Category: landscapes

Readers’ wildlife photos (and video)

August 20, 2026 • 8:16 am

The Jason Arday mess his died down (I hope), there’s not much news save the U.S. national debt is pushing 40 TRILLION dollars, so now is a good time for some restful and beautiful wildlife photos.

Today we present part 2 of the photos that Bruce Lyon of UC Santa Cruz posted; the photos were taken during his field work in Alaska on birds. (Part 1 is here.). There’s one video at the beginning.  Bruce’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Here’s Bruce’s introduction to the last part, and I forgot to put the video in. This time it’s here:

I spent the summer researching songbirds on St Paul Island, one of the Pribilof Islands way out in the Bering Sea in Alaska. On a few different days I took a break from our study of songbirds to enjoy the fabulous seabirds. St. Paul is famous for it seabirds and a lot of naturalists visit the island to see several seabirds that are endemic to the Bering Sea. By my count, 13 species of seabirds breed on St Paul.

Here is a video to give a sense of the seabird cliffs. At some of the best cliffs one can see most of the seabird species at at single location.

Bruce added this:

The video shows Ridge Wall, a favorite with naturalists and photographers because several species are easily observed at eye level from a fairly close distance. The trumpeting noises are murres.

And today’s photos:

Thick-billed murre (Uria lomvia) with its penguin-like plumage. Murres are completely unrelated to penguins but a relative of the murres, the great auk, did give its name to the penguins. Apparently the Welsh called great auks pen gwyn and the name was given to the lookalike penguins by early south polar explorers:

Murre eggs are hypervariable for individual recognition and some individuals have particularly gorgeous eggs. This murre has the prettiest of the colors—bright turquoise:

Common murre (Uria aalge). This species lacks the white line on the beak and is browner than thick-bills. In some lighting they almost look coppery:

Common murre trying to land in a strong upblast:

We even had a dovekie (Alle alle), extremely rare for St Paul Island. These are convergent with least auklets (tiny) but come from the murre lineage in the auks, not the auklets:

Black-legged kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla), a small cliff-nesting gull. When I took the kittiwake photos below it was very windy and the kittiwakes were playing in the updrafts. They would sit in one place and spin around like tops and sometimes even flip upside down. I love the bright orange mouth-lining and tongue, both of which are prominently displayed when the birds are screaming (which is most of the time).

Red-legged kittiwake (Rissa brevirostris), another Bering Sea endemic. Note the very short legs; the beak is shorter than in black-legged. 90% of the world’s population of red-legged kittiwakes breeds on nearby St George Island:

Kittiwakes use mud and wet vegetation to build their nests on the cliffs:

And kittiwakes build pretty substantial nests, plastered onto the rock so the nest does not fall off and plunge into the sea. Red-leggeds prefer sites that are tucked under overhangs:

A gathering of both species of kittiwakes on a beam in the harbor:

A glaucous-winged gull (Larus glaucescens) nest, apparently the first successful nest of this species on St Paul Island although they have bred on nearby islands:

Head shot of one of the parents. Close ups of gull heads show that gulls are rather nice birds. Gull species differ in the color of the iris and the fleshy eyering:

The aptly named and permanently embarrassed red-faced cormorant (Urile urile). Endemic to the Bering Sea:

A couple of red-faced cormorants with a nice rock arch and nesting seabirds in the background:

Readers’ wildlife photos

August 13, 2026 • 8:30 am

Please send in wildlife ph0tos if you have some good ones.  This feature has become pretty intermittent.

Today’s wildlife photos come from reader Jan Malik, who sent bird photos taken in Poland. Jan’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

In July, I had an opportunity to hike in the northern, Polish section of the Tatra Mountains. This part of this alpine range is probably less biodiverse than the substantially larger Slovak part, where a large portion of the slopes are south-facing. Still, I saw a few animals—both vertebrates and invertebrates—that were new to me.

