Category: photography

Readers’ wildlife photos

December 15, 2025 • 8:25 am

Susan Harrison is back from Belize with bird photos for us. (And if you have any photos of your own, please send them in!).  Susan’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them.

Belize:  the Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary

Your correspondent has just returned from a birding trip to Belize, a wonderful country that has preserved over 30% of its land area for wildlife, and where a relatively small-scale and bird-friendly style of agriculture is widely practiced.  Today’s photos are from the last place we visited, the Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary, a massive complex of lagoons, swamps and forests in middle northern Belize.  Our exceptionally talented guide grew up here when the small village of Crooked Tree was accessible only by boat in the wet season.  When not guiding birdwatchers, he farms coconuts and avocados here.

We were most fortunate to see the elusive Sungrebe (Heliornis fulica).  Despite its name, this waterbird haunts densely shaded riverbanks and is not a grebe; it has no close relatives.  On the heels of a heavy downpour, we observed this one rapidly plucking damselflies off of overhanging foliage.

Sungrebe:

Another exciting sighting was a colony of Boat-Billed Herons (Cochlearius cochlearius).  These nocturnal hunters do not seize their prey like other herons but instead use their enormous bills in a baleen-like fashion.  During daytime they hide in dense thickets.  This one showed us a yawn.

Boat-billed Heron:

Among the many large, fish-devouring water birds were Bare-throated Tiger Herons (Tigrisoma mexicanum) and Anhingas (Anhinga anhinga).

Bare-throated Tiger Heron:

Anhinga:

We watched as Limpkins (Aramis guarauna), a weird wading bird in its own family, speared and gobbled Apple Snails (Pomacea), this bird’s single food source.  At the same time, these snails were equally of interest to Snail Kites (Rostrhamus sociabilis), who sometimes plucked them away from the Limpkins instead of from the mud.

Limpkin, with a Northern Jacana (Jacana spinosa) in front:

Northern Jacana closeup, showing its massive feet:

Snail Kites:

Skulking by the shore we saw several Russet-naped Wood Rails (Aramides albiventris), an almost comical bird that makes all other rails seem drab indeed.

Russet-naped Wood Rail:

Raptors were also abundant, and two of the more exciting finds were Black-collared Hawks (Busarellus nigricollis) and a Gray-headed Kite (Leptodon cayanensis).

Black-collared Hawk adult and immature:

Gray-headed Kite:

We also saw many wonderful land birds at Crooked Tree, of which I’ll show just a few of the most special.  Yellow-headed Amazons (Amazona oratrix) are among the many parrots that visit Crooked Tree to feed on the local cashew crop; this species is endangered because its intelligence makes it popular in the pet trade.

Yellow-headed Amazons:

Rufous-tailed Jacamars (Galbula ruficauda) resemble giant hummingbirds but are actually insectivores more closely related to woodpeckers and toucans.    The cliffs that Jacamars require for nesting are scarce in low-lying Belize, but Mayan ruins serve the purpose nicely.  We saw this Jacamar at the impressive Lamanai ruins complex.

Rufous-tailed Jacamar:

Detail of the Jaguar Temple at the Lamanai ruins, in which the rectangular holes create a stylized jaguar face:

Olive-throated Parakeets (Eupsittula nana) occurred everywhere we went in Belize, but only in the Caribbean Pine (Pinus caribaea) woodlands of Crooked Tree did they pose low enough for decent photos.

Olive-throated Parakeets:

Readers’ wildlife photos

December 14, 2025 • 8:30 am

Athayde Tonhasca Júnior has returned with his patented text-and-photo piece on (you guess it) pollination. Athayde’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

Delicate trade agreements

In one of the regular letters to his close friend, explorer and botanist Joseph Hooker, Charles Darwin vented his frustration at a puzzle he hadn’t been able to crack: …I will return the 3 Melastomateds; I do not want them & indeed have cuttings; I am very low about them, & have wasted enormous labour over them & cannot yet get a glimpse of the meaning of the parts. (Darwin, 1862). The ‘Melastomateds’ cuttings belonged to the family Melastomataceae, a huge group (some 5,000 known species) of mostly tropical shrubs, trees, herbs and lianas. The ‘parts’ whose meaning eluded Darwin were the stamens and anthers.

