Readers’ wildlife photos

December 3, 2015 • 7:30 am

Reader John Crisp in Ethiopia sent a bunch of photos; I’ll present only a few today and ration the rest over time.

All these photos were taken between 6 am and 8.30 am this morning [Nov. 22] on Lake Tana, Western Ethiopia, where I have lived for the last four years. I hope the captions are self evident. I’m sure there are too many, but the Egyptian geese ones (Alopochen aegyptiacus) are particularly fascinating. They are usually fairly placid, but I guess it’s mating season…

The captions for the next four are “Egyptian goose: Stuka attack”:

Egyptian Goose - Stuka Attack 1

Egyptian Goose - Stuka Attack 2

Egyptian Goose - Stuka Attack 3

Egyptian Goose - Stuka Attack 4

Egyptian geese, fighting:

Egyptian Geese - Fighting

This photo of two Egyptian geese on a branch, presumably fighting over a female, is scary.

Egyptian Geese - Confrontation

And one more to whet your appetite: Little Bee-Eaters (Merops pusillus):

Little Bee Eaters

From Stephen Barnard, a passel (I’m sure that’s not the right collective noun) of elk (Cervus canadensis):

These aren’t especially good photos, but they show something interesting. At this time of the year elk migrate through the valley and gather into large herds. I estimate there were at least 400 head in this herd. I took the first photo from my car with a 700mm lens. The second photo is a couple of years old, taken at the same place, and shows about half the herd.

P1030393

RT9A2127

And a photo of the moon from reader Andy Saxon, who had a pint in the cat pub The Bag of Nails (more on that later):

I’ve included a couple of lunar shots I took through my telescope (with a dSLR mount) in recent months.

IMG_3540 - Version 2

Version 2

And from Anne-Marie Cournoyer in Quebec, a handsome American crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos):

Anne-Marie Cournoyer

For some unaccountable reason, I really like the next photo:
The title of this photo could be “Food for thought!” This is same squirrel that comes day after day in our backyard in Brossard, Qc. I started his education today. It took him a while to get accustomed to the presentation, but as you see, soon enough it was business as usual!
Anne-Marie Cournoyer 2

16 thoughts on “Readers’ wildlife photos”

  1. Really nice collection of photos here and from all over the world. Must be mating season for the Geese for sure. Never get much closer to the moon unless you are Neil Armstrong and not much closer to a crow.

    2. I was wondering about your conception of “half.” 😀

      It’d be a real thrill to see a herd, er, passel like that!

  6. All very fine pics today. I’d like to photoshop the tree-branch love triangle in front of one of the moon shots. It should enhance the romance. But, I can get very silly with Photoshop – must show restraint…

    1. Hi Diana, the telescope was a 6″ reflector with a Celestron t-mount and a 2x Barlow lens. A pretty inexpensive set-up as far as astrophotography goes!

  9. I love the diversity today…I guess it’s the liberal in me. 🙂

    I really need to get a telescope and dSLR mount. Those moon shots are fantastic.

    As an aside, I clicked on the squirrel photo for a larger look and accidentally clicked on the Barnes and Nobles page to buy Faith vs. Fact. Once there, I saw this utterly ridiculous 1-star rating. PCC(E)’s jacket designer has certainly offended this numskull…OMG, the font is biased!

    “You aren’t supposed to judge a book by its cover, that is, of course, unless the author/publisher uses typeface to make clear his biases in the title of the work.”

  10. Love the Egyptian Geese, John! You’ve caught such interesting behaviors. And the bee-eaters, of course! Beautiful little birds.

  11. Andy and Anne-Marie–lovely shots! And certainly from opposite ends of natural experiences.

    I’m reminded of when I used to regularly attend the meetings of our local astronomy club, then come home and have a chat with our guinea pig, just to bring me back down to earth. 🙂

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