A sample of the habitat at the entrance to a valley in the limestone Western Tatras:

Just as I stopped by this creek to eat my breakfast on the go, a bird appeared, forcing me to postpone consumption and switch to photography mode. The bird was a male Grey wagtail (Motacilla cinerea), which in its breeding plumage is actually bright yellow. He was hopping lively on the cliff, collecting arthropods to feed his chicks. The white, woolly-looking flower by the wagtail is the emblematic Edelweiss (Leontopodium nivale), a hallmark of limestone alpine mountains (it grows only on basic substrates). The flower’s woolly appearance may be an adaptation to low temperatures and intense ultraviolet radiation:

The wagtail disappeared for a moment and then returned, having fed his chicks. Its flight is highly undulated, and when resting it, well, wags its tail vigorously:

Another successful hunting run finished, and the wagtail is ready to return to his nest with a beak full of insects. Judging by their opaque wings and long antennae, these are caddisflies (order Trichoptera):

The wagtail left, and just as I was going to resume my hike, another bird landed on the same spot—a good lookout in the middle of the creek. This was a White-throated dipper (Cinclus cinclus), a close relative of our American dipper, which I had once searched for in vain in the American Southwest (Zion National Park and the like). This genus is unique among songbirds in that it is mostly aquatic when feeding. It nests close to the banks of fast-flowing streams and forages by wading and diving underwater in search of arthropods, sometimes using its wings for underwater propulsion if the current gets too strong. I think in this picture the bird holds a caddisfly larva (stripped of its protective debris case) and possibly a couple of adult caddisflies.

Dipper females and males are monomorphic, and both sexes sport a white bib, which their American cousins lack:

Apart from a nearly identical body structure, what they have in common with our American dipper (or, as some say, the water ouzel) is a white upper eyelid, visible when the bird blinks. Unlike wagtails, they fly in a dead straight line, patrolling and defending their stretches of waterways:

For the next 20 minutes I watched the bird collect food above and under water, but capturing its underwater feeding was harder than I thought, with the bird being restless and the autofocus being thrown off by the turbulent water. They usually start nesting as soon as the water is free of ice, which in this location can be mid-April. If they are still nesting in July, it may mean they are raising a second brood:

They are called “dippers” because of their habit of bowing and bobbing. While they are songbirds, I didn’t hear any calls, but I read they do call and sing, like any songbirds. It is reasonable to assume that, since they live in the fairly noisy environments of fast mountain creeks, they communicate visually via displays like wing-quivering. It was a real treat to see these birds in action, especially in the crowded environment of Tatra National Park, which sees more than 5 million visitors annually. To put it in perspective, that is more visitors, in a much smaller area, than Yellowstone National Park receives. During my 30-minute impromptu birding session, an incessant stream of people kept streaming into the valley right behind my back, but the birds were completely habituated to the human presence:

After ascending for a while, I reached the krummholz and alpine meadow zone. A notable distinction between this and a similar zone in the Adirondacks of NY or the White Mountains of NH was the presence of a specialized high-altitude dwarf mountain pine (Pinus mugo), forming dense thickets. In the US, these zones feature dwarf, bonsai-like variations of spruce and balsam fir from the boreal forest zone:

I noticed a little commotion in the dwarf pine thicket; it was a fledgling following its parent, begging to be fed:

After a while, the adult bird appeared. It was, I believe, a Black redstart female (Phoenicurus ochruros); the “black” part comes from the male’s coloration. They nest in rocky areas across Eurasia;

Comparing the Tatra Mountains to mountain ranges in the US Northeast, it is surprising that, even though the Tatras are about 5 degrees closer to the North Pole and higher (I believe the last three pictures were taken almost at 6,000 feet altitude), they are more biodiverse.

Readers’ wildlife photos

August 9, 2026 • 8:15 am

Glory be—a few regulars have sent in some lovely wildlife photos, so I can post some critters today. These intertidal critters come from UC Davis math professor Abby Thompson, who does great marine photography on the California coast. Abby’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them.

These are probably the last of the summer tidepool photos.  The (spectacular!) final nudibranch is one that I’ve only found once up here before- it’s usually a slightly more southerly species.  If the El Niño comes through as predicted, we should see more this coming year.

