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Category: nature and travel

Barking mad: what tree’s skin is this?

As regular readers/viewers know, Pelican Yoga is partial to eucalypts’ bark, most especially when those trees shed and renew their skin.

I am no expert on particular species, but I can positively identify this one.

The relevant sign (next image) will let you know if your guess is correct; chances are excellent that you will “bark up” the wrong tree!

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Réunion Island: from above

Madagascar-bound, flying from Australia?

Lucky you!

You’ll be even luckier if you spend some days on Réunion Island, en route; if the natural world is more your world than “resort world”, Réunion and Madagascar are infinitely more rewarding Indian Ocean island destinations than is Mauritius.

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Réunion Island: on terra (in)firma, looking up

One of the world’s most spectacular volcanic creations, Réunion is young, geologically; the island emerged around three million years ago.

Territorially part of France, Réunion is geographically much closer to Africa.

At 3,069 metres above sea level, Réunion’s Piton Des Neiges is the Indian Ocean’s highest mountain.

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Shallow Inlet trilogy (1 of 3 consecutive posts)

Today’s, tomorrow’s and the final chapter’s single images were all taken within one half-hour, late on the afternoon of October 25, 2018.

On their “journey” from first to third photo my feet took only a few steps, on a single, nigh-horizontal strand, in almost-unchanging weather and light.

However, if you bend your knees, turn your head a little, and/or change your camera’s focus and/or focal length, one place and circumstance can yield three very different “worlds”.

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Word power: on “invasive species”

According to an alarming recent article in the Australian edition of The Guardian, Australia is “losing the fight” against invasive species.

It quotes scientists who claim that the “invaders”  pose a greater threat to Australia’s native species than does climate change.

(so, you may ask, “why on earth does the image atop this Pelican Yoga post depict an Australian native species which is clearly flourishing?”)

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Uncommonly close animal encounters: Ezo red fox

(second episode in an occasional series)

The featured image shows this individual as he or she first became visible to us.

In Hokkaido the local foxes “belong” – they are not feral, and most local humans do not regard them as “vermin”.

Accordingly – when well aware of nearby human presence – some of Hokkaido’s foxes behave in a relatively “relaxed” fashion that would be unimaginable in Australia.

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