A complete, hermaphroditic flower. The pistil comprises the ovary, the style (a pillar-like stalk through which pollen germinates to reach the ovary) and the stigma (a sticky tip at the top of the style that receives pollen). The stamen has a filament that supports the anther, where pollen is produced © Anjubaba, Wikimedia Commons:

For a range of Melastomataceae species and at least 15 other flowering plant families, there are two (sometimes three) types of morphologically distinct stamens and anthers in each flower, a condition known as heteranthery. Typically, one set comprises short, colourful stamens located at the centre of the flower. The other set has longer, less colourful stamens that are deflected to the flower’s side and curved inwards. Darwin wrote a whole book about flower morphologies and their bearings in natural selection (Darwin, 1877), but the relevance – if any – of heteranthery puzzled him. He suspected the condition was related to reproduction, but he couldn’t figure out how.

An Asian melastoma (Melastoma candidum) flower with shorter stamens/yellow anthers, and longer stamens/reddish anthers © Hachiman et al., 2024:

Darwin got his answer from his correspondent and enthusiastic evolutionist Fritz Müller (1822- 1897) working in faraway southern Brazil. Müller, a Prussian immigrant, was a brilliant naturalist who wrote about biology, morphology, systematics and evolution of plants, marine invertebrates, butterflies, ants, termites and other insects. Müller discovered the nutritious bodies (today called Müllerian bodies), which are plant glands that secrete ant food, and demonstrated that pairs of poisonous, unpalatable species benefit from evolving a similar appearance to reduce their chances of being attacked, a form of protection we know as Müllerian mimicry.

Fritz Müller kitted out to go exploring a Brazilian tropical forest © O Município;

From his observations of Melastomataceae, Fritz Müller and his botanist brother Hermann – who stayed in Prussia – proposed that the two types of stamen played different roles. One type was specialised in transferring pollen to flower visitors; the other was responsible for feeding them. But why would a plant come to such an elaborate ruse?

Most Melastomataceae and many heterantherous species are pollinated by bees, but their flowers don’t produce any nectar: pollen is their sole food reward. This creates a dilemma. Plants must hand out pollen, otherwise bees wouldn’t pay a visit. But the giveaway must be sparing, otherwise reproduction could be curtailed or prevented altogether. Heterantherous plants sorted this problem by dividing up pollen allocation. The showy, central stamens attract bees, who store the collected pollen in their pollen baskets (scopa): this pollen is no longer available for fertilisation. The longer stamens that curve away from the centre are in a convenient position to sneak on a foraging bee and deposit pollen on parts of her body from where they are not easily scooped up by grooming. With luck, these pollen grains will be transported to another plant’s stigma.

Xylocopa flavifrons (A) and Amegilla urens (B) collecting pollen from Melastoma malabathricum‘s feeding stamens (yellow) and being exposed to pollinating stamens (red). Arrows indicate the pollen-receiving stigmas © Hachiman et al., 2024:

The Müller brothers’ ‘division of labour hypothesis’, as it is known today, was a revelation to Darwin: I have had a letter from Fritz Müller suggesting a novel and very curious explanation of certain plants producing two sets of anthers of different colour. This has set me on fire to renew the laborious experiments which I made on this subject, now 20 years ago (Darwin, 1887).

