big pool located in the outskirts, he suddenly heard a whistle and saw a Peregrine falcon diving steeply from a great height at an astounding speed (it can reach up to 400 km/hour in its stoop) against a flying duck, killing it with the impact of its claws at high velocity, with the duck still alive falling by him. This experienced exerted a huge influence in the life of felix and his future deep interest and study of different preying birds, steadily being fascinated by the falconry art which enabled a man to hunt in synergy with an utterly free bird, which after the flight came back to its hand. The contact with this amazing bird prey (such is its beauty and elegenace that its variety Falco peregrinus brookei inspired director John Huston for the creation of the statue of the 1941 film Maltese Falcon, with Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor and Gladys George) was decisive during Dr Rodríguez de la Fuente´s youth to foster his interest in the world of animal etiology, which he´d subsequently stretch to many other species, birds and mammals alike. And Félix, wholly aware about the need of conveying this conservationist message on prey birds to society, began writing a lot of articles on the topic in various magazines and made his first feature film: Wings and Claws: The Wonderful World of Birds, which won some prices like the Golden Archer of Gijon Festival. Besides, he won an international award of falconry and started a life devoted to communication, both on radio and television, whose turning point was an incredibly successful appearance in the Spanish TV programme Fin de Semana, in which speaking on his beloved Peregrine Falcon "Durandal", he charmed millions of people. Dr Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente with a golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) perched on his right hand. This highly powerful superpredator praying bird, featuring a tremendous visual capacity equivalent to high quality 10x binoculars enabling it to spot preys at a distance of up to 1 kilometer, was the main character in a number of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente´s documentary films, dumfounding the TV watchers with astonishing hunting scenes like the mythical one in which a huge golden eagle dives over a kid located on a very high cliff and captures it with its claws, quickly taking it (already dead because of the piercing of the mammal´s head by the golden eagle talons) flying to its nest, an incredible flight which was recorded from various angles throughout its whole trajectory with three 35 mm cameras located on different surrounding crags, proving that thanks to the big buoyancy planes of its wings, the golden eagle is able to transport much heavier animals than itself, as well as being a great acrobat of the sky in spite if its great size, so it can likewise hunt very small birds in flight. On the other hand, Félix brought back to life in Spain the ancient art of hunting with golden eagle, which had almost extinguished both in Europe and rest of the world, with the main exception of the Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Mongolian eaglers, called Berkutchi or Kusbegi, who have developed the hunting with golden eagles (berkuts) for thousands of years, specially in the northern and central regions of Kazakhstan, a tradition and knowledge which was highly secretly transmitted from fathers to sons and which has historically converged on the Altai Mountains of Central Asia, with the city of Bayan Ulgii as a core. Dr Félix Rodriguez de la Fuente was always fascinated by the high art necessary to train a golden eagle and the ancestral synergy between it and man hunting together, as one of the oldest methods of food obtaining, something that Felix knew had been mastered during Bronze Age on the Eurasian steppes several thousand years ago (as is proved by petroglyphs from the Andronov Age) and in Western Europe during Middle Ages, and he finally managed to become a world class expert in the training of both eagles and falcons.The visual sharpness of the Golden Eagle is one of the most perfect optical systems in Nature, and enables this superpreying bird to spot its preys up to a distance of 1 km. RECOVERER OF THE ANCIENT ART OF FALCONRY Falconry had been an art extinguished in Spain for 150 years, and there wasn´t any living falconer in the Iberian Peninsula when Dr Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente began his activity in this scope. Already being a teenager in Poza de Sal, he often risked his life climbing with only a thick rope to reach the nest of different preying birds´ nests located in very high areas of mountains in order to watch them from a very short distance.So ardent was his craving for watching them from as few meters as posible, usually taking his father´s binoculars to also observe them while soaring at high altitudes. By dint of tenacity and perseverance, Félix Rodriguez de la Fuente managed to acquire high knowledge on falconry reading a lot of almost forgotten medieval books written during XIII and XIV Centuries by Prince Don Juan Manuel, Canciller Pero López de Ayala and Juan Sant-Fahagun, along with the work on hunting with goshawk made in XVI Century by Fadrique de Zuñiga and Sotomayor, etc, until he became a world referent on falconry during mid sixties, beginning to write a lot of currently indispensable works on falconry, daily living with and training a wide assortment of preying birds, specially the sublime Peregrine falcon, of which he was top authority in the world until his death in 1980. Therefore, Dr Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente became the link between the binomium Spanish medieval European works on falconry and two very significant works on falconry plus a further significant work also known by the great Spanish naturalist: De Arte Venandi cum Avibus written in 1248 by the Emperor Fredrick II of Hohenstaufen , another hallmark book on the study of birds of prey, and through his deep research on the etiology, ecology and population interactions of preying birds, he forestalled two decades to the great book Population Ecology of Raptors,written by Dr Ian Newton in 1979. With his historical and highly important treatises and divulgative documentary films on prey birds, Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente pioneered from 1959 the revival of falconry in Europe, what is technically known as practice of the hunting with birds (even before J.G Mavrogordato, the other then world class expert on Falconry,whose activity took place in USA and author in 1966 of A Falcon in the Field), some decades before the appearance of later relevant works on falconry like A. Oswald The History and Practices of Falconry (written in 1982),E.Ford´s Falconry, Art and Practice (written in 1992),Wakasuri Minogus´s Takajou ha kataru-Takajou Niwa Arie san wo shinobu (A Falconer Tells-In Memory of the falconer Niwa Arie) written in 1996, N.Fox´s Understanding the Birds of Prey (written in 1996), Viktor Mikhalovich´s Sokolinaya okhota (Falconry)(written in 2005),Joe Roy III´s Duck Hawking-The Art of Falconry written in 2004, the Apprentice Study Guide of the California Hawking Club (Written in 2004), etc. Dr Félix Rodriguez de la Fuente with his great friend Aurelio Pérez, a remarkable naturalist from Soria, known as ´Félix´s right hand´. Sadly demised in April 2008, Aurelio Perez was a world class expert in falconry and praying birds and worked for many years as Félix´s assistant during the shooting of the documentary films on praying birds, specially eagles and falcons. He was a great trainer of different species of eagles, hawks and also some mammals like wolves and genets. Aurelio Pérez also reached international celebrity through the training of the famous ´milana bonita´ appearing in the movie Los Santos Inocentes, directed by Mario Camus and inspired on a novel written by Miguel Delibes. Fauna Mundial, one of the most important encyclopedias ever made on animals and nature in general ever made in the world. It appeared at the beginning of seventies and achieved an unprecedented success, being translated into 14 languages and selling over 22 millions of volumes. This extraordinary work, also known in subsequent editions during eighties and nineties as Enciclopedia Salvat de la Fauna, was the fruit of a formidable team gathered by Editorial Salvat, whose driving force was Dr Rodríguez de la Fuente, who was the author of the texts, and other very young and thriving professionals of biology, naturalism, arts, and photography: - Javier Castroviejo (biologist) - Miguel Delibes (biologist). - Cosme Morillo (biologist). - Pedro de Andrés (biologist). - Carlos G. Vallecillo (biologist). - José Lalanda (sketcher). - Ernesto Cerra (sketcher). - Marcelo Socias (sketcher). - Miguel Angel L. Castaños (sketcher). - Des Barlett (photographer). - Bruce Coleman (photographer). - J. Burton (photographer). - Nino Cirani (photographer). - Gatti (photographer). - B. Hunter (photographer). - W.T.Miller (photographer). - N. Myers (photographer). - M. Quarishy (photographer). - E. Hosking. - J. Robert (photographer). - A. Root (photographer). - S. Trevor (photographer). - C. de Klemm (photographer). Fauna Mundial (Encyclopedia Salvat de la Fauna) was greatly made through a huge toil and effort at every moment, under the helm of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, whose working capacity was virtually impossible to follow, something which compelled the team to often work literally on the brink of exhaustion. For instance, there were times in which because of the very high standard of quality Félix wanted for this work, he made Miguel Delibes Castro (currently a prestigious and international level biologist and then very young) repeat his texts up to five times until they had the thoroughness wished by the Maestro. Working conditions during the development of this colossal work were very hard, because it was weekly sold in Spanish newstands through fascicles, week by week, with the different volumes being finally bound in volumes and a total figure of 3,000 pages, an amazing figure for that period, making up the complete illustrated encyclopedia. With this truly world class work, Salvat Editorial had tackled the greatest tour de force ever made in this domain, and the necessity of delivering a new fascicle each week for the huge quantity of purchasers brought about a lot of moments of maximum stress and fidgets. Félix seemed to be never tired, his energy was inexhaustible, and the brutal working rhythm he established put everybody through his paces, what turned the Encyclopedia Salvat of the World Fauna into an invaluable life school for every member of the team. The texts of this work are considered among the cream of the cream ever written on Fauna, and were greatly made by Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, who dictated them to a secretary that typed them, also painstakingly supervising the texts created by other members of the team, which were revised by Félix, line per line, word by word, until getting the tremendous level of accuracy he had a penchant for. The success of this legendary Encyclopedia Salvat of the World Fauna was such that all the successive editions made between beginning of seventies and late nineties were quickly sold out and coveted by the millions of Dr Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente´s admirers both in Spain and abroad, because it was translated into a lot of different languages and it is nowadays on display in vast majority of natural museums all over the world, as Miguel Delibes Castro had the chance to verify, year by year, after the demise of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente in 1980. On the other hand, apart from the high number of professional photographers hired by Editorial Salvat to make the pictures of this unique work, Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente supplied a great graphic documentation encompassing many colour slides made by him, which greatly fostered the work, without forgetting the wonderful drawings of animals both in black and white and colour and specific details of them made by the aforementioned professional sketchers, who fairly strengthened the quality of this editorial masterpiece (suffice it to say that in one of the pages devoted to the African elephant there are three sketches showing their milk teeth and molars´ evolution between 13 and 45 years), along with very interesting maps showing the geographic distribution of every species in different countries and continents, along with each scientific zoological name complemented by deep information on their physical features, habits, reproducing cycles, hunting techniques, longevity, etc. But there´s more. This Encyclopedia Salvat of the World Fauna is even more unique and outstanding because Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente wrote a tremendously detailed caption under each photograph and sketch (and there are many thousands) with an incredible knowledge and passion for Fauna. This is absolutely amazing: it is all the same if a three pictures series depicts a leopard hunting a young papion in the Amboseli National Park in Kenya (18 page chapter 17 titled The Conquerors of Firm Ground devoted to papions), if a sketch depicts the courting of Lavanco dabchick Podiceps cristatus with the ceremony of the discovery and the subsequent three phase greetings (Chapter 76 Eurasia/North America Volume), if the picture shows the Kalahari oryx (Chapter 28 The Arid Lands of the African Southwest), if it is a Przewalski horse in Mongolia (Chapter 56 Ungulates of the Steppes), or the famous white gorilla Copito de Nieve at the Barcelona zoo (wonderful 20 page Chapter 41 The Gorilla, explaining his drinking way wetting his hand following his fellows´ technique when they´re free in their natural habitat), or if the photograph shows the sublime Iberian Lynx hunting in ambush (Chapter 59 The Mediterranean Lynx). Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente had always both exceedingly deep knowledge and huge passion to spare, enabling him to write a highly informative caption under each photograph, an aspect in which the Encyclopdia Salvat of the World Fauna also excelled. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente writing down on a notebook inside a tent in Kenya, during one of the frequent trips he made to Africa - a continent which always enthralled him- during seventies. WORLD TOP AUTHORITY IN THE KNOWLEDGE ON THE IBERIAN WOLF Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente tightly hugging a wolf. His tremendous knowledge on this species of wild canids along with his direct contact with some wolf packs through decades, brought about that he was considered the boss by the rest of members of the group. This wolf would easily be able to kill Félix with a quick bite, but the mutual utter confidence between human being and the animal prevents it. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente with a cub of Iberian Wolf in Pelegrina (Guadalajara). The great love, admiration and knowledge on this species by the mythical Spanish naturalist was a decisive catalyst in its survival, because in late sixties only roughly 200 Iberian wolves remained in Spain and currently there are approximately 2,000. A very young Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente caressing a wolf. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente went beyond the initial studies on observation of wolves´ gestures carried out by the ethologist Schenkel in 1947 with colour illustrations (in which according to the different positions of the tale you could infer the menace degree with which it behaves regarding the other members of the wolf pack), and with the help of his great team of sketchers (Iván Fernández, Josechu Lalanda, etc), he developed a very deep scientific research on the body language of wolves, their various facial gestures and their meanings, along with the strong social hierarchy inside the pack, including the roles of dominance, submission and conduct patterns shown by means of olfactory, tactile, auditive and visual signals, together with pronounced submission guidelines inhibiting aggressive lethal fights, so enabling the survival of every member of the group. An impressive image of Dr Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente fairly enraptured while he is fondling a wolf and smelling it. An enraptured Dr Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente under the effects of a passion attack the day he listened to the world famous original soundtrack of the TV series "El Hombre y la Tierra" for the first time. The man by him is Antón García Abril, the great Spanish composer author of the music. Dr. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente shaking hands with King Juan Carlos I of Spain, while he´s bestowed one of the many awards he received during his professional lifetime. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente with a genet. Seeing images like this, it´s easy to understand why both during his life and after his passing away this man was called ´The Friend of the Animals´all over the world. THE MYTHICAL CUADERNOS DE CAMPO OF DR RODRIGUEZ DE LA FUENTE Within the exceedingly comprehensive production made by Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente during his lifetime, there´s one which was always considered as a unique trove of information on different species of animals: his world famous countryside notebooks made throughout two decades of hard work, depicting in a very painstaking way every aspect - even the most hidden ones- of each one of his most beloved creatures, which quickly sold out thirty years ago and are currently eagerly sought by naturalists, biologists, zoologists and enthusiasts of nature and its fauna as a whole. They were a total of 60 field notebooks each one featuring 52 pages, launched by Editorial Marín, each one being a masterpiece merging highly in-depth texts thoroughly describing every detail of the species dealt on with amazing passion and brutal knowledge: apperance and size, variations depending on the age, hunting techniques, ecologic distribution, geographic distribution, ways to detect them, ecological ranking, territoriality, feeding, mating periods and rituals, dwellings for reproduction, cubs behaviour and development, familiar cohesion, zoological classification, ecological role and ranking, cronological frame of the reproduction cycles, natural enemies, speed and resistance, acoustic signals, hierarchy, corporal language, etc, it all being lavishly complemented by a large assortment of top-notch colour drawings, diagrams, schemes, statistics and bar graphics, geographical maps, etc. The launching into market approximately thirty years ago by Editorial Marín of the Cuadernos de Campo of Dr Rodríguez de la Fuente represented a milestone both in the history of naturalism and ecologist movement. However incredible it may seem, these field notebooks are currently, already in the second decade of the XXI Century, looked for as jewels by biologists, naturalists, etc. In this image we can see the 60 little volume complete collection of Cuadernos de Campo of Dr Rodríguez de la Fuente, thirty years after the death of the Maestro. Photo: José Manuel Serrano Esparza. Front cover of the number 1 of the Cuadernos de Campo of Dr Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, dedicated to the Lynx. The legendary sight of the Lynx.- Since ancient times the lynx has been referred to with legends linking it to practically supernatural powers. As a matter of fact, its named is based on Linceo, a mythological character able to see through the objects. Albeit evidently the lynx sight doesn´t pierce the matter, it features such a sharpness that it makes out its possible preys at large distances, as was proved by Lindeman in his famous field tests and which are schematically depicted here. Ecological Distribution.- The Mediterranean or Iberian Lynx occupies currently a unique and exclusive biotopus within our Peninsula: the impenetrable formations of thicket and Mediterranean wood, needing indeed a great vegetable covering to survive, which it only finds nowadays in the unaltered maquis, garrigas and shady places of our central and Andalusian mountain ranges. On top left: Mediterranean wood: The most distinctive vegetal species of the bioma occupied by the Lynx are likewise the most representative of our Peninsula. Middle: Mediterranean thicket and wood. On low left: Cork oak. On low middle: oak grove On low right: Madrone and broom. The Lynx cubs.- They´re drab and rather clear throughout the two first months, also featuring scarcely developed whiskers and very thin brushes. From the fifth month of existence, they become very speckled. Only the adult ones sport the long panaches and beards. Cachorro de 1/2 Mes. Dependen de la Madre: 1/2 month cub. They depend on the mother. Ojos abiertos a los 8 / 10 días: Opened eyes eight or ten days after birth. Madurez sexual altera el ritmo del crecimiento: Sexual maturity alters growth pace. Peso al nacer 200 / 300 gramos: Weight at birth 200 / 300 g. 1/4 cachorros por parto: 1/4 cubs per delivery. Meses: Months. Juegos a partir de los dos meses: Playing since they are two months old. Cachorro de 4 meses: 4 months cub. Front cover of the number 4 of the Cuadernos de Campo of Dr Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, dedicated to the Night Preying Birds. Appearance and Dimensions Eagle Owl (Bubo Bubo) Height: 65-72 cm. Weight: 2500-3000 g. Wing: 41.5 - 48 cm. Wingspan: 155 -180 cm. Beak: 4 - 4.7 cm. Tarsus: 6.5 - 8 cm. Tail: 22 - 28.5 cm. Very big, with facial panaches. Tawny and drab mottled plumage. Red-orange eyes. Long-eared owl (Asio Otus) Height: 35-39 cm. Weight of the male: 250 g. Weight of the female: 300 g. Wing of the male: 27.6 - 31 cm. Wing of the female: 27.5-32 cm. Wingspan: 85-100 cm. Beak: 2.5 - 2.8 cm. Tarsus: 3.5 . 4 cm. Tail: 13.2 - 15.3 cm. Medium size. Featuring panaches. Elongated head, not rounded like the carabo. Yellow eyes. The vermicular array of the ventral areas is cross-shaped. Screech-Owl (Otus scopus) Height: 20-21 cm Weight: 78-92 g. Wing of the male: 14.4 - 16.4 cm. Wing of the female: 14.4 - 16.6 cm. Wingspan: 49 - 54 cm. Beak: 1.7 - 1.8 cm. Tarsus: 2.5 - 3 cm. Tail: 6.3 - 7 cm. Small, with ears. Highly vermiculated grey drab. It is more elongated than other small owls. On the left.- Grande y rechoncho: Big and chubby. Plumaje muy mimetico: Very mimetic plumage. On the right.- "Orejas" muy largas: Very elongated ears. "Orejas" no muy visibles: Not very visible "ears". Muy pequeño: Very small. Cabeza redondeada: Rounded head. Disco facial muy marcado: Rather pronounced facial disc. Fase gris: Grey face. Fase parda: Drab phase. Tawny Owl (Strix aluco) Height: 37-46 cm. Weight of the male: 331- 490 g. Weight of the female: 336 - 495 g. Wing of the male: 24.5 - 27.3 cm. Wing of the female: 25.5 - 27.5 cm. Wingspan: 90 - 100 cm. Beak: 2.7 - 2.9 cm. Tarsus: 3.4 - 4.5 cm. Tail: 14.5 - 16.5 cm It features the same size as the Buho Chico, but with rounded profiles, without ears and with black eyes. They can be drab or greyish colour. Barn Owl (Tyto alba) Height: 33 - 39 cm. Weight: 330 g. Wing of the male: 26.5 - 29 cm. Wingspan: 91 - 95 cm. Beak: 2.3 - 3 cm. Tarsus: 5.5 - 6.2 cm. Tail: 11 - 12.5 cm. It is very white on the ventral areas and golden on the dorsal ones. A few of them feature cinnamon colour. Its eyes are black and his face white. Disco facial muy marcado: Highly pronounced facial disc. Muy blanca: Very white. En edificios: in buildings. Little Owl ( Athene noctua) Height: 22 - 27 cm. Weight: 124-198 gr. Wing of the male: 15.2 - 16.9 cm. Wing of the female: 15.6 - 17.7 cm. Wingspan: 57 - 61 cm. Beak: 1.8 - 2.1 cm. Tarsus: 2.9 - 3.4 cm. Tail: 7.5 - 8.3 cm. It is small and tubby, with a big head. It has yellow eyes, whitish belly and drab speckled chest. ¡Muy abundante! : Very abundant! Pequeño y rechoncho: Small and tubby. 1 Localización acústica: Acoustic spotting The Weapons of the Night Hunter (Behaviour) On starting the hunt, owls remain motionless on their lookouts, listening to the noises made by rodents while they´re moving and eating. Owls are able to spot the preys to capture them in full darkness. Atención: Paying attention. Penachos plegados: Folded panaches. 2 Localización óptica: Optical locating. Usually, after spotting the rodent through its ear, the owl tries to locate its position. The stereoscopic sight enables the owl to accurately know the distance between it and the rodent. 3 Hunting flight Once it has spotted the location of the prey, the owl dashes into it with powerful and deep wing strokes ending in a sliding with its wings half folded. The structure of its plumage becomes the flight soundless. Silueta aerodinámica: Aerodynamic silhouette. 