The first four animals are chitons, the roly-poly’s of the ocean.     They have a common structure- 8 shell plates, surrounded by a mantle.   The structure of the mantle and the sculpturing on the shell plates, (sometimes) allows identification to species.     The Mopalia (this seems to be a made-up word) chitons have some kind of hairs or feathery things on the mantle.  The type/quantity/form of the hairs can be distinctive.    The first three creatures are in this genus.

Mopalia lionata:

Mopalia lionata: close-up of the feathers on the mantle:

Mopalia spectabilis (tentative ID):

Mopalia spectabilis: close-up of the stripes/hairs on the mantle:

Genus Mopalia – I can’t tell the genus, but liked the photo:

The Lepidozona chitons have small overlapping scales on the mantle and beautiful sculpturing of the shell plates:

Lepidozona cooperi:

Lepidozona cooperi- close-up of the mantle:

Lepidozona cooperi- close-up of the sculpturing:

Diodora aspera (Rough keyhole limpet):

Genus Paranamertes (ribbon worm): There’s a specific local species called a “purple ribbon worm”, and one might think this one would qualify, but it turns out (thanks inaturalist experts!) that identifying to species is tricky in this genus:

Finishing up with some nudibranchs. . .

Corambe steinbergae – chomping on its favorite bryozoan prey, on which it is virtually invisible:

Diaphoreolis lagunae – Laguna Beach aeolid:

And the gorgeous:

Certat0d0ris rosacea: Hopkin’s Rose. Wouldn’t you love to know the sequence of adaptations that led to this?:

Stripes on the beach, early in the morning. It looked as though someone had ruled paths for the water to flow down the beach:

Sunset over Tomales Point:

Readers’ wildlife photos

August 7, 2026 • 8:30 am

Today’s photos come from Miriam Meyerhoff, who responded to my call for readers to send it photo. (That call, by the way, still exists!). Miram’s captions are indented and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them.

In June we spent a week in Orkney (Mainland and Westray) to see neolithic sites and some wildlife. I’m not good at photographing birds (and I just have an iPhone) so I have photos of puffins, some fulmars and lots of plants.

On the Mainland of Orkney, we visited Skara Brae and various stone circles. Skara Brae was first inhabited about 3100 BCE. The homes had built-in furniture (kind of like Frank Lloyd Wright did with his houses) with a dresser of shelves opposite the door and beds built into the walls on the right and left walls:

On Westray, we walked for about an hour with a local guide, Megan of Wild Orkney Walks. Megan was extremely knowledgeable about plants and wildlife and is deeply concerned about the impact of over-fishing on the Orkney sea birds.

It turns out puffins (Fratercula sp.) are not at all scared of people and will let you come very close:

They nested alongside fulmars on the cliffs. Fulmars  (Fulmaris sp.) are not gulls, they are in the same family as albatrosses and petrels. Apparently, fulmars can defend themselves by spewing up a foul smelling oily mess and spitting it at you. The first syllable ful- is cognate with the word foul on account of this habit:

The clifftops we walked along had many plants that were new to me. Sea thrift (Armeria maritima, aka sea pinks) and red campion and sea campion  as well as meadowsweet [flowers in order]:

There was also an impressive selection of different thistles. I think this was a cruel thistle (Cersium ferox):

Along the roadside there were masses of marsh orchids, hogweed, and yellow flags were still in bloom (flowers in order):

Wild roses (Rosa rugosa) were also in bloom. I didn’t know you can eat the petals. They taste a bit like glycerin to me:

Back on the mainland, the oddest plant I saw was Cottonweed. The seed heads do produce something very like cotton wool:

But the most beautiful (to me) was the smallest flower on a clifftop near Yesnaby, sea milkwort. I gather it is quite common in the northern hemisphere, but I didn’t grow up here. I loved how simultaneously tough and dainty it manages be.

Readers’ wildlife photos

July 26, 2026 • 8:45 am

We are in dire need of wildlife photos, so if you have some good ones, please send them in.

