A couple days ago, I went to Central Winds. It was a pretty slow morning, but I did have fun photographing a Swallow-tailed Kite that was flying over the trees near the lake and pond. Swallow-tailed Kites can be a little bit of a challenge to photograph in flight–not only are they all black and […]
Getting Your Feet Wet…
As the floods arrive, the wildlife of the Okavango prepares for many months of wet feet. No problem at all for this big male lion (Panthera leo) as he strides across an open floodplain in the early morning – Okavango Delta, Botswana. Nikon D4. Nikon 200-400 mm. ISO 1600 f6.7 @ 1/350 sec. Lexar Media. […]
Breed insects to improve human food security: UN report
The best way to feed the 9 billion people expected to be alive by 2050 could be to rear billions of common houseflies on a diet of human faeces and abattoir blood and grind them up to use as animal feed, a UN report published on Monday suggests. Doing so would reduce the pressure on […]
Endangered primates and cats may be hiding out in swamps and mangrove forests
What happens to animals when their forest is cut down? If they can, they migrate to different forests. But in an age when forests are falling far and fast, many species may have to shift to entirely different environments. A new paper in Folia Primatologica theorizes that some 60 primate species and 20 wild cat […]
World’s rarest duck on the rebound in Madagascar
After a final sighting in 1991, the Madagascar pochard was thought to have vanished for good. But this diving duck was rediscovered in 2006 when a flock of 22 individuals was found on Lake Matsaborimena in northern Madagascar by conservationists during an expedition. Soon after Madagascar pochard eggs were taken and incubated in a joint […]
Canon’s Best Macro Lens for Nature Photography: Canon EF 180mm f/3.5L
It may surprise you that I believe Canon’s 180mm macro lens to be the best macro lens for nature photography. After all, a few years ago, Canon released a new macro lens, the EF 100mm f/2.8L. It’s smaller, lighter, cheaper, auto-focuses faster, has a wider maximum aperture, and it even sports a new hybrid form […]
Hibernating primates: scientists discover three lemur species sleep like bears
Bears do it, bats do it, and now we know lemurs do it too: hibernate, that is. Since 2005, scientists have known that the western fat-tailed dwarf lemur hibernates, but a new study in Scientific Reports finds that hibernation is more widespread among lemurs than expected. At least two additional lemur species—Crossley’s dwarf lemur and […]