It’s the Day of Rest decreed by Constantine (see tomorrow’s Hili), and so we shall have a smorgasbord of photos:
From Stephen Barnard in Idaho:
“Buzz off, moocher!”
Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) and Black-billed Magpies (Pica hudsonia):
Reader David Molloy from Australia sent me a science article (more on that later), and then a follow-up apologizing for the lack of cat photos (would that all readers were so polite!). But he also included photos of yellow-tailed black cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus funereus), a bird I didn’t even know existed. I wonder why only the white ones are kept as pets.
P.S. I was very rude and didn’t include a cat photo. So here is one of George, my girlfriend’s 2 yr old rescue cat, in a box being watched by Jet. And then some ‘wildlife’ pics of yellow-tailed black cockatoos I took last year at my golf club in Sydney, about 7 km from the CBD. They love getting into those pine cones. [JAC: Gratuitous cat photo is below.]
This picture is of a Royal Spoonbill (Platalea regia) displaying its nuchal (the crest of long feathers), which indicates rhat it is an adult male. Spoonbills are a fairly common wading species in eastern Australian wetlands. This one lives in inner Sydney, making a little extra money recovering balls lost from the neighbouring golf course, a practice for which it is clearly well-adapted.
Finally, although John Harshman is a birdy kind of guy, he sent our very first photos of the wild relative (and putative ancestor) of the domestic cat:
On a recent trip to Botswana I was lucky to see an African wildcat (Felis lybica or F. sylvestris, depending on your taste). He was either finding a good place for a nap or a good place to hide until the lapwings forgot he was there. This is of course said to be the ancestral species of domestic cats.
Still in Botswana, here’s a leopard (Panthera pardus). First, an afternoon nap. Then, snacking on yesterday’s impala (Aepyceros melampus). And finally, off to find another meal.
Good pictures! The cockatoo in the 1st picture looks like it is crooning into a microphone.
Watched, by George!
On that note of “can’t be too many cats”, a more complete photoset of John’s African wildcats was shown here: https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2016/02/09/readers-wildlife-photos-245/
The picture of the yellow-tailed black cocky feeding on a pine cone prompts me to make these observations. The destruction of Australian forests has led to a paucity of feed for many birds and animals. Some introduced plants are welcome new sources of food, yet there are eco-warriors who go about poisoning massive pine trees and think they are doing the environment a favour.
The following quote is the abstract from Pine as Fast Food: Foraging Ecology of an Endangered Cockatoo in a Forestry Landscape
“Pine plantations near Perth, Western Australia have provided an important food source for endangered Carnaby’s Cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus latirostris) since the 1940s. Plans to harvest these plantations without re-planting will remove this food source by 2031 or earlier. To assess the impact of pine removal, we studied the ecological association between Carnaby’s Cockatoos and pine using behavioural, nutritional, and phenological data. Pine plantations provided high densities of seed (158 025 seeds ha−1) over a large area (c. 15 000 ha). Carnaby’s Cockatoos fed throughout these plantations and removed almost the entire annual crop of pine cones. Peak cockatoo abundance coincided with pine seed maturation. Pine seed had energy and protein contents equivalent to native food sources and, critically, is available in summer when breeding pairs have young offspring to feed. This strong and enduring ecological association clearly suggests that removing pine will have a significant impact on this endangered species unless restoration strategies, to establish alternative food sources, are implemented.”
But of course, a flock of cockies descending upon the native population of Wollemi Pines would be a disaster. There are fewer than one hundred of them in the wild.