Black oystercatchers are a large shorebird and one of my favorites in North American. Not really sure why, but I really like their entirely black feathers, orangish-red beaks, yellow, orange-ringed eyes, and pinkish legs. Nothing flashy, just a good solid, unpretentious bird. I was on a cliff, looking down on this one near San Simeon, California. They nest just above the high tide line of rocky shorelines and prey upon many small invertebrates including mussels, crabs and barnacles. Oddly enough, however, they don’t eat oysters.
Here’s an old one that I decided to send again after watching the primates episode of “Life” last night on Discovery Channel. This is a tufted capuchin monkey, also known as a brown capuchin, from Madidi National Park in Bolivia. Capuchins are generally considered to be the most intelligent of the new world monkeys and are especially noted for their use of tools. If you saw the episode, you’d have seen one of these guys cracking open palm nuts by using a rock as a hammer and a larger flat stone as an anvil.
I usually don’t post on Saturday but I’m testing out a few things on the blog. Apparently a lot of gmail, yahoo and hotmail subscribers aren’t receiving posts. Hopefully this goes through. Another agile gibbon from Borneo. This one really shows just how long these guy’s arms are.
I photographed this osprey last month at one of the country’s top birding spots — Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island in Florida. Osprey’s are somewhat unique, being a single species that occurs worldwide (except in Antarctica). They are fish eating raptors, sometimes called sea hawks, and you can see the tail of a fish in this one’s talons.
They start the training early to be an elephant handler in Sumatra. These kids are born into the business and grow up with the young elephants. I’m usually not a trained/domesticated animal guy, but as I mentioned earlier, there definitely seems to be a strong relationship and respect between the people of Tangkahan and their elephants.
The spectral tarsier is another small mammal from the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. This one actually is a primate — one of the smallest on the planet. To put it in perspective, these guys are bigger than a mouse but smaller than the average squirrel. They are nocturnal and emerge from cavities in trees at dusk. It was actually quite dark when I took this shot but I used a tripod and a long exposure to get the shot using the available light. There are three types of tarsier species. The other two live on Borneo and the Phillipines and their eyes are even bigger than this guy’s.
Here’s another mountain gorilla from my Ugandan trip. This female had been resting under those bushes before she lifted her head up to see what was going on.
This here is a California newt, also known as an orange bellied newt. These guys are pretty big for newts, growing to 8 inches in length. It was somewhat rare to come across one on land because it’s breeding season and although they are land dwelling for most of the year, they stay in the water from December to early May when they are taking care of business. They also happen to be highly toxic and if ingested can kill you. I made sure not to eat him.
On my trip to Uganda, chimpanzees in the wild proved more difficult to photograph than I had hoped . Most of the time when we spotted them, they were high in the trees with difficult lighting conditions and tough angles due to all the foliage and vines. At this location, however, in Queen Elizabeth National Park, we finally happened upon a troop that provided a few easier looks, including this guy who apparently just received some surprised news.
One of the few highlights of my week in Sumatra, Indonesia was the day I got to ride a “domestic” elephant. Not a great way to take photographs, but something different to do. The elephants seem to be happy enough and the handlers apparently treat them well and have a good relationship with them. I didn’t see anything to indicate otherwise. Every day after trekking, they get washed in the river and seem to really enjoy it as they roll over for the rub down.
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