Earth, Wind & Water

Hog!!

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 10:55:00 +0000

Nearly ran this 'hog over on the way home Wednesday. Note the blue dyejob and the earring - this is a released 'hog - one that has probably spent its winter in the warm being fed as opposed to hibernating.

Hence the girth and the total lack of fear of me.

which allowed for some rather lovely close-ups.

This shot was taken just as the hedgehog turned and walked off. I love the detail on the little foot - something you don't get to see very often. Look at those little claws and hairs. wonderful.

Hopefully I'll see "sonic" again soon.

The World's rarest cat

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 07:30:00 +0000

About 2 months ago, I was sat in a car driving into the heart of Sierra Andujar to look for the Iberian Lynx. It was early in the morning still barely dawn. It was far colder than expected and conditions were bleak. The Iberian Lynx is the world's rarest cat with a global population of less than 300. We were looking for a highly camouflaged needle in a haystack......

....and then I saw something walking down a hill towards the road. I shouted "lynx", the car stopped and this happened.

Sorry the video's not great but it was the rarest cat in the world, it was dark and my hands were shaking. To tell the truth they're shaking now and I can taste the adrenalin again just thinking about how lucky we got.

Nuts to all that

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 07:30:00 +0000

I've been pondering nuts rather a lot of late. Why? It's complicated. The connections my brain makes these days between nature, food, environmental concerns and so on never cease to surprise and disturb me but for whatever reason I've found myself increasingly googling unusual nuts.

One of the hooks that led me down this rabbit hole was discovering the rather fascinating blog of the Badgersett Research Corporation. There is it must be said not a lot of work going into the improvement of the world's nut crops. These guys are working on that though. Although not a massive agri-business they've achieved remarkable and interesting success with hybridising hazel species (America's beaked and bush hazels and the european hazel) to produce varieties suited to the demands and diseases of the USA. They're also working with the American Chestnut Foundation to produce blight resistant hybrids with high US chestnut genetics to try and someday restore the great chestnut forests of the Apalachians. Which is cool and worth a look.

That led me to Grimo-Nuts which is a family run nut nursery with a catalogue deep enough to interest readers the world over and sure to tempt those in the States or Canada.

Somehow I ended up reading the Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920. It's wonderful. Like Steampunk horticulture. Full of early twenthieth century endeavour, good intention and politeness with exchanges and phrases like:

Mr. Littlepage: What is the variety?
Professor Close: They are all seedlings. In fact all of his varieties are dead. He has nothing but seedlings.
Mr. Littlepage: Has that been called to Dr. Van Fleet's attention?
Professor Close: Not that I know of. I doubt if Dr. Van Fleet has seen this blight proof one. I will be glad to tell him about them when I have an opportunity. Mr. Killen has one Japan walnut tree that is interesting. It must be 25 or 30 years old. I do not know where he got it. One limb we measured extends out 36 feet. The limbs on the other side of the tree are not quite so long but the tree is nearly 70 feet in diameter. Two years ago he sold the crop for $54.00, and he thinks he will get more this year. He has contracted the crop to a nurseryman. Mr. Killen has quite a number of seedling Persian walnuts and some of them, perhaps all, blight more or less. He is very much exercised over the blight. He worries more over this than he does over the chestnut blight.

and

Why not have Mount Vernon walnuts thus distributed throughout the Union. Every school boy and girl in the land would be delighted to get them for planting.
The supply would not equal one hundredth part of one per cent of the demand for them. Then select throughout the country other special or historic trees of various kinds or varieties of nuts and still I am sure the supply would not begin to equal the demand. Long ago I began to arrange for nut crops from some of these historic trees, planted by Washington at his beautiful Mount Vernon home, now the Mecca for prince or pauper and all those millions who love the freedom of glorious America.
Those nuts will be planted in the parks and on the grounds of the people of my home city this very year by the children of our schools who are now in their moulding being taught to revere the name of the father of our country.
This very act of patriotism will cause thousands of boys and girls to have fixed in their minds for youth or age the value of planting the useful trees that will in later years produce food of the very best character for the human race. Carry this message into every city, village and school district and the good work will be duplicated thousands of times and then the movement in which we have so earnestly engaged will have brought forth fruit in great abundance so that even the great majority of those living today, and certainly the generations to come must give this organization and its founders great credit for real and lasting benefits that will prevail for centuries to come.

Simply wonderful stuff.

Last of the links is this piece on the historic "George W. Bush" Butternut Tree and why it's so important (hint: It's not that George W Bush).