Division of labour is beautifully exemplified by the pollination of Rhynchanthera grandiflora, a shrub native to the Neotropical region. This plant has flowers with four short stamens and one long stamen, all of them with upwards-facing anthers. A bee lands on a flower, grabs the short stamens and starts flexing her thoracic muscles at high frequency, generating vibrations that are transmitted to the anthers. These moves, known as ‘buzz pollination’, release pollen that lands on the bee. This tricky form of pollen extraction is restricted to some specialised bees such as bumble bees (Bombus spp.) and carpenter bees (Xylocopa spp.). Pollen released from anthers in the short stamens is scooped up by the bee. Pollen from the anther on the long stamen shoots up and sticks to the bee’s dorsal side (Konzmann et al., 2020).

L: A R. grandiflora flower. R: A bumble bee buzz-pollinating depresses the long stamen with its abdomen. The dotted line and cone show the mean direction and scattering angle, respectively, of the released pollen © Konzmann et al., 2020:

The division of labour hypothesis has been confirmed for a few other heterantherous, bee-pollinated species. But, as is invariably the case in biology, things are a bit more complicated.

The hypothesis requires that both types of stamens produce pollen at the same time. But that’s not the case for speckled clarkia (Clarkia cylindrica) and elegant clarkia (C. unguiculata), both natives to western North America. These plants have two types of stamens that mature gradually and at different times. Moreover, pollen from both types of stamens is collected for food and transferred between flowers in equal proportions, so there’s no indication of labour division. For Kay et al. (2020), heteranthery in Clarkia spp. and possibly other heterantherous plants is a mechanism to dispense pollen gradually, during several visits by bees. This strategy would enhance pollination because a bee with only a few pollen grains attached to her body is likely to move to another flower without wasting time grooming herself to remove pollen from her body. Why then bother with two types of stamens? Different morphologies and development times represent additional insurance against excessive pollen harvesting.

A speckled clarkia is a miserly pollen-giver © U.S. National Park Service, Wikimedia Commons:

We don’t have enough studies to assess the relative significance of the division-of-labour hypothesis or the pollen-dosing strategy. Either way, dividing up the pollen stock or releasing it slowly are tactics to give away as little as possible a metabolically expensive product without discouraging flower visitors, who aim to gather as much of it and as fast as possible. The morphological adaptations exhibited by heterantherous plants are examples of the true nature of plant-pollinator interactions: an equilibrium between two parties with conflicting interests fine-tuned by natural selection.

References

Darwin, C.R. 1862. Letter no. 3762, Darwin Correspondence Project, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/.
Darwin, C.R. 1877. The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species. John Murray.
Darwin, F. (ed). 1887. The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Including an Autobiographical Chapter. John Murray.
Hachiman, S. et al. 2024. Division of labour between dimorphic stamens in Melastoma candidum (Melastomataceae): Role of stamen strength in the biomechanics of pollination. Journal of Pollination Ecology 37: 284–302.
Kay, K.M. et al. 2020. Darwin’s vexing contrivance: a new hypothesis for why some flowers have two kinds of anther. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 287: 20202593.
Konzmann, S. et al. 2020. Morphological specialization of heterantherous Rhynchanthera grandiflora (Melastomataceae) accommodates pollinator diversity. Plant Biology 22: 583-590.

Readers’ wildlife photos

December 12, 2025 • 8:15 am

Send ’em in, please, or we’ll be empty over the holiday season.

Today’s photos of butterflies come from Pratyaydipta Rudra, a statistics professor at Oklahoma State University. Pratyay’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. Pratyay and his wife Sreemala have a big bird-and-butterfly website called Wingmates.

Here are various other butterflies photographed in Oklahoma, most of them at our backyard.

