Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
You are looking at Sturnia pagodarum – so named for its alleged habit of perching on temple pagodas in south India.
One of the oft-seen, more handsome starlings/mynahs, it is commonly known as the Brahminy starling.
The pictured individual was delivering a full-on vocal performance at 7.46 am on 05 March 2023 in Nagarhole Tiger Reserve, Karnataka.
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On any day in well-wooded parts of southern India you can reasonably expect to see kingfishers, more than once.
They do not only eat fish.
Accordingly, trees overlooking ponds, lakes and rivers are not their only favoured places.
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Just one week ago we were enjoying our final early morning safari in Karnataka’s Nagarhole Tiger Reserve, before a long drive to Bengalaru (formerly Bangalore) and our longer-again, two-flights journey home.
To an Australian visitor, what you can see above is an utterly amazing, very “exotic” sight.
To a local person who is very familiar with this national park, it is a perfectly ordinary circumstance.
Such an “amazing”/“commonplace” duality is a tag that applies to a great many things in India…and Australia too.
(try to imagine how “utterly unlikely” an emu, a galah, a kangaroo, or a blooming kangaroo paw must look to someone who has never before encountered any of them)
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Delightfully perky as is its “post-punk” crest, an adult male Indian flycatcher’s signature feature is the prodigious length of its “tail”/tail feathers.
Evidence suggests that here, size does matter: apparently, individuals with longer tail feathers enjoy greater breeding success.
Generally, extravagant tail feathers are a feature of promiscuous species, but the usually-monogamous Indian paradise flycatcher is a spectacular exception to this “rule”.
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If the relevant timepiece registered only minutes and hours, it would have said “9. 23 am” through all of this post’s eight images, which are presented in chronological order.
As it happens, my camera also records seconds, so I know that only 39 of them elapsed from first to eighth photo.
From image “1” through “7” only 21 seconds passed.
A recently-bathed Superb Fairy Wren – Malurus cyaneus – can adopt a great many different positions within such a “short” time!
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As is true of not a few other “country clubs”, the one in Namibia’s capital city is in fact well inside an urban “footprint”.
The Windhoek Country Club Resort offers luxurious accommodation, decent food, a casino, an 18 hole golf course, a gym, and extravagantly “Afrokitsch” reception and dining spaces.
To the astonishment of this non-gambler, non-golfer – and non-fan of Afrokitsch – my beloved and I there enjoyed an unforgettable wildlife experience, just a couple of human footsteps away from “our” room!
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This post’s actual footprints come from bears in Alaska, birds on the Indian subcontinent and continental Australia, a Tasmanian wombat, and humans in an African desert and Australian suburbia.
The musical bonus is courtesy of one of the greatest jazz musicians – equally so as composer, virtuoso instrumentalist and inspired improviser.
There’s also a metaphorical footnote which involves New Zealand’s largest farm…
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This afternoon – and for too many afternoons over the next 100+ days – “too bloody hot, no thank you”, is an appropriate response to any invitation to go walking along the shore of one of Perth’s many wetlands/lakes/rivers.
This post fondly remembers a late afternoon, back when most days were ideal for wetland-walking.
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Most Australians have never heard of – let alone, seen – a member of the species pictured above.
Quelea Quelea – the Red-billed Quelea – is, however, almost certainly the most abundant bird on “our” planet!
It is a significant agricultural pest. Sometimes in flocks of millions, billowing in the sky like smoke…
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On average, this (contested) title probably rightfully belongs to males of a species widespread in southern Africa: Ardeotis kori – the Kori Bustard.
They commonly weigh 18 kilograms apiece.
The so-called “World Wide Web” is in fact more than a tad Northern Hemispere-centric/ USA-centric/ Eurocentric; I strongly suspect that Africa has the biggest bustards.
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