Today we have the sixth and last installment of Ephraim Heller’s photos from his recent trip to Namibia. His captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

This is the last installment in my series on a May-June 2026 visit to Namibia. Today’s photos were taken inland, at the Ongava/Etosha region (where I photographed rhinos for last week’s installment) and at Nkasa Rupara National Park in the Caprivi Strip.

Most of the animals in this post are well known to readers, but the history of the Caprivi Strip is worth a digression on 19th century colonial competition in Africa. Here is a map (courtesy of WorldAtlas) of present-day Namibia. The Caprivi Strip is the odd extension in the northeast corner of the country that juts out to contact Angola, Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. It is 30 km wide and 450 km long:

Germany had established the colony of German South West Africa (modern Namibia) in 1884. Germany also had the colony of German East Africa (Tanganyika, the mainland portion of modern-day Tanzania). German Chancellor Leo von Caprivi wanted to establish a trade corridor between the two German colonies on the west and east coasts of Africa, but there was one problem: the British held colonies in between. He came up with the idea that if he could extend German South West Africa’s eastern border to the Zambezi River, there would be a navigable waterway linking the two German colonies.

This ambition led to negotiations with Britain and to the signing of the Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty in 1890. Britain transferred the Caprivi strip and ceded the North Sea island of Heligoland to Germany. In return, Germany recognized British authority over the Zanzibar islands (now also part of Tanzania) off of Tanganyika.

All of Chancellor Caprivi’s scheming came to naught, however, because the Germans were not aware of a small obstacle to navigation in the Zambezi River known today as Victoria Falls, one of the largest waterfalls in the world (photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons):

The cunning British, on the other hand, were well aware of the existence of Victoria Falls (David Livingstone having named them in 1855). Perfidious Albion, indeed.  As usual during the Scramble for Africa, the indigenous people were not a consideration in this deal.

Now, on to the animals. I’ll skip descriptions as most species will be familiar to readers:

Wahlberg’s striped skink (Trachylepis wahlbergii) peeking out of the skull of an African buffalo (Syncerus caffer):

Lion (Panthera leo) at sunset:

Black-backed jackals (Lupulella mesomelas) playing at dawn:

Angolan giraffe (Giraffa giraffa angolensis) coming to drink at the Linyanti River:

Shikra (Tachyspiza badia):

Nile monitor (Varanus niloticus):

Rock hyraxes (Procavia capensis):

More from the sunset photo series. A Burchell’s zebra (Equus quagga burchellii):

Red Lechwe (Kobus leche):

Vultures (species unknown):

Readers’ wildlife photos

July 19, 2026 • 8:30 am

Today’s photos come from Dean Graetz, who notes, “I offer an unusual contribution to Readers wildlife photos.  It is an unusual personal story.” Dean’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. 

A Wild Life Extinction

Some 50 years ago, I encountered an unfamiliar way of Life.  It was a Wild Life: the lifestyle of Aboriginal people who have lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers in the Australian deserts for the last 60,000 years.  I met three old men, likely 60+ years of age, who could recall their first sighting of ‘Whitefellas’.  Their early lives were as nomadic hunter-gatherers, one that could be perilously difficult.  So, I began to follow any published stories of the desert dwellers from then until now, 50 years later, when they have stopped.  Some photos are mine with historic others borrowed from the Public Domain.  This was the spirit of the encounter.  There were 6 people in that vehicle

The location was Amata, in South Australia:  Aboriginal land: home of the Pitjantjatjara, a language which every member of the party spoke but me.  It was in one of the 10 named Australian deserts where the landscapes are as spectacular as the night sky.  Some important Dreaming stories are based on the constellations interpreted as the activities of animals, such the Emu, or people:

Because it is customary to bring gifts to your hosts, we shot two Red Kangaroos (Macropus rufus) knowing that they would be enjoyed as ‘properly good tucker’:

Our shot kangaroo retriever (effortlessly carrying 30+ kilos) was an important ‘law’ man and hunter.  By incredible chance, I knew of him (by name) from reading an anthropologist’s (1972) account of him:

His fame came from his ability to spear eagles in flight.  An astonishing skill:

It was difficult to hide the presents that we were bringing:

The three elders were happy to receive us with our gift of kangaroos.  Note that they are smallish men, likely protein-limited in early life, now getting ‘fat and shiny’ on store-bought food.  As an intruder, I took very few photos.  I noticed they were urinary incontinent but was later told that, as a condition of manhood, they had been circumcised as teenagers, then later they had opted to be sub incised (aka ‘whistle-dicked’) and were very proud of the seniority and masculine status that conferred.  Their dress and traditional accommodation (‘Wiltja’) in the background was their choice ignoring Whitefella’s available welfare.  The desert landscape was exceptionally lush in 1974; it was the wettest year on record:

They were reluctant (hand covering mouth) to talk about their younger days when there were no Whitefellas around.  They smiled at recalling their family group’s long travels – walkabout-  to hunt and ‘see’ their country.  They admitted that they ate more lizards than fat kangaroos, and there were some ‘tough times’ that were not be talked about.  Later, the three elders and their wives – who had been hidden – plus a few friends waited, for 20 minutes of cooking on an open fire, to eat the two kangaroos at one long evening sitting.  Around the neighbouring Whitefella campfire, the considered opinion of hunter-gatherers was that in 1974, ‘there is no one out there now’.  “All gone: all finish him up!”:

This brief contact was an end point of a long personal and professional interest in the desert landscapes and in the people who surprisingly endured their harshness.  As a university student (1950s) I was intrigued by photos, such as this, of full grown Aboriginal men (beards) but with teenager-sized bodies.  It had to be the result of malnourishment.  Why did they live there?  And, more importantly, how did they live there?:

In 1974, these questions were now in the past tense.  There were no hunter-gathering people still ‘out there’, living out their ‘wild’ lives.  Because of government concern for their welfare, efforts ensured they had all been ‘contacted’.  The deserts, ‘their country’, were now empty of its intriguing inhabitants.

Not so!  In 1977, a search party located a couple hiding for 30 years in the remote Gibson Desert fearing tribal vengeance – ‘The last of the Nomads’.  Then, in 1984, a small group, The Pintupi Nine, walked out of the desert and made contact – as below on day 2, first clothes.  Next, in 1986, a family group of seven (Richters/Rictors) emerged from the Great Victoria Desert.  Now 40 years later, we can conclude that hunter-gatherers are now extinct across  the Australian continent:

 

The hunter-gatherer life requires self-sufficiency.  Your food is only what you can find or kill.  Your tools are only what you can make.  Your only ability to manipulate the landscape is the fire that you ignite, and you control.

Does it matter that this nomadic way of life is no longer pursued in Australia?  No: but an understanding of what and when it was is important for our societal memory.  This quote from a historian says it all.

“Perhaps all people on Earth need a sense of the continuing existence of ‘nomads’, for all of our ancestors were once so.  They remind us of who we are.”

Readers’ wildlife photos

July 12, 2026 • 8:15 am

We’re running out of wildlife contributions—I suppose we always are, but this is the last batch on hand. You know what to do if you have good photos.

Today we continue with Ephraim Heller’s photos from a recent trip to Namibia.  Ephraim’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them:

Today I continue my series on a May-June 2026 visit to Namibia. I’m organizing the posts by habitat, in the order of our visits, so that you get a sense of the ecosystems. Today’s post features the Skeleton Coast, yet another coastal desert region.

Stretching 500 km along the Atlantic, the Skeleton Coast is where the cold, nutrient-rich waters of the Benguela Current collide with the Namib Desert, producing dense coastal fogs most mornings. The indigenous San once called the region “the Land God Made in Anger.” Portuguese mariners knew it as the Gates of Hell.