4 Capture The capture is always made with the talons, with close with a mathematical precision on the victim body. Death is brought about by pressure and wound in vital organs. Hunting Techniques To practical effects, every night preying owl follows the same guidelines of predatory behaviour: in the evening they shake off the drowsiness of its daily immobility and set about a silent flight towards their lookouts and watchtowers, in the midst of the hunting territories. From there, they spot their possible preys through their ears. Once they have accurately determined the location of the victim, they appraoch without making the slightiest noise and dive over it. The fearful traps of the powerful claws of barn owls and owls will close on the mouse or rabbit without these have had any chance of becoming aware of the attack. Eagle Owl: Though he usually hunts stalking, highly often he doesn´t wait for the preys being at its reach and begins a plundering flight, even hitting the underbrushes with its wings in order that the rabbits scare away, so being able to capture them. Vuelo prospector: Exploration flight. Ataque: Attack. Tawny Owl: It always hunts from a lookout. Once it has spotted the prey, it plunges over it in a very abrupt but silent dive, in the same way than all the night preying birds. Ataque súbito: Sudden attack. Captura: Capture. Vuelo prospector: Exploration flight. Cernido: Hovered flight. Ataque vertical: Vertical attack. Barn Owl: It often hunts in open fields, using sometimes a very peculiar technique: it flies over the sown lands at low altitude and when he detects a rodent or an amphibian, it hovers to spot its exact location and falls flat. It all happening at a height not exceeding 2 meters. Persecución aérea: Aerial chase. Hawk Owl: It doesn´t only resemble the sparrow hawk because of its shape and name but also behaving as a diurnal preying bird as to its hunting techniques; it lineally persecutes its prays - most times birds - and hunts them in full flight. Atalaya: Lookout. Picado: Diving. Little Owl: It often hunts in broad daylight, mainly birds it reaches thanks to the speed of its dives and evolutions made at a low altitude over the ground. Persecución Lineal: Linear chase. Front cover of the number 3 of Dr Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente´s Cuadernos de Campo dealing with the wolf. Wolf Appearance It is the biggest, most energetic and popular of the European mammal predators. Both robust and slender, its silhouette portraits the inexhaustible runner and efficent killer: its deep chest, its warped loins and the long and muscled limbs are traits of the champions of endurance; its convex skull, its upright and watchful ears, its transparent eyes and its protruding snout indicate sharp ear, keen eyesight and infallible smell. Its massive jaws and powerful dentition - providing its face ´an oriental appearance´ show an exceedingly lethal apparatus. Thanks to so high psychic and physical qualities, the wolf has been able to survive in spite of the ruthless war against him made by man. Its coat features remarkable individual and racial differences ranging from the white Artic wolves to the melanic ones from the North American woods. In the Iberian wolf the chromatic shades vary from greyish drab - sporting rather silvery hues- and the reddish drab, with high percentage of ocre tones. In the typical scheme of the Iberian wolf we must underline the black lines of the front limbs, which have given the race its name - signatus - , the face outline in which there´s an alternance between dark and light tones - with a pronounced white stripe around its lips-, the large greyish spot of the withers - resembling a saddle - , the tuft of black hairs on the tail tip, and finally the much clearer back of its ears. Body Length: 1.10 - 1.40 m. Tail: 30 - 40 cm. Withers height: 75-80 cm. Peso: 35-45 (maximum 65 kg). Perfil Cóncavo: Concave outline. Envés Auricular (Llamativo): Ear Back (showy). Melena: Mane. Caso Excepcional Lobo Muerto en Polonia Alcanza Peso Límite 90 kg: An exceptional case: Dead Wolf in Poland reaches a maximum weight of 65 kg. Silla de Montar: Saddle. Diseño Facial: Facial Profile. Diseño del "Signatus": Outline of the ´Signatus´. Vientre Pálido: Pale Belly. Cola, Mancha Central Negra: Tail, central black spot. Cola, punta negra: Tail, black tip. Punta Cola Hasta el Corvejón: Tail tip reaching the hock. Ecological Distribution: Nowadays, finding a wolf in nature turns out to be specially difficult. The searcher managing to locate it can notch a true success. The scarce samples still living in the Iberian Peninsula remain limited to the most barren and least travelled areas of the northwest quadrant. At present, he can be greatly considered to be a mountain inhabitant, but this isn´t its natural biotope at all. Some decades ago, wolf was widespread all over the Iberian Peninsula, occupying every classic bioma of our geographic space: salt marshes, oak and cork oak trees woods, Mediterranean wood, even half-deserted like the Southeast ones, cerealistic steppes, caducifoious woods, conifer woods and high mountain. In all of its habitats wolf has featured an impressive ability to move from one place to another, with operating ranges of up to 100 km per day; such an autonomy and his relative nomadism prvides the deceptive feeling that the quantity of wolves is bigger, since the same specimen can be detected in different locations during a short elapse of time. Therefore, we must state that wolf occupies - or at least can occupy - every large bioma of our country. The graph shows the staying time in each of the various depicted biotopes. Montaña: Mountain. Bosque de Coníferas: Conifer wood. Bosque caducifolio: Caducifolious wood. Bosque Mediterráneo: Mediterranean wood. Estepa: Steppe. Ríos, Lagos y Marismas: Rivers, lakes and salt marshes. Costa: Coast. Wolf Cubs, Young Wolves and Adult Wolves: The broods are composed of a variable number of cubs - between 1 and 11-, more commonly between 4 and 7 pups. At this moment, their fur coat is shot and black and they´re called wolf cubs. The suckling period lasts between 3 and 5 weeks during which the male feeds the female by regurgitating the foods. After the weaning, the she-wolf stays by the cubs and they all are fed by the male - which is sometimes helped by the wolf pack - without moving away from the surroundings of the lair during the three long months encompassed by cubs´ growth. Wolf cub up to 5 weeks. After three months and coinciding with the first short trips of the family, the wolf cubs become young wolves when they change their pelt into another one greatly resembling the summer fur coat of their progenitors. Young Wolf from the end of lactation to late summer. Eight months after their birth, in full winter, the young wolves appear as stout as adult wolves, albeit covered in a rougher pelt in which both the facial spots and the saddle are less pronounced. Young Wolf 1st Winter. Young Wolf 2nd Summer. After their first year of life, the young wolves lose their winter fur and they appear indistinguishable from the adults, covered with the short and tight summer pelt. Summer 1st Winter Fur. On reaching their first and a half years after birth, the young wolves become adult ones. Speed and Resistance: While running, wolf is slower than a lot of its preys. As we indicate in the sketch, even seemingly clumsier animals -like the muflon- or smaller - like the fox - are able to develop a quicker run. The theoretical antilogy that a relatively slow animal manages to feed upon other being faster is solved when we learn its hunting tecniques, and above all its huge resistance in the running, enabling him its pace through hours, in such a way that they wear out any of its preys. Uninterrupted running wolf journeys of up to 200 km without any stop have been verified. Everything they lack as sprinters is made up for by its performance as indefatigable long distance runners. Lobo: Wolf Zorro: Fox Muflon: Muflon Gamo: Buck Galgo: Greyhound Liebre: Hare Venado: Stag The year of the wolf: Pelo Invierno: Winter fur. Pelo Verano: Summer fur. Clan Familiar: Familiar clan. Celo: Heat. Gestacion: Gestation. Lactancia: Lactation. Lobeznos y Lobatos: Wolf cubs and Young Wolves. Manadas: Wolf Packs. Aislados: Isolated. Aislados Grupos en Cubiles: Isolated Groups in Lairs. Semana: Week Dos Mudas: Two moltings. Peso en kg: Weight in kg. Evolucion del Peso de los Lobeznos: Evolution of wolf cubs weight. Semanas: Weeks. Denticion: De leche 28 piezas: Dentition: 28 milk teeth. Lobezno: Wolf cub. Adulto 42 piezas: Adult 42 teeth. Lobo: Adult wolf. Incisivos: Incisives Caninos: Canines Premolares: Premolars Molares: Molars. ACOUSTIC WAR BETWEEN NIGHT PREYING BIRDS AND RODENTS: EL HOMBRE Y LA TIERRA STRENGTHENS EVEN MORE ITS POSITION AS UNDISPUTED WORLD FLAGSHIP REGARDING QUALITY OF IMAGE, SOUND AND COMMENTS AMONG THE DOCUMENTARY SERIES DEVOTED TO WILDLIFE AND NATURE, EVEN CLEARLY BEATING NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC AUDIOVISUAL PRODUCTIONS Between 1974 and 1980 Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente achieved with his El Hombre y la Tierra series qualitative levels of image, sound and depth of content unknown till then in the scope of documentary films on fauna and nature, using for it professional 35 mm movie cameras and high end reel to reel Nagra III NP and Nagra 4.2 hi-fi monophonic tape recorders, it all being complemented by his own commentaries full of huge knowledge and passion, which brought about the astonishment and admiration of Keenant Smart (Director of the Nature Unit of National Geographic), because until then the best documentary films on animals were made with 16 mm - or very few times in Super 16 mm- Bolex cameras and Kern Switar primes or Angenieux zooms. The arrival of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente and the first chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra shot in 1974 in the Venezuelan jungle with heavy 35 mm professional cinematographic cameras made a sensation within the international naturalistic and biological domain, which would be subsequently backed up by further chapters on Iberian Fauna with such species as the wolf, the golden eagle, Spanish Imperial Eagle, the lynx, the genet, etc. Nevertheless, there are in my viewpoint three chapters in which El Hombre y la Tierra reaches even more extraordinary heights which will be exceedingly difficult to beat in future: the ones devoted to the Iberian night preying birds (eagle owls, long-eared owls, tawny owls, screech owls, barn owls and little owls) in their acoustic war against the rodents in the middle of the darkness. With his typical mastery exhibiting his documentary films as stories, Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente shows us with images and sounds how in full night darkness the night preying birds located on their lookouts try to spot through their ears the rodents to hunt them, while these strive after feeding themselves making the fewest possible movements and noise to avoid to be detected. Besides, these chapters make up a prodigy of cinematographic technology and sound engineering, beginning with the installation of minute short wave radio transmitters who are put inside one of the long tail feathers of different species of night preying birds chosen beforehand, whose location is monitorized by Carlos Sanz (then a student of Biological Sciencies and currently a prestigious naturalist) with a short wave receptor Falconer 4 enabling the tracking of the night preying birds up to a distance of 8 kilometers. Later on, a 3 meter hide is built, and Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, a camera (often Teodoro Roa) and the sound expert Manuel Peña spend a lot of whole nights inside it. We are watching fascinating moments which were an international turning point in these kind of documentary films. Teodoro Roa´s experience and talent with the 35 mm Arri camera and its cinematographic lenses, above all at full aperture, are really impresive, playing with the depth of field planes and a lot of different framings as a full-fledged master, making use of a very wide range of cinematographic techniques under fairly dim light conditions and attaining splendid results remarkably enhancing the stately beauty of the Iberian night preying birds that are consecutively appearing very concentrated and listening on the screen and subsequently hunting their preys in the midst of night darkness. The optical quality of the lenses at full aperture is incontestable. They´re extensively using the best cinematographic lenses available in the world then at their widest f stops, and it is very apparent in the amazing image quality, since however good a Full HD plasma, LCD or LED screen between 32 and 50 inches may be, if the quality of the lenses with which the image is taken don´t make the grade, is virtually unfeasible to get professional quality images. Likewise, the frequent use made of very sophisticated slow motion cinematographic techniques by the 35 mm movie camera operators of El Hombre y la Tierra render these eerie images even more dramatic and unique. On his turn, Manuel Peña makes a brilliant work, recording all the sounds with his professional reel to reel Nagra III NP hi-fi monophonic tape recorder with Neopilot sync to camera, having previously installed some microphones in different areas of the wood where the action is taking place. The usual background noise begotten by the combination of microphone and preamp (in the latter brought about both by its inherent noise and the noise signal called thermic noise) and disturbing the recording of low level sounds, have been reduced to negligible levels, praiseworthily holding sway over the phons and the ASA "A" area of frequency response. You can watch perfectly how the modulometer of the Nagra III NP tape recorder reaches intermediate intensity decibelic peaks when the rodents are eating and top levels when the night preying birds make noise on catching them with their claws, while the rodents cry. The quality of the recorded sound is top-notch. The sound engineers of Divisa Ediciones have taken maximum advantage of the original reduction up to practically insignificant levels of modulation noise, medium range distortions and tape background noise attained in the analog 1/4 inch (6.35 mm) reels by Manuel Peña with the Nagra III NP at a speed of 19,05 cm/sec during the original sound take (the most important key factor) more than thirty years ago, which proves once more than the labor of a professional sound technician and his working methods are fundamental to record an excellent live sound, along with the possibility of using microphones ( different to the ones in the camera) and high end filming and recording equipments (Nagra and Arri respectively) during the second half of seventies, perfectly synchronized by the Neopilot system. The spectator feels the live thrill, due to the flawless location of the sound image, in a Hi-Fi monophonic sound clearly going beyond the PCM stereo in terms of quality, thanks to the superb original sound takes made more than thirty years ago and to the professional digitization of the analog 1/4´(6.35 mm) tapes made by Divisa Ediciones, and boasts a sound quality slightly over many modern digital recordings of compact discs carried out with HDCD code/filter and on the threshold of the qualitative level obtained by Super Audio CD format through digital DSD coding. It´s an extraordinary Hi-Fi sound quality, comparable to the original Hi-Fi monophonic quality of sound of the different 16 minutes 1/4 ´ (6.35 mm) tapes recorded by expert British sound engineers (belonging to the shooting film) with each of the two professional Nagra III NP reel to reel recorders connected wireless to two cinematographic cameras (Arri 16 BL with Angenieux 12-120 mm f/2.2 with 400´ magazines) through Neopilot crystal synchronizing system and used during the early stages of the Get Back Sessions rehearsals in the Twickenham Studios at St Margarets, London, on January 3, 1969, which were edited thirty three years later by Yellow Dog Records in 2002 with the title The Beatles Stereo A-Cam B-Cam at Twickenham. January 3th 1969, availing themselves of the fact that during that specific day, both Nagra III NP recorders worked simultaneously, each one with its own microphones, so it was possible more than three decades later to synchronize the sounds from the analog tapes A and B recorded on that January 3, 1969 by each one of the Nagra professional magnetophones and get a remarkable binaural stereo effect, something which wasn´t possible with the rest of Nagra tapes of the Twickenham Get Back Sessions, because from January 4, 1969 till January 31 of that month (the date in which the recordings finished) the cinematographic cameras used the same audio feed. In these chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra devoted to the acoustic war between night preying birds and rodents. he quality/noise sound ratio, the frequency response waveform and the sound planes stratification are excellent. There´s a complete immersion of the listener into the existing ambient during the moments of the real live sound take, a kind of return to future in which personal experiences and emotions are shared with Félix and his collaborators, in the same way that the aforementioned Nagra recordings of the Beatles at Twickenham Studios make you believe that you are there, above all if you listen to them through headphones. This is Stefan Kudelski ADN sound. The stress reaches a lot of peak levels while the spectator watches and listens to the development of this acoustic war between night preying birds and rodents, and at the same time you can see how Félix, Manuel Peña and a camera operator are standstill inside the hide during complete nights, enduring very low temperatures, a climax being brought about with every attack of eagle owls, long-eared owls, screech owls, tawny owls, barn owls, little owls and hawk owls on mice, dormice, etc. Owing to the excellent sound amplification of the live take with microphones located in the wood and connected to the Nagra III NP Hi-Fi, we can listen to the sounds made by the rodents while they are eating, the flight of the night prey birds when they change their watchtowers to optimize the spotting of their preys, the lightning diving attacks over the rodents that are hunted, the moment in which the claws of each night preying bird pierce their victims´ bodies and how these ones cry during their last seconds of life. Once more, the technically exceptional original live sound take (on which everything depends to a great extent) has managed to get a fabulous precision in the faithful capturing of the sound atmosphere of the moment, perfectly dimensioned, with a very tangible sound stage, plenty of informative density and accuracy in the display of the different planes in which there are sounds, giving rise to great realism and an outstanding reduction of the auditive fatigue, since besides, the wholly metallic construction of the Nagra III NP guarantees both an impeccable structural integrity and an immunity with regard to all kinds of external vibrations. They are practically imperceptible sounds at the height of night darkness, but the ability of the Nagra III NP to record the decibelic low intensity acoustic signals with amazing definition turns out to be of invaluable help for the successful differentiation of the most various sounds sent forth by the diverse species of night preying birds and rodents, without forgetting the very pure and pronounced silences during the impasse moments fostering even more the sound personality of the professional monophonic take in High Fidelity. Later on, during the filming of El Hombre y la Tierra chapters shot in Canada (Canadian Fauna), Manolo Peña made in July of 1979 another exceptional work recording all kind of ambient sounds, animal sounds and machine sounds (piston engined hydroplanes, helicopters, jet engine driven boats, etc) in wonderful landscapes of the Nahanny National Park, Kluani National Park, Yukón Territory, Vancouver Island coast, etc, being one of the pioneers in the use of large windshield for external mike connected to his Nagra 4.2, significantly reducing the noise brought about by powerful winds frequent in these areas. Everything suggests that Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente perfectly knew that future digital technologies would enable this huge audiovisual quantum leap in quality with which both the current generation and the next ones will be able to watch his immense bequest on large Plasma, LCD and LED screens approaching to a theatre quality in image and sound alike. This man was truly extraordinary, irrepeteable and unforgettable. A multidisciplinar visionary that went more than three decades beyond his time and a deep humanist, very exacting in the work with his collaborators but mainly with himself, frequently at the end of his tether. It must be underlined that after Félix´s demise, in both the professional cinematographic domain and the audio high end scope, throughout eighties were used professional reel to reel Hi-Fi tape recorders featuring sound quality and specifications superior to the Nagra III, as the Nagra IV-S with Neopilot synchronization, the Nagra IV NQS-TC with timecode and separate heads for recording and playback (both of them with speed choices of 38, 19 and 9.5 cm/seg) and in a lesser percentage the fabulous Stellavox designed by Georges Quellet (sporting even further electronical miniaturization and mechanic accuracy) as the SP-8 and the SU-8, the sound quality, reliability and resistance to the toughest professional use of the Nagra III (an icon design by Stefan Kudelski which revolutionized the professional recordings of the Hollywood cinematographic industry since the beginning of sixties) was still so remarkable that a lot of scientists and naturalists went on using it in their experiments and field tests. To mention only an example, in 1986 the expert American ornithologist Douglas A. Nelson from the Research Center of Rockefeller University in Millbrook, New York, used a Nagra III at a speed of 19 cm/seg and coupled to Sennheiser MKH 816 microphone to record sounds emitted by field sparrows in 98 different areas, with the sound being subsequently transferred to a computer at a 20.8 kHz sampling frequency for its analysis by means of a special software program and further study, which enabled him to state that field sparrows (Pusilla del Spizella) integrate information of at least five different traits in the recognition of the song typical in its species, but give more importance to information from a constant feature and to the song frequency than to the information stemming from variant features. This way, it´s apparent that regarding sound quality, Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente used the best of the best available in the world until his death in 1980, and being aware about the huge significance of the original sound take, he looked for great sound technicians like Manolo Peña and Antonio Torreblanca to optimize the final results as much as possible, which he utterly attained, for together with an exceptional image quality, the El Hombre y la Tierra DVD discs enable to relish an audiophile Hi-Fi experience in digital monophonic sound or an excellent and very spectacular Dolby 5.1, it all thanks to the good work made by Divisa Ediciones sound engineers, almost thirty years after the chapters were made. CANADA: THE ICING ON THE CAKE OF AN EXCEPTIONAL CAREER Invited by the Government of Canada and with the support of the Service of Nature Protection of canada, the Department of Fishing and Environment of Canada, the Canadian Embassy in Madrid and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ottawa, Dr. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente filmed between 1979 and 1980 the 14 last chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra series in Canadá, being deeply impressed and infatuated by both the landscapes and the rich wildlife of this great country, which he masterfully depicted with amazing shootings among which highlight: a) Nahanni National Park.- Coming by aircraft from Whitehorse (capital of the Yukon Territory) El Hombre y la Tierra team lands on a little airport of Nahanni National Park and undertakes the ascension of the South Nahanni river (one of the most spectacular wild rivers of North America, being 540 km long and flowing into the Liard River, which on its turns feeds the McEnzie river that empties into the Glacial Arctic Ocean), with the aim of reaching the impressive Virginia Falls (96 metres, twice the height of Niagara ones ), travelling 250 km in three stages from a established point on board of some very fast stainless steel boats driving them 80 km/h upstream, thanks to their Berkeley jet engines able to attain such a speed against the current. It´s part of the very beautiful north section of the Canadian taiga, an area which hasn´t mostly been trodden by man, because the 476,560 hectares Nahanni National Park (declared World Heritage Site in 1978, a year before Félix´s arrival) is located on the virgin zone of Canada Northwest Territories and can only be explored by aircraft or fluvial vessels, since there isn´t any terrestial route or road linking it with Fort Simpson. It´s an area sporting a wide orographic variety: mountain ranges, rolling hills, high plateaus, incised valleys, canyons between 460 and 1200 m deep and an intricate labyrinth of caves inside its mountain ranges. The temperatures oscillate between extremes of 0º C and 27º C in July and August and -50º C during the winter months. We see a vegetation with profusion of firs and birches, along with an entanglement of rivers and meanders surrounding Nahanni river Basin, together with a rich fauna -made up by more than 40 species of mammals and more than 180 species of birds- of golden eagles, mooses feeding on subaquatic plants (one of them is photographed by Félix), beavers, trumpeter swans, giant uapiti elks, etc, without forgetting the species living in its boreal wood like caribous, grizzly bears, wolves, lynx, etc, and the ones inhabiting on its high summits like Dall´s sheep, Rocky mountain goats, etc. On the other hand, the waters of Nahanni river contain 16 different species of fish. The shooting conditions are rather tough, for the boats advance at full speed and Félix, Teodoro Roa and Alberto Mariano fight at the end of their tether to film all the landscapes and animals progressively appearing around both sides of the boats during their voyage through Nahanni river, so looking for maximum feasible stability, install a huge tripod on the deck of one of the boats with a 35 mm Arri camera on it, while they also film handheld with a second Arri 35 mm camera from another of the boats. The naturalists Carlos Llandres and Patrick Lowsey, who are also part of the El Hombre y la Tierra team, make likewise a praiseworthy labour helping in everything they can. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente is enraptured watching so much beauty, and explains everything we see with a tremendously lavish description of details and data of all kind. This man is a living computer, with a prodigious memory and very deep knowledge on Zoology, Biology and Animal Ethology. He lives every second with top passion and intensity, knowing as nobody how to transmit it to the audience. Félix is exceedingly fascinated by Canada. Suddenly, after some days of upstream navigation, they arrived at the very dangerous area of quick waters of Nahanni rivers, in the canyons, a very risky zone because of the presence of rapids with rocky outcroppings, where the old pioneers were bound to tow the canoes from the bank. The Nahanni, a wild river featuring a remarkable geological history, carved four deep canyons on the rock, keeping its excentric course. But Félix is with very experienced Canadian jet engined boat pilots, whose great knowledge of Nahanni river enables them to drive the vessels without touching either the rocky outcrops or the rolling stones shoals. Finally, after a three days voyage through Nahanni river against the current, they arrive at Virginia Falls, whose deafening noise fills everything. The sight is gorgeous. Teodoro Roa and Alberto Mariano enchant us with images shot from every direction, audiovisually revealing the Nature strength in one of its maximum expressions. The power and energy of the immense water torrent of Virginia Falls are awesome, in the same way as the mist impregnating a significant percentage of the zone. The Maestro is enthralled by emotion, joyful, astounded. Once and again, the boats move very near the massive water fall, while Teodoro and Mariano film this wonder of nature and treasure of Canada. Suddenly, the climax arrives when Teodoro Roa begins masterfully moving the zoom, making unforgettable close-ups of the Virginia Falls waters dropping en masse while framed by the mist (in the middle of the clangour recorded by the sound technician Manuel Peña with his Hi-Fi monophonic Nagra 4.2), and then there´s a merging of the Virginia Falls waters with the turbulent surface of Nahanni river waters, the chapter ending with further close-ups of the waters of Virginia Falls while a very nice music is heard as a background music. b) Grotte Valerie: Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente solves the mystery of the Frozen Cemetery of 116 skeletons of Dall sheep.- In 1979, during the stay of El Hombre y la Tierra team in the Nahanni National Park, Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente undertook one of the most risky and difficult enterprises of his life: the thorough inward exploration of the Grotte Valerie, a huge cave located inside the north wall of the First Canyon of Nahanni river, with a very arduous access, whose entrance is on a steep 300 hundred meters cliff and where the skeletons of 116 Dall sheep had been found during the previous years, all of them having died because of unknown reasons inside the cave, and featuring an antiquity of 2,500 years. Both the Grotte Valerie and its Great Room where were the 116 skeletons of Dall sheep had been discovered in 1972 by Jean Poirel, a remarkable Canadian explorer and parachustist, born in France and resident in Montreal, who had found 250 caves in Nahanni National Park during four expeditions made in 1964, 1970, 1972 and 1974, the most important one being Grotte Valerie, to which he gave his daughter´s name, and he also made a lot of significant cartographic maps, measuring of the length of a lot of caverns by means of highly accurate devices and topographic writing downs which paved the way for the strengthening of Nahanni National Park, whose main driving force was the Canadian Premier Pierre Trudeau. But the enigma surrounding the death of the 116 Dall sheep 2,500 years before went on unresolved, for the very low temperatures in Winter, Autumn and a good percentage of Spring, only enabled the secure access to the cave during the months of July and August, though always with a temperature inside the cave of -15º C resulting in quick hypothermias. Besides, its floor was very slippery, with a constant jeopardy of falls and accidents. The Dall sheep skeletons had been quickly marked and dated through the carbon 14 technique, but it hadn´t been possible an in depth investigation inside the Grotte Valerie, because of the hypothermias and the many logistic difficulties of conveying to the cave the very heavy lighting equipment necessary to properly illuminate it. Needless to say that the very dangerous working and staying conditions inside the cavern, wholly in darkness, with alternations of tunnels and very narrow passages featuring a height between 1 and 1,5 meters, made virtually impossible the transport of very big 35 mm movie cameras and their lenses, and above all of powerful and very heavy lighting appliances. There had been all kind of hypothesis in Canada on which had been the real cause of the death of so many Dall sheep, an authentic shambles in which 116 of them had died. They were all surmises and the riddle remained unexplained. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente had already gleaned information about Grotte Valerie, having had access to all the reports made on Grotte Valerie by both Jean Poirel and Canadian scientists, including the perfect numbering and dating of each one of the 116 Dall sheep skeletons, together with a black and white photographic dossier, and in June of 1979, once on Nahanni National Park with the El Hombre y la Tierra Team, and after having reconnoitering 250 km of the South Nahanni river on board of fast boats going upstream until reaching Virginia Falls, he decided to tackle the scientific research of Grotte Valerie and try to find an answer to a puzzle whose keys had been indecipherable for more than ten years. Therefore, El Hombre y la Tierra team got ready to fulfill a feat: the conveyance of almost a ton of lighting equipment (ten 800 watts quartzs, clamps, tripods, 100 square meters of cable, 2 autonomous quartzs of 650 watts, three batteries for the 650 watts quartzs, 4 front lamps, three chargers, 15 batteries of 2 volts and 60 amperes, a very comprehensive medical kit, etc) which coming from Vancouver on a plane, had arrived at Fort Simpson, and from there it had been transported in three flights towards El Hombre y la Tierra base camp in three flights by a little piston engined hydroplane, while the transfer of all the supplies for the mounting of the base camp and the fuel for the helicopter was implemented for three jet driven fluvial vessels. Once in the base camp, the approximately 1,000 kilos of lighting equipment had to be transported by helicopter towards the surroundings of the Valeria Cave, since it was impossible the landing of the aircraft on the steep 300 meters cliff on the river South Nahanni in which the entrance to the cavern is placed, so all the stuff had to be very accurately and carefully lowered in some trips by the helicopter with a big net linked to the aircraft by means of a cable. This risky adventure begins with the moving of the 1,000 kg of illumination equipment with some small piston engined planes and fluvial boats up to a camp made by El Hombre y la Tierra team on an area of nahanni National Park located at approximately 10 minutes by helicopter from the cliff in which the Valeria Cave is. Ten trips of the helicopter from the base camp to the cavern were needed to transport all the electric and cinematographic elements required for the filming, since Félix and his camera operators knew that to try to solve the enigma it was necessary to light everything with the maximum power feasible and also to shoot and document both the different areas of the cave and every Dall sheep skeleton, perfectly preserved in the Great Chamber of the Valeria Cave thanks to the very low steady temperatures that it has had for thousand years, with a high percentage of its galleries being frozen. The audience is given a clear idea of the difficulties and risks of this operation by the watching of the helicopter flying near the giant cliffs. Due to the rough orography of the ground, the aircraft can´t drop the members of El Hombre y la Tierra team on the entrance of the cave, so they have to reach it through a trail, and once there, the helicopter will unload all the equipment in a total of ten trips. The goings and comings of the helicopter are filmed. Bruce, its experienced Canadian pilot, with outstanding precision, forces his way between the many firs by the Valeria Cave entrance, without touching them, preventing the hanging net net with all the equipment fastened to the chopper with a cable from getting caught on the branches of any of them, and softly takes off all the equipment on a little shelf opening beside the mouth of Grotte Valerie. Highly showy utterly shots made by Alberto Mariano from bottom to top in which we can see the helicopter and the big net linked to the helicopter through a cable, clearly show the risks taken by Bruce, the aircraft pilot, whose trips from the main camp to the mouth of the Valeria Cave have a duration between 10 and 15 minutes. We often see the helicopter blades passing very near the rock walls of the imposing cliff. But the most strenuous thing is still to come: the conveyance of all that equipment (approximately weighing one ton) along 800 meters of the cave (whose total length is almost 2 km) until reaching the Great Chamber of Grotte Valerie, in which the frozen skeletons of 116 Dall sheep are. Everything is checked, specially the 15 large truck batteries (each one featuring a 30 kg weight) that have to make possible the lighting of the cave, whose very low internal temperatures considerably dwindle the duration of any artificial luminous source. All the members of El Hombre y la Tierra team are aware about the dangers of going into the cavern, because all the equipment has to be manually carried taking it on the shoulders with rucksaks under very hard conditions , often through very narrow passages, with a huge cold, on slippery terrain and the hypothermia constantly on the lurk. There´s also the risk that a member of the team could miss or be isolated because of any reason inside the cave, so they decide to mount three camps between its mouth and the Great Room of the Grotte Valerie. Dr. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente´s face reveals a huge anxiety. It´s perhaps the most difficult adventure in his whole lifetime and he strives after reducing as much as he can the risks for his collaborators. Félix is the first advancing, helped by some of his teammates, who tie down one of the heavy 30 kg truck batteries to the framework of his rucksack, and taking it on his back, he starts walking slowly through the Valeria Cave. Images show vividly the context of extreme roughness of this hauling for a courageous man who in spite of being 51 years old still has huge stamina and boundless perseverance. His example stirs the rest of the team members, who take more truck batteries and other different equipment, advancing slowly behind Félix. Each meter seems an eternity. Most times they must advance very strenuously. After a few minutes, many of them are almost exhausted. Cold has begun making an effect on them, but albeit more and more slowly, they continue to advance moving forward, keeping themselves in contact, as near as possible one another, lighting the areas just in front of them both with individual lanterns attached to their helmets and powerful portable reflectors they grab in one hand. They know that they´re bound to make things as soon as possible, because if they run out of electrical energy to illuminate the Great Room of the Valeria Cave, they won´t be able to film the skeletons of the 116 Dall sheep and its surroundings to try to solve the mystery of their deaths. After a lot of suffering and advancing through the same tunnels and narrow passages crossed by the Dall sheep 2,500 years ago, they mane to reach the Great Room of the Grotte Valerie and the great moment arrives when Alberto Mariano switches on all the big batteries utterly illuminating the place. All of a sudden, they realize that their efforts and risks have been worth: before their eyes appears the skeleton of a young Dall sheep male half buried into the ice and perfectly preserved thanks to the very low temperatures.The floor, completely frozen, has it trapped. The ceiling of this Great Room is a big ice filigree, and Teodoro Roa delights in filming it with his Arri 35 mm movie camera. It´s fossile ice, sporting a blue tonality, which has probably been unchanged for the last 100,000 or 200,000 years. The emotion is unutterable. There are panoramic shots of the place, along with close-ups of specific areas. At a few meters distance from the hall is the accumulation of skeletons, in whose beginning are young males and females, while the adults are mainly in the bottom. They light and film every skeleton in detail. Highly dramatic moments are being lived. This is a flull-fledged Frozen Cemetery of Dall Sheep. Dall sheep usually get into the labyrinths of caves of Nahanni National Park, above all in Winter, looking for warmer temperatures than outside and also to lick the mineral salts contained by the walls of these caverns, going out of them when the circumstances are favourable. Then, What could happen? Which was what killed such a great quantity of these animals? Why the vast majority of them died so close one another in the Great Room of the cave? Which made that not even one of them could escape after going into the Grotte Valerie? We see a large male with its almost intact horns, together with many other skeletons and a vast quantity very well preserved remains of Dall sheep who died in the most various positions and sparsed throughout this big natural crypt. The stress becomes unbearable. The faces of the members of Félix team clearly reveal the shock brought about by everything they´re watching and for which they are not able to find an explanation. But a few seconds later, the conundrum denoument comes to an end: the camera is shooting Dr. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, who is examining the area of the Frozen Cemetery and its surroundings, when unexpectedly his facial expression changes utterly and becomes visibly affected by something. Dr. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, with his typical intuition, experience and ability for the reading of natural grounds, has just solved the mystery of the death of the Grotte Valerie Dall sheep, the terrible reality of what happened there, which he begins to explain in detail. All of a sudeen, there´s an eerie close-up of a female of Dall sheep with its baby, died in a very convulsed and agonizing posture. The mother fought until the last moments, trying to escape and save its baby´s life. This is undoubtedly one of the most dramatic moments in the history of El Hombre y la Tierra series. A FORCE OF THE NATURE A very young Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente the day he beat the 400 m record during the Universitarian Championships held in Valladolid in 1946, when he was 18 years old. We can realize his amazing natural physical strength, his huge width of shoulders and his very powerful muscles. Since his childhood, Dr Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente spent a lot of hours in the countryside, always trying to watch his beloved animals from the shortest feasible distances, and was used to making a lot of kilometers walking or running. It all turned him through years into a formidable athlete featuring great strength and power, complemented by high doses of stamina, resistance to the fatigue and incredible perseverence in everything he did, to such an extent that vast majority of times his collaborators found very difficult to follow his working pace. Dr. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente seemed to never get tired and always took the biggest risks when the team had to deal with dangerous species, as was apparent during the shooting of the Venezuelan chapters of "El Hombre y La Tierra" in which he was the man grabbing the neck of every giant anaconda. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente in Kenya speaking with two other naturalists. The tremendous physical strength of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente is highly visible in this image if we compare for example the width of his arms and legs with the other two men. AN IMPERISHABLE REMEMBRANCE IMPORTANT INSTITUTIONS AND PEOPLE PRESERVING FÉLIX RODRÍGUEZ DE LA FUENTE´S LEGACY - Félix Rodríguez de La Fuente Foundation.- Created in 2004 by the family of the world class naturalist having as an aim to safeguard, projecting and fostering his life, works and legacy, updating it through new projects encouraging the harmony between Man and Earth. It is a private and independent foundation, whose President is Marcelle Genevieve Parmentier. - Marcelle Genevieve Parmentier.- Widow of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente and President of his Foundation. A woman who deserves the greatest accolades, because she suffered very much with the untimely passing away of his husband, and has endured the elapse of time since 1980 with praiseworthy discretion and elegance, waiting for many years until finding the best moment for the inception of the Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente Foundation. She was the great support of the Maestro until his death, and helped him raise a lot of wolf cubs and birds of prey, specially in his starting years as a naturalist after giving up his work as an odontologist. - Odile Rodríguez de la Fuente.- General Manager of the Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente Foundation and Vicepresident of it. One of the three daughters of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente. She features a great physical resemblance with his father, also sharing his passion on speaking about nature and wildlife. A key figure in the preservation of Dr. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente´s remembrance and work, along with the spreading of his scientific, social and environmental bequest. She is a University of Los Angeles (California) Bachellor in Biological Sciencies and Cinema and Television Production, having also specialized on Audiovisual Media in the National Geographic Department in Washington, D.C, where she was working for four years and a half. A great lover of agriculture and the concept of the earth as a living entity. - Alvaro Will.- He´s presently the General Manager of the Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente Foundation. He´s a lawyer specialized in International Relations and Law, Information Technologies and Cooperation to Development, also sporting know-how in TIC and Third Sector. Antón García Abril.- Great composer and creator of the mythical music of El Hombre y La Tierra series, maybe the most impressive and awesome soundtrack ever made in the world for a documentary film on wildlife and nature. A key figure in the life of Felix Rodriguez de la Fuente, both were great friends and went often to the Madrid de Los Austrias area to have lunch. Antón García Abril was present the day of the first projection of the mythical scene of one of the chapters of El Hombre y La Tierra series in which a royal eagle captures a kid on a high cliff and takes it flying a lot of hundreds of meters up to its nest. He saw cry Dr Félix Rodriguez de la Fuente on watching it projected on screen with the original 35 mm Kodak chemical emulsion bobbin in a special room with cinematographic king size screen. Today, thirty years after the demise of the unforgettable Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, Antón García Abril´s legendary musical score of El Hombre y La Tierra goes on making people feeling under a spell and stopping everything they are making to watch each chapter of this memorable World Heritage TV series (above all in DVD or upscaled Blu-ray, an absolutely dazzling audiovisual experience, which we can confirm) shot in 35 mm with David O´Selznick quality parameters). This is in my viewpoint a musical feat at the reach of very few. - Miguel Molina.- Camera operator belonging to the team of El Hombre y la Tierra and a survivor of the aerial accident of Alaska on March 14, 1980 in which the pilot Warren Dawson, Dr. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, the camera operator Teodoro Roa (then one of the best specialists in the world on filming of wild animals) and the camera operator assistant Alberto Mariano Huéscar died instantly. Miguel Molina and Dr. Rodríguez de la Fuente had arrived at Alaska on March 11, 1980, while Teodoro Roa and Alberto Mariano Huéscar had been there since February 28, 2010, shooting the Iditarod Sledge Dog Race. On March 13, 1980, Dr. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, Teodoro Roa, Alberto Mariano Huéscar, Miguel Molina and the pilots of the two El Hombre y la Tierra team aircraft had dinner together. Tony, one of the pilots, told Miguel Molina that he had a pawl of the crankshaft loosing oil, and he had had to be replacing it, so there wasn´t any of it left. The next day, March 14 1980, was Dr. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente´s birthday, and the El Hombre y la Tierra team prepared to travel on board of two hydroplanes. In the first one, the USA pilot Warren Dawson (on front left of the cabin), Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente (who went on the right of the pilot), Teodoro Roa (behind on the left) and Alberto Mariano Huéscar (behind on the right) took off. In the second place, an Eskimo TV aircraft, also painted in orange color, took off, and thirdly, the hydroplane manned by the pilot Tony and Miguel Molina on his right took off. A few minutes later, when they went flying over the iced surface, both of them saw the first aircraft in which the pilot Warren Dawson, Dr. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, Teodoro Roa and Alberto Mariano Huéscar went on board, falling spinning until crashing against the frozen land, after the hydroplane had lost one of their floats. During the thirty years that have elapsed since then, Miguel Molina has been in a discreet and elegant second place, though he was one of the few persons who shared with Dr. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente his last hours of life. - Angela Minaya.- Direction Secretary of El Hombre y La Tierra. A woman featuring great working capacity, mental strength and thoroughness in everything she did. Dr Felix Rodriguez de La Fuente trusted utterly on her. She travelled with the mythical team that shot the 18 chapters of Venezuela belonging to El Hombre y la Tierra series, and was very near Felix when the huge anaconda was about to tear his head apart. She was very impressed on watching live the Amazonic jungle remote tribes, and still remembers the tremendous working pace of Felix, and his amazing constant scheming of ideas. Angela Minaya was a key figure in the huge international success of El Hombre y La Tierra series all over the world (it was broadcast in 30 countries and even reached number one audience of documentary nature and fauna programmes in USA) and has remained in a very discreet role through the thirty years elapsed since the death of the Maestro. She also implemented a significant labor throughout the many months spent by El Hombre y la Tierra team in the area of Pelegrina, Guadalajara (raising a group of wolf cubs which had been found inside a wolf lair, until they became adults) on a camp located in the glen of the River Dulce, using a Olivetti Lettera 32 typewriter to type everything Dr. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente told her, as well as jotting down a lot of data of all kind. Probably a number of important things wouldn´t have been feasible, specially in the moments when people were on the brink of exhaustion because of Felix´s boundless energy and constant toil, without Angela Minaya, who endured the pressure and transmitted strength to the rest of members of the team. - Luis Miguel Domínguez Mencía.- Prestigious naturalist and director of documentary films, who was one of the direct collaborators of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente during seventies. He´s widely known for having made a lot of TV series on nature and animals, though he has also implemented a significant work in radio, conducting programs like Al Cabo de La Calle, El Ciempies, or Todos Somos Naturaleza. Likewise, he takes part currently in some broadcasts of the Spanish TV Cuatro Channel Fourth Millennium directed by Iker Jiménez. His last production is Treasure from the South, a four chapter documentary series on the fauna and flora of Andalusia and his Mediterranean climate. He has also been a member of the directive board of entities like Adena/WWF, Greenpeace, Survival International and WATU, having excelled as a great advocate of animals in dange of extinctions like the Iberian wolf. He is a great admirer of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente and a man who feels himself utterly identified with Félix´s philosophy of life and his naturalist and conservationist message. Besides, he has won a lot of important prices related to nature, research and science:National Prize of Arts and Popular Traditions (1987); Prize to the best scientific TV series (1994); Prize Jules Verne to the Best Divulgative Series (1994); Honour Accesit of the Prince of Asturias Prize for Young Researchers (1978 and 1983); Prize of the Federation of Friends of the Earth (1988), Prize Healthy Life (2003), etc. His main written books are: Guide of the Street Fauna; Walking through Lower Manzanares River; Our Land, Our Life; Do you want to be a naturalist?And within his TV series we must underline: Vietnam, Life After Death; Amazonia, Last Call; Natural Spaces; Live the Way; Discover Your Gulches; Treasures From The South; Going to the Countryside without lunch; The naturalist at home; The Show of the Records; The Sight of Anselmo; The Friend Bull: Naturalists, etc. He was also the creator in 2001of the Exotarium, the only center existing in Spain devoted to the gathering, lodging and care of exotic animals, which held around 500 different animals and existed until 2009. Juan Carlos del Olmo.