Gulf Fritillary (Dione vanillae) eyeing a flower to land on, but it was already occupied by a skipper:

Variegated Fritillary (Euptoieta claudia) taking off from a cosmos:

Common Buckeye (Junonia coenia) on cosmos. These plants are hardy and attract many pollinators:

Another commoner in our area – American Lady (Vanessa virginiensis):

Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui), looks very similar to the American Lady, but one can spot the difference if they look carefully. They have the widest distribution of any butterfly, found on all continents except Antarctica and Australia:

Another Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) on our cosmos. Mid-day harsh light is terrible for bird photography, but it can be worked around when photographing butterflies. In fact, I quite like the glow that comes from the sun hitting the butterflies from directly above:

Closeup of a Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui). They have a long “nose” (actually, elongated mouthpart), but can’t beat the American Snout (Libytheana carinenta) in this regard:

The next two images are for the readers to guess which one is an American Lady and which is a Painted Lady. Can you tell what this one is?:

What kind of Lady is this?:

Monarch (Danaus plexippus):

Viceroys (Limenitis archippus) look similar to Monarch, but they are smaller and have a black line across the hindwing that the Monarch doesn’t. They were thought to be a Batesian mimic of Monarch for a long time, but are now considered a Mullerian mimic where both species are unappealing to predators and evolve similar appearances, reinforcing predators’ avoidance of either one:

Not all butterflies visit flowers. This Question Mark butterfly (Polygonia interrogationis), for example, only visits flowers when its usual food sources – rotting fruit, plant sap, dung etc., are not easily available:

Tawny Emperors (Asterocampa clyton) have a similar diet:

Hackberry Emperor (Asterocampa celtis), another similar butterfly from the same family. They are quite common in our area:

Northern Pearly-eye (Lethe anthedon). We don’t see this one very often:

Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa), one of the most uniquely beautiful butterflies that we see here:

Readers’ wildlife photos

December 11, 2025 • 8:15 am

Today I’m putting up all the singletons and smaller batches sent to me. Readers’ captions and IDs are indented.

From Allen Jones (I don’t know the species). It’s in the UK; can readers help?

This was at a local bird of prey centre near Edinburgh. The eagle’s perched on me. The owner said that this boy or girl (not sure) would soon be the oldest eagle that had ever lived in the UK. He said it was around 50 years old.

From A. C. Harper:

Ordinary urban pigeons huddling together for warmth… but they are on a support of a bridge crossing an arm of the river Soar at Leicester. This was once open fields, then industry including extensive railway sidings, a foundry, a stone masons, several mills (afer canalization of this part of the river) and wharves for unloading coal. As you can see the industrial areas have now gone and are being replaced with houses and apartments. But the pigeons linger on ready for my cellphone, a Pixel 10 pro.

From Susan Harrison, who promises that there is more to come.

Thought you’d enjoy seeing this big Belizean kitty!  He was lounging in the road last night as we drove into the Rio Bravo Conservation Area.  He could not have cared less about us, which is always a nice thing to experience with wildlife.  Anyway, this is just a teaser, and I’ll send a batch for RWP soon.

From Bryan Lepore.

These little Eastern cottontails [Sylvilagus floridanus] are in mid-ish Massachusetts  outside of Framingham, and in my back yard.  First photo June 26, second June 29:

From Nicole in Pennsylvania: A wild cottontail that comes to humans for apple slices. Her name is Petunia:

Convergent evolution, pictures by Martin Riddle.

The Hawk Moths, aka Hummingbird Moths [JAC: Family Spingidae] love the nectar in resident maintained gardens at Brooksby Village Peabody, Massachusetts:

Readers’ wildlife photos

December 10, 2025 • 8:15 am

Hey, folks, we’re fast running out of photos. Please send yours in if you have good ones. Thanks!

Today we have pictures from two reserves in South Africa, sent in by Alex Skucas.  Alex’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

These are from our summer (their winter) safari to Timbavati Private Reserve in South Africa.  Timbavati is adjacent to Kruger and some years ago they took down the fence between the two so that the animals could come and go freely.  We saw all of the Big Five on our first day.

 

Juvenile black rhinos playing at the watering hole.:

 

The whole family on their way to the watering hole:

Lion family nap time – two brothers and a sister.  They didn’t seem to care that we were just feet away in our vehicle:

 

And, of course, lots of African bush elephants.  They were everywhere – and doing quite a bit of damage to the ecosystem by knocking over trees.  There is an over-abundance of elephants in this area, and it is a concern for the parks:

 

These are a few pictures from a trip we took to Zimbabwe and Zambia this summer, right after spending time in Timbavati.  We had a special guest join us for lunch at Victoria Falls [JAC: a vervet monkey]

 

This leopard in Zambia was resting and had a fresh gash on his left flank, possibly from a fight with nearby baboons.  We were assured he would be fine:

 

Giraffe getting a drink.  Giraffes can only maintain this posture for a short time due to the increase in blood pressure on the brain:

 

An elephant walking over a Nile crocodile.  The elephant was taking a long slow walk along a berm and there was a croc in its path.  The elephant momentarily paused before stepping right over the croc – the croc never even flinched and kept sunning itself:

The elephant continued unfazed.  You can see the marks where it crossed through some deep water:

 

Elephants can swim using their snouts as a snorkel.  Here are two on either end of a calf, protecting it from crocs (and presumably the hippos too):

 

And the three safely emerging from the river:

Readers’ wildlife photos

December 8, 2025 • 8:15 am

We have a bunch of kangaroo photos from Scott Ritchie of Cairns, Australia. Scott’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. (His Facebook page is here.)

My last report from my Melbourne to Sydney trip. From Depot Beach New South Wales. It was epic. We stayed in a national park cabin that looked out over the ocean. And at 5 o’clock our front lawn became the bar for Eastern Grey Kangaroos [Macropus giganteus]. And in the morning, you could take pictures of the kangaroos watching the sunrise. What could be better for a boy from Iowa?

We had a ringside seat for roos. Would have been over a dozen here, not including joeys in the pouch:

The boys like a bit of rough and tumble:

They are smart to avoid those claws:
..just barely:

Squaring off:

I missed the kick shot. A sudden loud thump. Then the fight was over. One kick!:

I don’t know how this is going work!:

But somehow it does:

White-faced Heron [Egretta novaehollandiae] loves a roo too:

Cute:

Hanging loose:

Just in time for smoko:

I love pan pipes:

It’s a tight fit:

Come on big fella. I’m already familied up:

 

Sunrise at Depot Beach:

Roo at sunrise:

Great way to start the day:

Isn’t it lovely?

Readers’ wildlife photos

December 7, 2025 • 8:30 am

Today we have some marine mammal photos taken by Marcel van Oijen. Marcel’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.  Here’s a screenshot of the site, the island of Inchkeith:

Seal pup counting on the island of Inchkeith

Marcel van Oijen

The island of Inchkeith lies a few km from Scotland’s capital Edinburgh in the Firth of Forth, the sea-arm to the north. The last human to live on the island, the lighthouse-keeper, left in 1986. (The lighthouse is now controlled remotely from Edinburgh as are most lighthouses in Scotland.) Wildlife has since come back, and there is now a thriving colony of grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) producing around 900 pups each year. I took the photos below during the pup count of 29 November organised by the Forth Islands Heritage Group of volunteers.

This is near the harbour where we arrived, and we had to be careful not to get too close. Fortunately the female was busy keeping the male away from her pup. Cannibalism does happen occasionally.

Looking back to the harbour with the second group of volunteers just arriving. Note the many seals on the beach and in the water

Mating couple. The female life cycle is intense: a few weeks after giving birth and after the pup is weaned, they can be impregnated again:

This pup has moulted (i.e., lost its fluffy white baby-coat called the lanugo), so it will be three to four weeks old. At that age pups will be weaned and have to fend for themselves.

Two young pups who have just begun moulting, starting from the head:

Female seals carefully watching us:

This pup is nearly done moulting, some fluff left on top:

A moulted pup with an unusual colour, not the standard dappled grey:

Overview of ‘our’ patch of the island where we counted around 200 pups:

The most affectionate mother we saw on the island. She occasionally rolled on her back with eyes closed but always kept patting her pup with her front flipper:

Looking back to Inchkeith with fond memories!: