wildlife – Page 2 – Pelican Yoga

“Hunting” tigers (#1 in 3 part series: tiger country)

Published November 8, 2023 by Pelidoug

“Hunting” tigers (#1 in 3 part series: tiger country)

If you wish to see tigers “in the wild”, India is your best destination.

It contains circa 25% of the world’s remaining tiger habitat, but India is currently home to around 75% of “our” globe’s wild tigers.

There is no such thing as a reliable estimate of India’s wild tiger population, let alone the world’s.

The likely-best available figures come from the Global Tiger Forum.

On 10 September 2023, Global Tiger Forum published its latest global estimate: 5,574.

That is 74% higher than their 2010 figure. (click here for more detail)

It is impossible to know how much of the apparent increase reflects better monitoring rather than actual increase.

That said, there are grounds for believing that in some nations – India, especially – wild tiger numbers really are rising, after many years of steep decline towards seemingly-inevitable extinction.

This little series looks at Nagarhole Tiger Reserve in Karnataka, south India.

The featured image and the one immediately below show what the local tiger habitat looks like.

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Quirky moments (#18 in series: up on the roof)

Published September 5, 2023 by Pelidoug

Quirky moments (#18 in series: up on the roof)

As you can see, the featured image shows a young primate, looking very relaxed, on a rooftop.

Obviously, the pictured individual was well aware of my (very close) presence.

At the time – 9.26 am on 28 February 2023 – the relevant two species had a couple of dozen mutually-visible members present, in a village near Coonoor in the Nilgiri Hills, south India.

Yours truly belongs to the world’s most abundant primate species.

My photo’s subject is a wild member of one of the rarest, most endangered primate species.

Its rapidly-vanishing natural rainforest habitat is confined to small, scattered locations in India’s Western Ghats.

Allegedly, that species’ members are elusive creatures (who) usually occupy the tallest, shadowy rainforest canopies, far from human sight.

However much I loved my experience of the “endearing moment” pictured above, it was in fact a moment that should never happen – a symptom of how very desperate has become the plight of Macaca silenus, the lion-tailed macacque.

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Quirky moments (#15 in series: mammalian avatar, with musical bonus)

Published August 31, 2023 by Pelidoug

Quirky moments (#15 in series: mammalian avatar, with musical bonus)

If you are a Pelican Yoga regular, you have already seen Barbara Cartland’s and Barbie’s avian avatars. (in #10 of the “quirky moments” series)

This post’s “punkish” cub is a member of Africa’s most oft-misrepresented mammal species.

His kind are very much smarter and much more “social” than most humans realise.

Contrary to common human belief, spotted hyenas are primarily predators rather than scavengers.

Lions are much more likely to “steal” from hyenas than vice versa, and spotted hyenas are much the more efficient hunters.

Over the last several thousand years hyenas have had rotten “press”, but they are not rotters.

Nonetheless, the young hero of this post’s appearance and demeanour were decidedly “Rottenesque”.

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Leopard, hunting (Etosha National Park, northern Namibia)

Published August 6, 2023 by Pelidoug

Leopard, hunting (Etosha National Park, northern Namibia)

This post documents the last of our four close encounters with leopards in Namibia during November 2022.

The featured image shows “our hero”, not long after we had noticed him.

He was to our right; his quarry (a springbok) was where all the visible grazing mammals were at that time – to our left, on the other side of the relevant road.

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Warthogs and water

Published August 2, 2023 by Pelidoug

Warthogs and water

Every living thing needs water.

However, different living things’ particular ways of accessing/consuming/conserving/using water, are hugely variable.

So are the quantities they require, how often they need to drink – if they do need to drink – and even the very nature of their relationship to water.

Certain terrestrial creatures absolutely relish water…and not just as something to drink or to swim in.

In this respect, warthogs are nigh-peerless.

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Warthogs (1 of 2: individual portraits)

Published July 31, 2023 by Pelidoug

Warthogs (1 of 2: individual portraits)

Classical Greek statuary, 21st century Hollywood, “supermodels”, “influencers”, Barbie and Ken, the work of profit-maximising cosmetic surgeons or “surgeons”, pedlars of “miracle” diets and so-called “beauticians”…

Is your idea of “beauty” the fruit of parameters set by one or more of the above?

If your answer is an unchangeable “yes”, you will never appreciate that warthogs are indeed beautiful…

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Fine swine…

Published July 31, 2023 by Pelidoug

Fine swine…

…but too many humans revile and/or ridicule suids – the pig family.

Warthogs (pictured above, at a waterhole in Namibia) get a particularly “bad press”.

They are routinely described as “ugly”.

Allegedly, their faces are ones that only their mothers could love.

To the best of my knowledge, I bear little resemblance to a warthog, but I really like warthogs’ faces…and their whole-hog selves.

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“From behind” (#9 in single-image series: relaxed giraffes)

Published May 30, 2023 by Pelidoug

“From behind” (#9 in single-image series: relaxed giraffes)

For a giraffe, drinking is as necessary as it is for any other mammal.

The very act of positioning oneself to make drinking physically possible is, however, an enormously more delicate, demanding task for a giraffe than for other mammals.

Giraffes’ approach to a waterhole is always slow, tentative, hesitant…and in a group.

Anxiety and hyper vigilance are especially evident at the crucial moment when a giraffe has to decide that it is now “safe” – or not – to get into drinking position.

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