- Prestigious naturalist and currently General Secretary of WWF Spain, a position he holds since 1996. He is another great admirer of Felix Rodriguez de la Fuente, who exerted a huge influence in his life, in the same way as happens with all of his enthusiasts. He´s a skilful ringer of birds and has collaborated since his youth with a lot of conservationist organizations,. having also made a number of documentary films for TVE, and is one of the flagships of the Climate Coalition of thirty organizations belonging to various scopes asking for a basic agreement independently on the political parties in power in order to build a common fighting way against the global heating menacing our planet. He is likewise a world class expert on the effect of the deforestation for the presently uncontrolled cultivation of soybean, stating that if we don´t begin outlining mechanisms to stop that bias, establishing criteria to decide the areas where soybean can be grown or not, there will be a moment in which not even a tree will exist either in Amazonia, the Chaco or in the rest of South America, without forgetting his concern about the firstly promising biocarburants which have currently become a nightmare, because top priority must be to guarantee the sustainable origin of raw materials. - Benigno Varillas.- Writer by trade and author of the excellent authorized biography of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, a colossal 761 pages book encompassing tons of very interesting data and details of all kind related to the life of the great Spanish naturalist and maker of documentary films on animals. A lot of years of hard research and love for Félix´s legacy have been necessary for the launching of this indispensable work. Throughout almost thirty years elapsed since Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente´s death in 1980, Genevieve Parmentier waited patietnly and wisely until the circumstances allowed the inception of the Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente Foundation, having also kept with great foresight more than 2,000 original documents and letters written by Félix, together with 400 recordings made by him with his voice and broadcast by Radio Nacional de España during the second half of sixties and many tapes of lectures, press conferences and interviews, an huge legacy greatly unknown by the public and whose access was granted to Benigno Varillas by Odile Rodríguez de la Fuente, Félix Daughter and a key figure as to the spreading and knowledge of the thought and work of the world famous great Spanish naturalist and conservationist. The book Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente: His Life, A Message for the Future, launched into market in March 2010 and which has unveiled plenty of unknown till now information and data, has settled a before and an after in the knowledge on his figure, life philosophy, future projects, revolutionary environmental ideas, immense scientific and cultural equipment, and even the pioneering vision of internet and the global society of knowledge together with a highly extensive concept of the cosmos and how to focus the future of human being as a species, all of which was in the mind of this extraordinary man who was Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente. He also founded the environmental journalism section of El País newspaper, in which he worked between 1973 and 1978. Founder and Director of Quercus ( the senior magazine in Spain devoted to the observation, defense and study of Nature) between 1981 and 2001. He edited the Memoirs of José Antonio Valverde (an eminent biologist and naturalist who was one of the inspiration sources and a personal friend of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente) between 2003 and 2006. Columnist of the Sunday supplement of El Mundo newspaper in 1995. Founder of the Association of Friends of Nature in 1972 and of Greenpeace Spain in 1984. National Prize of Environment in 1989. - Joaquín Araujo.- A prestigious naturalist who was a collaborator of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente during his six last years of life between 1975 and 1980. He has written more than 150 books on nature, national parks, Mediterranean woods, various species of animals, the water as key ingredient of life, the rural world and culture, the Pyrenees, ecology, Lanzarote, the valley of La Rioja, natural spaces of Extremadura, the Royal Eagle, protected species, the world of the jaguar, how to speak to the chuldren about Nature and Environment, etc. He´s the Commissar of the Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente Itinerant Exhibition which has gathered audiovisual documents on the work made by the world famous Spanish naturalist died in 1980 since October 2005. He is one of the most prominent experts on Wildlife and nature in Spain, having been bestowed a lot of prizes and awards during his professional background, among which highlight: - Healthy Life Award to the best article on biological agriculture (1983). - Special Prize of the 5th International Cinema Contest of Madrid 1984 to the best script for the programs " The Oak Grove" and " The Grazing Ground " of the Noah´s Ark TV series. - Prize of the Cinema Festival of Riga (Latvia) 1984 for the Noah´s Ark. - Prize Global 500 for divulgative labor United Nations 1991 in favour of environment, which was awarded to him by the King of Sweden on June, 5 of that year. This is a very important award, which was previously granted among others to Sir David Attenborough and Jacques Cousteau. - Environmental Award 1993 of Madrid Town Hall for the best press labour as editor of the Biosphere Supplement of Diario 16 newspaper. - Adenex Award 1995 for his work as a creator of the Vento Biological Reserve in Extremadura. - Finalist of the Espasa Calpe Essay Prize for his book " XXI: Century of the Ecology ". - National Prize of Environment of Communication Media 1997. - Prize 2000 as recognition to the best Spanish TV series of all time for El Hombre y la Tierra, whose alma mater was Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, a TV series which was finished by Joaquín Araujo after his demise, as author of the further texts and scripts. - Prize of the National Congress of Environment 2000 for his trajectory in communication media. - Nomination for the Hollywood Oscar 2003 and Goya Prizes of that year as a director of the Spanish team in the Jacques´s Perrin film " Nomads of the Wind " (2002). - Ondas Prize 2003 as a member of the program directed by Pepa Fernández. - BBVA Foundation Prize 2006 for his spreding labor regarding the values of biodiversity. He is also author of an important biography on Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, written in 1990: "The Voice of Nature: The Biography of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente". Salvat Editorial. - Miguel Pou Vázquez.- President of the ONG Félix Project and the Federation of Associations of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente. He is a zoologist and naturalist who has won a lot of awards, amongst them the World Fund Prize for the Wild Life (1983), the Second Prize of the Prince of Asturias for Young Investigators (1984), the Second Prize Holland of Phillips (1986) with an astounding research of 2,200 pages which attained the creation of the Natural Reserves of the Llobregat River Delta. He is also a Professor of Communication and writer. He has been a lot of years implementing a dream come true: the creation of the greatest database in the world on Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente. He has written three great books on Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, titled "Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente: The Man and His Life", "Félix, The Animals´ Friend" (an improved revision and enlargement of the previous one) and "The Wonderful Childhood of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente". - Carlos Sanz.- Prestigious field biologist, naturer and wildlife photographer and documentary film maker. In 1975, being a Biological Sciencies student, he began collaborating with Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente in different chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra, helping Félix to raise a five wolf cubs brood whose mother had been shot in Villadiego (Burgos). During the shooting of the filming of the three mythical chapters on Night Prey Birds of El Hombre y la Tierra, Carlos Sanz, already then a great photography lover, used Yashica TL Electro-X (with Yashinon-DX primes) and Nikon F2 Photomic (with Nikkor S.C Auto 50 mm f/1.4 to make pictures of eagle owls, long-eared owls, tawny owls, screech owls, barn owls and little owls, mainly of their bright eyes, of their massive earlaps, of their sharp talons protected by the feathers, of the velvety flight feathers with its lacking fringe leading edge to soften the air friction, enabling a noiseless flight, etc. Likewise, Carlos Sanz was a collaborator of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente using the short wave Falconer RB-4 radio receptor which received the signals sent by a minute short wave emitter which had previously been placed inside the hard hollow stems of the wing feathers of each night preying bird by Félix and Aurelio Pérex for their spotting and tracking up to distances of 8 kilometers. Having a great passion for the wolf, Carlos Sanz had in Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente an admired teacher who was a key factor in his decision of becoming a biologist, and during these thirty years gone by since Félix death, he has bred some wolf packs, living with them and being integrated within their social structures as one of their members. He has photographed the most various species of the Iberian Fauna: the lynx, the gold eagle, the woodpecker, the dormouse and many more, including the genet, of which he´s a significant expert. Likewise, his work as a recognized documentalist working as an adviser, script writer, biologist and field naturalist has included El Hombre y la Tierra, Naturaleza Ibérica, La Marisma y el Llano, De Polo a Polo, Enclave Verde, Madrid: Ritmo Salvaje, La Ruta Alternativa, Las Montañas del Lobo, La España Salvaje, etc. He was director and script writer of the tv series Pacto con Lobos. Creator of the Zoological Center Carlos Sanz Wolf Productions, in which a lot of scenes on the intimate life of the Iberian wolf were shot for more than 10 years, including the birth of a litter of wolves inside a wolf lair, it all complemented with images on various social and cultural aspects and measures carried out in Spain for the preservation of this species. On October 1, 2006, Carlos Sanz reached the Spanish TV audience record of that year, with two millions of viewers during the first day of broadcast of the two chapters The Iberian Wolf and Its World and Legend and Reality of the Iberian World.Coauthor of the book Friend Wolf with Julio García Robles in 2001. He has also been author of excellent photographic reportages for the magazines Periplo, Natura, Ambienta, Biológica, etc. He owns a very comprehensive photographic archive on fauna, flora, landscapes and human aspects of Spain and America. Prize 2008 EDC Natura for the preservation of Nature. Prize 2008 Panda WWF/ADENA of Environmental Communication awarded to his itinerant Friend Wolf exhibition. After the passing away of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente in 1980, Carlos Sanz has been a very important naturalist in the preservation of the Iberian Wolf species and the spreading and knowledge on this species. - Miguel Delibes de Castro.