So time for a photo. This is labelled Turkish Hazel in my files. That would be Corylus colurna which, you may not be surprised to learn in light of the above, is a woefully underplanted tree.

Daffs

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 16:27:00 +0000

Just a cellphone snap on a grey day of a field near my house.

I think it speaks for itself.....

White-front

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:35:00 +0000

There's a big flock of feral greylag geese on one of the island's reserve areas. Every so often they attract migratory vagrant geese of other species. A couple of years back they attracted some white-fronts and they've been harbouring some pink footed geese for a few weeks now too. Last week some more white-fronts arrived.

I really like wild geese. At once they manage to be sleek, efficient and honed (compared to farmyard geese) whilst also being symbols of plenty and abundance. Naturally then I popped down to see them. Rather than being warily sat in the middle of the field as the wild geese typically are, these two turned out to be the first birds I saw as I stepped out of my car.

It's nice when a plan comes together.

Curding up

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 04:39:00 +0000

A friend with whom I often share wildlife experiences, sports fields and food recently sat exams. During her prep time we were talking about chutneys, jams and so on and she asked me if I'd ever made lemon curd, apparently a favourite. I hadn't and declined to make her any at the time offering the incentive "home made lemon curd is for girls who pass their exams". She passed so this had to happen:

I used Nigel Slater's recipe - it was amazing.

another baby bat

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 07:54:00 +0000

FC may have been the only one to find my last bat baby post cute but hopefully a few more of you can get onboard with this.......

An island mammal sighting. sort of.

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 19:51:00 +0000

Saturday night saw a particularly boozey annual get together amongst my circle of friends (everyone produces a pair of home-flavoured liquors and we have a blind tasting). This is relevant to the post for two reasons:
i) it's an awesome evening and I encourage everyone to go foraging and give it a go - the relevant sections of www.downsizer.net and boozed and infused will provide inspiration (pro-tip decant everything into matching bottles and do scorecards with different categories - guaranteed to increase the friendly competition); and
ii) as I provided some spare equipment for the evening I drove over to the hosts', walked home and wandered over the next day to collect the car - the walk takes one through some nice farmland where I often see raptors whilst driving so I took the camera for a walk.

Sighting #1 was a surprise mammal tick for the year. This photo shows our island's endemic subspecies of common vole. I don't think it's in the best of health.

I left the windhover to tuck in in a rather picturesque old tree.

My main target was common buzzard - a bird I've yet to photograph on the island. This one was the third of three.

The 4th buzzard to fly over looked rather different. When it landed and I got a proper view I saw why; it was in fact a female marsh harrier.

A half hour ramble and great views of our three commonest raptors. Not a bad way to spend the lazy afternoon after the night before.

The rocks revealed

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 06:49:00 +0000

So those weird bowl-shaped rocks were in fact bowls. For feeding a truly fascinating beast.

This is a spanish fighting bull or Torro Bravo (not sure if the singular there is right). Regardless of what one feels about bullfighting (I suspect you won't be surprised to know I'm not a fan) these rather wonderful primitive cattle are spectacular animals rich in wild aurochs heritage and right at home in a primitive untamed landscape. Even the little ones have spunk.

Next week I'll share the real reason I was in Spain.

Mystery rock formation

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 03:45:00 +0000

Anyone wanna guess what these are?

Answer tomorrow.

Cattle Egrets Next to Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 16:33:00 +0000

Basically - here's the deal. Cattle Egrets, Bubulcus ibis, are reknowned for following large mammals and feasting on the stuff they disturb. Traditionally it is cattle (hence the name) but it can be other stuff.....like this White Rhino.

Being crafty opportunistic little rascals, they'll follow pretty much anything and anything be it a common or garden field cow or one of the world's rarest mammal or even some dude on a tractor. Being crafty and opportunistic they've also managed to extend themselves around the world onto every continent and into all sorts of situations. I've seen (and photographed) them next to all sorts of weird creatures and items (including a mobile bbq chicken truck) and I reckon you may have too.....So I'm planning on starting a new blog to which all can contribute: Cattle Egrets next to stuff.

If you have a photo of a cattle egret stood next to, following, riding or chillaxing in the general vicinity of either an animal, person or bit of machinery either email it to p dot taihaku at gmail.com or tweet me @twaihaku and we'll get this thing up and running.

They don't have to be amazing shots and I'll of course give you credit and a link back to your blog or twitter if you have one. I'd also appreciate a little background (what it's doing, where it's doing it)

My goal is to get photos from as many different people of cattle egrets next to as many different things in as many different countries as possible. I'm genuinely fascinated to see how many the nature blogging community can come up with - OK, so this isn't high falluting citizen science but hey, lets have some fun with this and see what we can come up with.

Leopard Tortoise

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 17:12:00 +0000

The coolest member of the so-called "little 5" and one of my favourite chelonians is the leopard tortoise.

They come in two flavours; normal....

....and chargrilled.

The second tortoise appeared to be a burn victim. I say victim but other than his horrible appearance he seemed utterly unphased by the injury and was doing his leopard tortoise thing (their thing seems to be walking as quickly as they can in a straightline ignoring a) people, b) other things, c) the obvious stupidity of their chosen route. Maybe they just know where they're going.

They get pretty big too.

Baby baboon

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 07:30:00 +0000

Not much to this beyond a little cuteness for a monday morning. A mother olive baboon carries her baby across a road in Kruger NP, RSA.....

Giant Fish of British Columbia

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 04:32:00 +0000

So we've already seen a number of bits of charismatic megafauna seen by me on my trip to British Columbia; whales, bears and so on.....and that is what one tends to think of when one thinks of north american megafauna: bears, bison, deer (and moose, caribou and so forth), wolves and so on, on the coasts, elephant seals, whales and sea lions, down south perhaps 'gators.

The more educated naturalist (ie you, my readers) is probably also thinking of some of the lesser known american megabeasts - the American Crocodile, the jaguars and ocelots of the South West, the various sheep species.

As we've touched on before we are not seeing the whole picture of course. The north american landscape is missing a number of its giants: its elephants (the mammoths and mastodon), its wild horses and the ground sloths and glyptodonts.

But even those who envisage this total picture often forget another class of giant american creature; the megafish which swim in its great rivers. If there is one thing I'm not, it is neglectful of big fish and accordingly I present to you my favourite creature in all British Columbia, North America's biggest fish - the White Sturgeon of the Fraser River, Accipenser transmontanus..........in mid air.

I know there is no scale object but this fish is, by the way, 7 feet 3 inches long. I know that because we put a tape measure on it when my co-angler had landed it. It was, for the avoidance of doubt, subsequently released. I will have more soon on these giant, ancient, beauties but in the meantime just drink in the power and majesty......and if you really can't wait FC has some Gulf Sturgeon aerials in his back catalogue.

Trickster

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 08:30:00 +0000

A tiny movement half a click away gradually resolved itself into a coyote by means of our various rabbit squeals and bird calls (he loved my fishing guide's squealing rabbit, was less sure about my plover call) and his curiosity.

Wonderful animal to see in a big landscape.

Saffa Reptiles Big and Small

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 07:00:00 +0000

Because my ego knows no bounds something I'm kind of making a tradition in our household is gifting a poster-sized calendar of my photos to each of my parents for their offices each year. Its easy to do using one of the many cool photo printing services online and I suspect many of my readers (almost all of whom are better photographers than I) do something similar.

Anyway this is merely a set-up to the fact that this year's calendar was based on photos from my south african trip of 2011 (OK, I admit it - I subbed in a Sri Lankan leopard cos my african leopard shots are horrible) and my inability to find one of the photos I wanted led me back into my archive for that trip. That led me to these two reptile photos.

This male blue headed agama lounging in the gardens of one of Kruger's rest stop restaurant areas made the calendar.

This monster niloticus did not.

Agamas are one of the most commonly seen reptiles in Africa and elsewhere and the males are invariably wonderfully coloured. Long-time readers may remember me briefly stopping my geek-out over the cycad collection at Fairchild Tropical Gardens to look in on the feral Agama colony living in their rock garden.

Nile Crocodiles will need know introduction. In terms of the scale of this beastie, I really have no idea how big it is but if you assume the "little" one in front is "only" 6 feet (I suspect it's bigger) well......you've got a very big croc on your hands.

Early Christmas Present

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 08:30:00 +0000

'Twas the Friday before Christmas, and all through my workplace
People were pushing hard to get done, 'fore Santa showed his face
When suddenly a beep meant that all works were stopped
as a remarkable email in my inbox was dropped:

"There's a dolphin in the marina"

Our office faces out onto the waters of the channel and a rather picturesque marina and for some reason a large bottlenosed dolphin had come to visit. I had a quick glance from the office conference room

and then wandered out for a closer look. Please excuse picture quality - the zoom on my mobile phone camera (yeah - that's how close he was) isn't great

News spread through town pretty quick and soon there were teachers surrounded by nursery kids (aka kindergartners in Americano), office workers and delivery guys all peering over the harbour walls. Amusingly he was almost invisible for big chunks of time as he'd swim under one row of boats to another openwater space - the trick to finding him (which I was able to do without sight making me appear as some sort of dolphin whisperer) was listening for his breaths.

A wonderful end to a wonderful wildlife year for me of bears, cats, whales and big fish. Oh that reminds me - I still owe you some cats and big fish.....

The reward for watching

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 14:59:00 +0000

I talk a lot in E,W&W (and real life) about the importance of looking for and being aware of nature wherever you are. Of not relying on guides or tours to hook you up but of taking opportunities wherever they arise. So when I found myself on a ferry to Vancouver Island, I wasn't going to spend my time in the warm reading my kindle. I headed up to the top deck on the foremost bit I could get to - alas my vantage point only allowed me a 180degree field of view on the starboard side - and donned my bins and camera.....

......and about 6 layers of clothing. Ye gods it was cold. Bitter windchill and wet air. horrible......

.....and I watched and waited, searching the seas - looking for something interesting. A few gulls here, a western grebe or loon there. Eventually a blow besides the boat revealed.......

......probably the least interesting (to me) marine mammal in these waters - a harbour seal. Gah. Still I watched and waited. My eyes strained to turn waves into flukes, my mind asked horrible questions about what I might be seeing if I were on the port side.....

...and I watched and waited. Craving a coffee.....and then the tannoy announcement called drivers back to their cars ready for arrival. I had failed completely in trying to see what I wanted. No point going back inside - I may as well look for sealions as we come into port and then......

.....blows! such a long way away I could barely make them out. I swung the camera onto them and blasted furiously - 5 shots. 2 came out recognisable when heavily cropped..........

Self-found Orca! Who cares about wind, rain and crappy views?

As I arrived at my hotel that night I was told a storm was coming and the whale watching tours I'd booked would probably be cancelled. This would be my only view of Orca this trip. My life view. Quite the reward for watching.

A walk in the woods....

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 11:45:00 +0000

There are no large wild or feral mammals on my island (no badgers, hares or foxes even - the biggest animal I've seen here on land was a feral ferret DOR), there were no large wild animals on my last island either (just mongooses and on a couple of the other islands feral donkeys, goats and cattle). I have become used to this absence and yet I feel it keenly (as I know does my most nature loving friend here). Travelling to places to see Big Nature has become a habit I don't want to kick but the idea of living somewhere where Big Nature, possibly even Big Dangerous Nature, may be encountered on a day-to-day basis, by chance fills me with glee and awe........and so to Vancouver Island, Canada.

I arrived, as I invariably do in such places with, a list of things to try and see. Near the top of that list was Vancouver Island Black Bear (Ursus americanus vancouveri) and yet I have not had great look with bears. I struck out with Sloth Bear in Sri Lanka, missed Black Bear in California despite being surrounded by very fresh bear paw prints with everyone else in the hotel seeing them regularly and when I finally got my first bear in the wild, an Indian sloth bear disappeared in 3 seconds at high speed and extreme range. Such has been my luck with bears. So when I was told the coastal wildlife boats would not be going out as planned I wasn't surprised. My plan you see had been to enjoy dolphins and seal-lions on such a boat and hopefully maybe see black bear working the shoreline. Apparently this happens quite often. But not for me. and so I went for a walk in the woods. Buoyed my lovely breakfast waitresses comments that the Quintan River Salmon Hatchery was worth a look as an interesting attraction and that some people saw bears there I took a trip there. I walked in the woods. Past the bear warning signs. And saw nothing. No, not nothing, beautiful leaves....

Nominate this photo for Picture of the Week

..... but no bear.

And so I gave up my dream a little and went sight seeing.

These huge maidenhair ferns transfixed me.

Nominate this photo for Picture of the Week

and the falls I hiked to see were pretty spectacular....

But waiting down the trail was something better. Through the leaves I became aware of some dark movement 75 yards or so away on the other side of the river and instantly knew what was resolving into view through the shrubbery: Black Bear!

Nominate this photo for Picture of the Week

My first really good sighting of bear in the wild. It was awesome, just me and the bear for a minute or two. A huge animal just going about it's business. No professional guide, no hide or safari bus just me, my rucksack, camera and a bear. My adrenalin levels were through the roof; I was shaking with excitement. Eventually I was joined by a trail runner who was pleasantly surprised to see the bear but mentioned he'd seen them a few times here. He also added that he'd seen cougars on the trail more than once. When I eventually walked on I did so with my eyes wide open.

