Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
Anthropomorphic captions almost always lie about the animals they purport to describe!
This juvenile Australian Wood Duck was simply preening, as birds do.
This behaviour has precisely nothing to do with egregious self-regard.
However, the “water as mirror” circumstance does lead me to one of my favourite pianists, delivering a sublime rendition – coughers, notwithstanding – of Claude Debussy’s Reflets dans l’eau.
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Sequentially, the featured image is the fourth of this post’s photos, all taken within the contest’s brief timespan: a little less than four minutes.
Formally, the “snake bird” is an Oriental darter, Anhinga melenogaster – the same species who looked so very different when in repose, in #66 in Pelican Yoga’s “a shining moment” series.
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On this winter’s day in Rajasthan these demoiselle cranes had it easy.
The altitude was low, the weather mild, and they only had to fly for a few minutes – from a local dam to a nearby village, where food is provided expressly for them – then, back to the dam.
To reach this cranes’ paradise, however, they had to cross the world’s mightiest mountains…and as winter becomes spring they will have to fly over the Himalayas again.
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This post’s peregrine – like yesterday’s – was photographed in the Great Rann of Kutch.
The plumage tells me that he was an adult, and his smaller size tells me that he was indeed a “he”, yesterday’s immature bird was rather larger, so almost certainly female.
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Yes, the peregrine really is the fastest animal on earth!
This post’s peregrine falcon is an immature individual.
That description is not a character judgement; the colour of its plumage makes clear that it is a young bird.
Comments closedPelecanus crispus – the Dalmatian Pelican – is one of several contenders for the “heavyweight title” among the world’s living, flying birds.
One CommentThe next image – taken within seconds of the featured one – shows which of the feuding Griffon Vultures won their brief stoush.
(All photos copyright Doug Spencer, taken February 2020)
Comments closedThe greater part of February 2020 has just been wonderfully well spent in India – mostly in Gujarat and Rajahstan.
2 Comments…as currently done, locally, by Great Crested Grebes and “snake-birds”.
Comments closedTiny toadstools and strange flora too!
Biodiversity-wise, Western Australia’s Hollywood is enormously wealthier than California’s.
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