- Eminent biologist, son of the world class writer Miguel Delibes. He was the Director of the Biological Station of Doñana Park for twelve years. He is currently the world´s greatest authority on the Iberian Lynx, one of the most beautiful animals on earth. He made an astounding doctoral thesis in 1977 on the trophic ecology of the Iberian Lynx and has developed an extensive labor as a member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, working in different research groups in Spain, Argentina and Mexico, being also an advisor during the 1992 Rio Environmental Summit on Biodiversity. He is President of the Spanish Society for the Preservation and Study of Mammals, having made a wide range of field works and scientific studies appearing in many books and articles written by him, and he is considered nowadays an international level biologist. He is currently the Director of Ecology of Carnivores of the Doñana Biological Station, where he studies the Iberian Lynx within the programmes for preserving this endangered species. He started his professional activity in late sixties, collaborating with Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente as a redactor of the extraordinary Encyclopedia Salvat of the Fauna. - Carlos de Prada.- Naturalist, journalist and writer. A great expert on all kind of topics related with Fauna and Nature. He´s taken part very actively in a wide range of both TV and radio programs devoted to wildlife, has also written a lot of books and countruyside guides. He has been a great admirer of Felix Rodriguez de la Fuente since his childhood, and has spoken about his figure in many debates and broadcast spaces. - Miguel Ledo.- He´s a Superior Technician in Audiovisual Productions. Another great admirer of Dr. Felix Rodriguez de la Fuente. He has worked for different televisions, but descovered his true vocation thanks to the documentary series España en la Vereda along the journalist and naturalist Carlos de Prada, also being a lover of nature, fauna, and wild flora since his childhood. He´s often spoken on the huge historical significance of Felix Rodriguez de la Fuente in a lot of lectures, programmes and debates. - Manolo Peña.- An expert sound technician and collaborator of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente in a number of chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra. He made from inside a 3 meter high hide, by means of a professional reel to reel Nagra III NP monophonic tape recorder and some microphones located on various areas of a wood, the recordings of the sounds emitted by different night prey birds and rodents (the former ones standing still to spot their preys through the ear since they´re practically invisible at night, and the latter ones trying to feed themselves making the least possible noise and movement not to be detected) during the chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra dealing withthe acoustic war between eagle owls, long-eared owls, tawny owls, screech owls, barn owls, little owls, etc, and mice, dormice, rabbits, etc, in the middle of an almost utter darkness. - Antonio TorreblancA.- An expert sound technician and collaborator of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente in a number of chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra, registering natural ambients with the professional reel to reel Nagra 4.2 monophonic tape recorder, obtaining top-notch quality hi-fi sound. - Manuel Barroso.- An expert sound technician and collaborator of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente in a number of chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra. - Suso Garzón.- A prestigious naturalist, personal friend of Felix Rodriguez de la Fuente. - Continuadores de Félix Rodríguez de La Fuente.- A praiseworthy oraganization devoted to steadily foster the memory of The Friend of the Animals, striving after making his work and legacy known to new generations of youngsters interested in both the preservation of fauna and the welfare of nature. This remarkable group of Felix Rodriguez de la Fuente enthusiasts have been working for 24 years gathering information on the Maestro, pioneer of the Spanish Ecologism, and had managed to make a gorgeous publication: The Magazine of Felix Followers.They´re currently trying to develop the " Felix Rodriguez de la Fuente Camps " 30 km in the south of Ordesa, with the intention of imparting ecologist awareness as a meeting place of Felix continuers of both Spain and abroad alike. Among other of their aims is the creation of a museum on Dr Felix Rodriguez de la Fuente. - Josechu Lalanda.- Great collaborator of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente and his main drawer of animals. Félix´s great capacity of description enabled Josechu Lalanda make impressive sketches, something which was clearly shown when he depicted the way in which different predators hunted. - Joan Salvat.- General Director of the Editorial Group Salvat during late sixties and seventies, when Dr. Felix Rodriguez de la Fuente made the world class Encyclopedia Salvat of the World Fauna. - Rafael Onieva.- Still photograph expert. Collaborator of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente in a lot of chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra, using a wide range of professional equipment: a) Canon F1 with semispot metering and manual focusing Canon FD lenses featuring Brrech Lock mount. This clever choice by Rafael Onieva was instrumental during the chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra filmed in Canadá (Nahanny National Park, Kluane National Park, etc) where very low temperatures are very frequent, because the Canon F1 didn´t need any battery (only for the light meter) and was designed to perfectly endure temperatures between 60º C and -30º C, along with humidity levels of 90º. On the other hand, the Breech Lock special mount of these pre nFD lenses was the best, because it was very similar to a bayonet and enabled to keep the objectives wholly rigid while being attached to the camera, without any loosed spaces anywhere. b) Motorized medium format Hasselblad EL/M with central shutter Carl Zeiss CF lenses. A real luxury, clearly showing the technical level of El Hombre y la Tierra team. Rafael Onieva used this camera in different chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra, both in the Iberian series for example near Pelegrina (Guadalajara) during the breeding of wolves and in the Canadian Wildlife series, for instance in the chapter titled ´ Rescue Operation ´ (DVD 25 of the Divisa Editions collection) dealing on the saving of bald eagles in Yukon River, where he appears using this 6 x 6 cm format camera with a special handle to optimize the handheld shooting and a coupled prism HC3-70. - Carlos de las Heras.- Camera assistant. Collaborator of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente in a lot of chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra. - Antonio Soubrier.- Camera assistant. Collaborator of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente in a lot of chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra. - Faustino Ocaña.- Camera assistant. Collaborator of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente in a lot of chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra. - Pedro Sevilla.- Montage technician. Collaborator of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente in a lot of chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra. - Miguel Angel Pinto Cebrián and Suso Cubeiro.- Authors of the book The Three Skies, Child Adventures of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente. - Javier Ceña.- Prestigious naturalist who was a student of Biological Sciences in mid seventies, when he met Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente and became one of his collaborators during the raising of some wolf cubs in Pelegrina (Guadalajara), where he also fed tawny owls. - Herminio Verdú.- Maker of the legendary La Aventura de la Vida radio programmes throughout seven years, between 1973 and 1980, which were broadcast on Thursdays of every week and in which The Maestro got levels of expectation never seen before in Spain, reaching all the boundaries of the Iberian Peninsula, thanks to the portability of little transistor radios, which brought about that he was followed by millions of listeners both in the great cities and villages, and even in the field by agriculturists, cattle breeders and shepherds. He was one of the most deeply affected persons by the death of the Maestro and remembers perfectly the incredible radio live speeches made by Felix Rodriguez de la Fuente without any kind of script, improvising everything with huge levels of accuracy in his words, sporting boundless knowledge and passion and reaching the pith of all the listeners, every day, without exception, something unheard-of till then and which highly probably nobody will be able to emulate in future. - José Laiz Blanco.- Naturalist and collaborator of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente in a number of chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra. - Fernando L. Rodríguez.- Naturalist and collaborator of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente in some chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra. - Luis Serrano.- Naturalist and collaborator of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente. - José Luis Nava.- Naturalist who has performed a significant role after Félix demise in the development and promotion of the Las Hoces del Riaza shelter, one of the most important sanctuaries of the Spanish geography from an ornithologist viewpoint, including a lot of varieties of eagles, vultures and other birds. A stubborn fighter for the salvation of the griffon vulture and hooded vulture in the Iberian Peninsula. - Carlos Llandres.- Prestigious naturalist, collaborator of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente in different chapters of El Hombre y la Tierra and in the Canadian series The Adventure of Life, directed by Félix.Expert ring installer of the Spanish Society of Ornithology. Collaborator of Periplo and Aire Libre magazines. Director of the Castilla-La Mancha Environment Courses. Professor of Ornithology in the courses of Natural Environment of the Community of Madrid. Director of Guías de Doñana, S.A. Founder and Director of Projects of Madre-Tierra Productora S.L. Director, script writer, producer and maker of a lot of TV series on Iberian and African fauna for TVE, Canal Sur TV, etc. Author of the books on nature and fauna Las Rapaces(1980, WWF), La Perdiz Roja (1985, Fundación J.M.Blanc), Check List of the Birds of Doñana National Park and Border Areas of Cádiz, Huelva and Sevilla (1988, Guías de Doñana), Las Aves de Doñana (1990, Lynx Editions), Sevilla y sus Aves (1996, ZigZag Producciones S.L), etc. - Javier Castroviejo.- President of the Spanish Committee of El Hombre y La Biosfera. He was one of Felix Rodriguez de la Fuente´s collaborators in late sixties and beginnings of seventies as a member of the legendary staff of biologists, naturalists, photographers and drawers who made the historical Encyclopedia Salvat of the Fauna, weekly bought by millions and millions of people for a lot of years through fascicles which were subsequently bound. - Fidel José Fernández.- A personal friend of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, with whom he had a steady direct contact between 1972 and 1980. President of the Fund for the Fund for the Refuge of the Hoces del Riaza.. Promoter of the Refuge of Montejo. An outstanding expert in the making of censi of preying birds, storks, herons, etc, specially in Segovia, Burgos and Soria provinces, a task for which he has devoted 35 years of his life. After the death of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente in 1980, Fidel José Fernández has been a very important figure in the survival of griffon vulture and hooded vulture and different preying birds in Spain, personally supervising the population development of them year after year, and being in permanent contact with mythical WWF Spain guards like Jesús Hernando Iglesias, alma mater of the Refuge of Montejo. - Pedro Retamar.- Author and biographer. He is both a journalist, photographer and specialist traveller on nature and ecotourism. A frequent collaborator of the supplements El Viajero y Tierra of El Pais newspaper and chronicler of the blog "botasvagabundas". He´s likewise author of the illustrated books: Naturaleza Monumental de España, Villas Medievales, Los Rostros del Paisaje Español and Senderos Perdidos (abridging some of his most outstanding reportages published in El Pais. He has made great pictures and reportages on the routes used by Dr Felix Rodriguez de la Fuente to make his legendary documentary films, specially the Cazorla Range in Jaen, where the Maestro filmed unforgettable sequencies of the El Hombre y La Tierra series, on the bellow of the stag on the shores of El Tranco reservoir, the heat of the mountain goat on the ranges of El Pozo and La Cabrilla, and the hunting of kids by royal eagle, which are already a part of the indelible memory of many lovers of nature. FELIX HASN´T DIED Copyright Text and Indicated Photos Jose Manuel Serrano Esparza. LHSA