Beautiful Animals

Thanks for posting, C.I. How I envy you being there and being able to see it all with your own eyes.

Love the rhinos.

The stork is spectacular in flight. I rarely get to storks in the air (even in pictures or on TV).

Were you in a boat similar to the one in the photo (Okavango Delta, Botswana)?

The bird is lovely.

Not surprised that the photo of the cheetahs made it into a magazine. It's truly wonderful. (I think the guy on the right is my Uncle Harold. Could be wrong. :wink: )

The fastest animal in the world--the peregrine falcon.

from wikipedia:

A shrike is a passerine bird of the family Laniidae which is known for its habit of catching insects, small birds or mammals and impaling their bodies on thorns. This helps them to tear the flesh into smaller, more conveniently-sized fragments, and serves as a "larder" so that the shrike can return to the uneaten portions at a later time.

A typical shrike's beak is hooked, like a bird of prey, reflecting its predatory nature.

Most shrike species occur in Eurasia and Africa, but two breed in North America. There are no members of this family in South America or Australia.

Some shrikes are also known as "butcher birds" because of their habit of keeping corpses. Australasian butcherbirds are not shrikes, although they occupy a similar ecological niche.




A pair of pied butcherbirds (Cracticus nigrogularis), adult (right) and juvenile (left), at Uluru, Northern Territories.

That peregrine falcon shot is amazing!

Roberta, Yes, the Okavango Delta is a very special place where we rode those "dug out" boats. Those boats are called something like "mokoros," and the peddler-guide takes you into different "open" canals through the delta. It's really beautiful with water lillies and papyrus plants. We also had several safaris at Chobe National Park in Botswana where we saw animals up close and personal.

This group is from the Galapagos Islands.

Iguana.


Galapagos hawk.


Forgot the name of bird (finch?).


This is Bartholome Island where Master and Commander was filmed. We parked "here" overnight to climb this mountain the following morning to look at pinnacle rock and beach below.

Thanks, dj, for the shrike info. I think of birds of prey as big, fast, and imposing-looking. These birds sound like great hunters and look small and harmless. Interesting.

Rosborne, Thanks for the stunning photo of the ray.

Thanks, C.I., for your Galapagos pix.


A great ape--orang utan:

The biggest animal--the blue whale:




And the biggest fish--whale shark:

garden dormouse:

dolphins




silverback gorilla:

I chose the animals here not so much for their beauty but because they've developed amazing abilities.


Jesus Christ (basilisk) lizard. These lizards and run across the top of water to escape predation.






Flying snake. These snakes make great leaps from tree to tree, spreading their bodies as flat as possible.





Mudskipper. These are fish that can get out and walk when the water dries up.

A humpback whale takes a dive deep into the ocean.

Thanks, msolga. Did you know that whale watchers identify whales by their flukes (tails)? Each one is different. One Christmas I gave as a gift two humpback whales, which were "adopted." The kids I gave the whales to received siting notices all year long, and the sitings were based on the tails.

Here's a humpback whale on the way up (breaching).




And at the other end of the size scale, here's another hummingbird:

What a great Christmas gift, Roberta. Adopt a whale!

Yes, I know (a little) about whales & their "flukes". Fascinating stuff, hey?

I also love the (ubiquitous) images of the tails/flukes disappearing into the oceans. Ah, the magic & the freedom of the sea! (or that's how it should be, anyway!)

hyacinth macaw

Which reminds me of Fred, the conure, with whom I had a small chat today.

I don't know if there is a previous photo of Fred on a2k.. a handsome fellow several a2kers are attached to. - and I think he, to them..

I'll do a conure flyby in the meantime.

OK, I looked, none of them in the first five pages of 10,000 plus entries are quite like our Fred, really.

But, this conure is a beauty -


from patagonian-conure.com

Sputtering and muttering. A post of mine never made it here. C'est la vie.

msolga, When my cat Mikey died, a friend adopted a wolf for me in his memory. A wonderful and thoughtful thing to do. I received the certificate of adoption. While she was at it, she adopted a penguin for herself. I like the idea not just that it's a thoughtful thing to do but that a contribution to a wildlife organization is made in the process. Could he be mine?





rosborne, thanks for the gecko. They're small but amazing bug hunters.

dj, Love dem boids, especially those from the parrot family. Thanks.

osso, thanks for representing Fred here. In case he's reading, Hi Fred.

Superb Blue Wren.

Male



Female