Skip to content →

Category: Americas and Eurasia and Africa

October Song (#86 in “a shining moment” series)

I took the photo on a glorious autumn morning almost exactly one year ago – 10.26 am, 29 October 2019, Labahe, Sichuan, China.

In Scotland, more than half a century earlier, Robin Williamson wrote my favourite autumn song.

Allegedly, October Song was the first song he ever wrote, as a teenager.

One Comment

Wild asses: #4 in “western India” series/ #2 in “Tibetan Plateau” series

Asia’s wild asses are different from Africa’s, and larger too.

All but one kind are generally reckoned subspecies of Equus hemionus, the Asiatic wild ass or onager.

Pictured above and below is the khur or Indian wild ass, Equus hemionus khur.

Once widespread, in large numbers, khur now only number several thousand individuals, most of them in the Little Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, western India.

Comments closed

Red pandas (#3 in Sichuan series)

Red Pandas are their genus’s only (two) species; further, they are the only living members of their family, Ailuridae.

They are only very distantly related to Giant Pandas.

Giant Pandas are bears, members of the Ursidae family.

Red Pandas are more closely related to weasels, skunks and raccoons, as fellow members of the superfamily, Musteloidea.

Comments closed

Revelatory covers (15th in series): “Oblivion”, twice

 

Oblivion is a 1982 composition by Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992), Nuevo tango’s pre-eminent composer and bandoneon virtuoso.

Perhaps his most uncanny piece, it has survived/endured countless covers.

Some of its finest interpreters are not Argentinian, and although one of this post’s two very different versions does feature a “squeezebox”, it is not a bandoneon.

Comments closed

A walk on the walled side (#3 in Western India series)

 

This post is the fruit of a lunchtime walk through the walled, “old city” section of Jaipur, Rajasthan’s largest city.

Approaching four million people, its metropolis has around twice as many residents as Perth’s.

Its “old” part’s hub makes any part of Perth – or of most “Western World” city CBDs – feel relatively monochrome, lifeless.

Comments closed

Tibetan Macaques (No 2 in Sichuan series)

The featured image depicts maternal tenderness, but Macaca thibetana is also a strikingly aggressive, opportunistic species.

Unsurprisingly, this species’ “near threatened” status is the result of pressure/competition from our own aggressive, opportunistic species!

Tibetan Macaques live in cool subtropical Asian forests at elevations between 800 and 2500 metres above sea level.

Comments closed