Fatty cuteness

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 08:26:00 +0000

I revisited an old haunt last week, the grey seal pupping ground. Most of the pups were already at the immensely fat doe-eyed ball of fur stage.

Nominate this photo for Picture of the Week

It is possible to get ridiculously close here. This pup was asleep against the fence. Shot taken vertically down at a range of maybe 3 1/2 feet.

Another fence hugger. There are warning signs every few yards to remind the less wildlife aware that seals have big teeth and bite when they're scared no matter how cute they look. Note the total absence of a neck.

Nominate this photo for Picture of the Week

Wordless Wednesday: Waiting for Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 08:24:00 +0000

A starring nativity role awaits these guys - it's the busiest time of their year.

The musket on the feeders

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 08:23:00 +0000

I'd first seen him the previous day. As I sat in a chair at my parents I was aware of a darkening on the window to my left, looked up and met his eye. A dainty little male sparrowhawk sat atop the neighbour's hedge. A day later I looked up and in he came, subtle as a brick. I can't help but feel this is an optimistic spot from which to try and catch small birds feeding on our birdfeeders.

I know other people have seen Accipter hawks astride feeders, everyone's favourite sciencechimp Julie Zickefoose for example. Nonetheless the brazenness of it astonished me. He hopped down to the bird bath.

We have a protective film on our windows designed to obscure them and minimise bird strikes. Nonetheless I'm guessing he could see enough to know someone was watching. I'm assuming the white splodges on his back indicate that he's a juvenile. Don't quote me on that. I do however know he's a he - the reddish barring is indicative of that and ye olde englishe name for a male sprawk is a musket which wikipedia tells me is not a firearms reference but a derivative of latin and ye olde frenche words for "a fly". I like such intricacies of language. It gives me pleasure to know that once upon a time people cared enough about male sparrowhawks to come up with a specific name for them other than "male sparrowhawk".

Don't dunk that tail! He had a spin around and a good old look at the whole garden as though trying to get a handle on the shape of things (this part of the garden is full of (now not-so) dwarf conifers creating a Sprawk slalom course. It reminded me of those shots you see of a sportsman walking around an empty stadium taking everything in. Unsurprisingly no-one came to the feeders during this period. My dad's comment at this point was one of surprise at how small he was close-up. What we believe to be his mother also lurks these parts leaving lumps of woodpigeon, collared dove and on one particularly awesome occasion one of the moorhens that frequent our pond (taken in front of me) scattered across the grass.

A wonderful 10 minutes we shared; me, my father and the musket. I'm sure he'll reappear soon enough.

Inside the herd

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 01:56:00 +0000

Discovering zoom.it has let me share a few cool pano shots with you but it might just help me to put you in my shoes for one of the coolest experiences I've had. We turned a corner in Kruger and there were a load of cape buffalo. I mean a load. Hundreds. Upon hundreds. Suddenly they were crossing the road all around us and we were literally inside the herd. Use the zoom options and drag these around for a play inside the herd.

It wasn't just buffalo though. The herd carried with it a host of companions and caused a mighty disturbance. I became aware of something predatory scurry around the edges of the herd. It was too small to be a lion and it took me an age to get the rest of the group on it. I was rather hoping it was a very, very optimistic leopard. But this was a smaller carnivore, woken from its slumbers and driven from its hiding place by the herd. A civet.

He had no predatory ambitions whatsoever, the stalking behaviour was merely him trying to keep his head down and avoid the ire of the buffalo. Our guide told us she'd never seen one in daytime before. Soon our civet first was joined by another first. The guide picked up an odd bird call in amongst the herd. Like an oxpecker but different. It turned out to be a yellow-billed oxpecker, a first for this part of Kruger I believe (though reasonably common not too far away).....

...so all in all it was rather nice to be inside the herd.

Panoramas

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 02:02:00 +0000

So I just discovered http://zoom.it/ which has an embedding function which will allow me to post panoramas into the blog. You can zoom in on them and then use the mouse to drag them around and explore the landscape. I don't take panos very often but my new handicam has a cool function for them and they are quite a nice way to capture truly unique landscapes. Anyway enjoy.

3 rondavels

Kruger

Bear necessities

noreply@blogger.com (tai haku) — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 19:53:00 +0000

Let's cut to the chase. There is one animal above all others we associate with the Pacific Salmon run; Ursus arctos horribilis, the grizzly bear.

I have historically had a bit of a jinx when it comes to seeing bears but I actually scotched that with a tremendous bit of luck the day before I shot this. We'll get to that and the story behind this video in time but for now let's enjoy a bear being bearish.