The name “Skeleton Coast” has a dual origin. It first referred to the vast quantities of whale and seal bones that once littered the beaches, remnants of the 19th- and early-20th-century whaling industry. Over time the moniker also came to encompass the skeletal remains of the ships wrecked along one of the most dangerous coastlines in the world. There are about 300 recorded shipwrecks, with a total of >1,000 estimated over centuries. Persistent, dense fog reduces visibility to near zero for days at a time. Strong, unpredictable currents and heavy surf pound the beaches. Offshore rocks and poorly charted shoals lie just beneath the surface. Before modern navigation systems, the featureless desert coastline offered almost no landmarks, and any shipwrecked sailor who managed to reach shore faced a waterless, nearly lifeless desert.

One of the most dramatic wrecks occurred in late November 1942 and the story was told in the book “Skeleton Coast” (John Marsh, 1944). The British refrigerated cargo ship MV Dunedin Star, carrying passengers, crew, and war supplies, struck a submerged obstacle. The master beached the vessel about 550 yards offshore. A motor lifeboat managed to ferry 63 of the 106 passengers and crew to the desolate beach before it was disabled by the heavy surf, leaving the remaining 43 people stranded on the breaking-up ship and those ashore with almost no supplies. What followed was a >2 month rescue operation that itself was plagued by bad luck and the difficult conditions of the Skeleton Coast. Here’s a photo of the Dunedin Star (courtesy of bluestarline.org):

Within hours of the distress signal reaching Walvis Bay, the South African tug Sir Charles Elliot and the minesweeper HMSAS Nerine set out, soon joined by the cargo ships Temeraire and Manchester Division. A land convoy of trucks departed from Windhoek and crossed the roadless desert to reach the survivors on the beach.

South African Air Force Lockheed Ventura aircraft flew supply drops, many of which were swept away by the wind and currents. One aircraft landed on what appeared to be firm ground only to sink into a salt pan, becoming stranded. Several weeks later, a recovery party returned for the plane. After on-site repairs and several days of digging the plane free, they managed to get it airborne again on January 29, 1943. The aircraft flew for about 43 minutes before one of the engines failed and it crashed into the sea. The crew survived the ditching, swam ashore, and were rescued by the returning land convoy a couple of days later.

While all of the Dunedin Star passengers and crew survived and returned to port by late December, 1942, some of the rescuers did not return until early February, 1943. However, the tug Sir Charles Elliot grounded near Rocky Point while returning, with two crew members losing their lives.

Enough with the history lesson. Now for the animals:

Cape fur seals (Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus) are the most conspicuous animals on the coast, with breeding colonies reaching more than 100,000–200,000 individuals during the November–December peak. The colony that I saw numbered about 1,000:

Males establish and vigorously defend harems of up to ~50 females, fasting for weeks while defending territory:

We saw (and smelled) many pup carcasses. High pup mortality from stampeding, predation, and starvation is the norm. The carcasses are the primary food for scavenging jackals and hyenas:

Black-backed jackals (Lupulella mesomelas) are one of the most basal extant wolf-like canids, with a fossil record extending back 2-3 million years and relatively little morphological change since the Pleistocene. On the Skeleton Coast their diet is opportunistic: they take seal pups and afterbirth, scavenge carcasses, and hunt birds and small mammals. Their kidneys are adapted to water scarcity, allowing them to thrive where freestanding water is absent:

Brown hyenas (Parahyaena brunnea) are the rarest of the living hyenas (global population 4,000–10,000) and is listed as Near Threatened. Sightings are rare, as they are shy and nocturnal. I was very lucky:

Along the Skeleton Coast they are beachcombers, ranging long distances at night to feed on seal carcasses, abandoned pups, and whatever jackals or other predators leave behind. Their jaws and dentition crack bones that many other carnivores cannot process. They live in small, stable clans (typically 4–6 related individuals) but forage largely alone. All clan members help provision cubs at communal dens:

Just inland from the beach begin the sand dunes. In this apparently sterile environment, I found a tractrac chat (Emarginata tractrac):

I normally don’t post lodge photos, but the lodge at which I stayed was remarkable both for its architecture and isolation. At over 120 km to the nearest village and over 400 km to the nearest paved road, I believe that it may be the most remote place I have slept. The buildings have a nautical motif: