The real beauty of La Tanrrilla is only revealed when under threat or as part of their elaborate courtship rituals when they spread their glorious wings to reveal a truly magnificent display of colour and light.
Vultures have been called masters of two disciplines: soaring and sanitation (Dunne et al. 1988:136). In towns, villages, and rural communities where there is no modern plumbing or garbage disposal, they provide the only sanitation services. “They eat anything, but especially they like the shit,” observed a worker in a slaughterhouse in Guatemala.
I was wondering where she came from, when she held out a bag and said "I went home to get this bag, I will take them away and see they have a proper burial." She said "You know what, you are the only one who stopped; after so many cars that sped by, some even hitting the other dead bird." She went on the explain that when the female had been knocked down, the male flew onto the road and tried to help her somehow. Then as she watched, the male Tawny was knocked down by another car coming the other way.
Yanyuwa traditional owners established the li-Anthawirriyarra (people of the sea) Sea Ranger Unit as a means for managing their vast estate. The rangers are employed to monitor and manage heritage sites such as Macassan camps; monitor and manage turtle and dugong populations and survey, map and eradicate feral animals.
The Tjanpi Desert Weavers have a whimsical and very often funny approach to their art and I'm sure more than a bit of that rubbed off on their northern counterparts, where often weaving is more utilitarian. You can see some of the Tjanpi Weaver's wonderful work at their website.Yesterday the Tjanpi's whimsy won over the practical.
You folk, conch shells shall be! Bailer shells you shall become! Pearlshells you shall become! Ducks you shall become! Native companions be! I go! Better that I should go! For white pigeons will come with me!
Indonesian Sukhoi SU-30 coming in to land at Darwin RAAF base These are the first pictures from Australian airspace of Indonesia’s front-line jet fighter, the Sukhoi SU-30, four of which landed at Darwin’s RAAF base earlier today to take part in Exercise Pitch Black 2012. […]
Sternly worded letters to administrative staff of such corporations and combative encounters with shop-front staff, are only likely to have one outcome; the closure of such facilities to birders. Shop-front staff find dealing with insistent birders just as onerous and boring as birders find the process themselves. With management fielding complaints from both sides, it is easy to see the most expedient course of action for them to end the problem altogether.
The facts which kept me longest scientifically orthodox are those of adaptation—the pollen-masses in Asclepias—the misseltoe, with its pollen carried by insects and seed by Birds—the woodpecker, with its feet and tail, beak and tongue, to climb the tree and secure insects. To talk of climate or Lamarckian habit producing such adaptation to other organic beings is futile. This difficulty, I believe I have surmounted. From a letter to Asa Gray by Charles Darwin, 1857
The falcon was gone. A hundred birds were before me in the sky and on the ground. Here two Whistling Kites cruised downwind effortlessly away from the risen sun, doubling back with obvious efforts into the freshening breeze. Singleton Great Egrets rowed upstream against the morning breeze, all Omo white body and neck and black legs and beak. Torresian Crows - all beak and croaking caws - wandered in from their night roosts. Silver Gulls cruised downwind along the shoreline and Crested and other terns cruised offshore. There at ground level irregular ranks of Magpie Larks picked their way across the open grass in a score-strong horde, all black and white flutters and jumps as they grazed. Where one bird had dominated the morning landscape five minutes before, now everywhere was birds.
