Creatures I've Discovered Recently

I've been lucky enough to spot some really cool creatures in the past week. I have posted all these photos onto a website called Project Noah. A website that hopes to document all the world's organisms with the help of everyone on earth who are willing to share their captures. They hope that by making it easy for people to upload and share their encounters with nature, they can build a ecological data collection which will serve as an important educational tool for wildlife awareness and preservation. If you enjoy finding little creatures in your backyard or out in the 'wild', I greatly encourage you to join in and help us discover the great diversity of organisms that live on this Earth.

And here are the little guys I've discovered.

"Chris the Phototog" - Interview with Chris Hansen

I was on Google + when a photo caught my eye. It was a photo of a crawling spider silhouette in front of the sun. It was absolutely amazing! I HAD to look at the blog and find out who took the photo. I discovered that the blog belonged to an American man who blogs about his daily photography adventures. The writer of the blog is Chris Hansen and this is what I learnt about him and about photography.

Itsy Bitsy Spider

#17 Transforming Owl

There is an owl in Africa that the Japanese are fascinated with. It is the Northern White Faced Owl.

Source: commons.wikimedia.org

This owl is fairly small and so, to ward off enemies (larger owls) it 'transforms' itself. This amazing ability was showcased in a Japanese tv show.

In the News - April 2012

 Good News
Well I have some interesting stories for you today. :)
A few new and thought to be extinct species have been discovered. And some rare baby animals have come out to play.

The Bururi Long-fingered frog has been rediscovered in Africa after 62 years. Read more about their discovery here.

Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

In the News - March 2012

Good News
YAY! Heaps of cute baby animals born this month :) However, I have just 2 babies that I want to introduce to you. They are the cutest out of the whole pack! So I hope you really like them :D

March 20th: Meet Linford and Christie! A pair of orphaned Burrowing Owlets who are now under the 24-hour care of keeper, Jimmy Robinson, who works at Longleat Safari Park in Wiltshire.  Since they have to follow Jimmy around everywhere, they taken a liking to all the nooks and crannies of his apartment. 

Source: www.dailymail.co.uk/news

#12 The Long Tail feathers of the Widowbird

Every man tries the most outrageous things in order to impress the girls. Well, for a widowbird, the most impressive thing is his tail feathers. There are only a few species of widowbirds and they all live in different parts of Africa. Having long tail feathers for a male widowbird is favoured by females as it suggests that their offspring will not only be good looking, but good looking enough that their offspring will also be able to mate and therefore carry on their genes. This is quite crucial as that is pretty much the basis of the life of any creature, plant or animal.

Source: ibc.lynxeds.com

#11 The Moonwalking Bird

In my post "The 10 Best Ways To Attract a Mate (Bird Style)", I talked about 10 different techniques birds use to court and attract mates. For the next few days, I will be writing about each bird I mentioned in the post. Since I have already written about the Lyrebird (#1 in the 'attract a mate' post), I will start with #2. The Moonwalking bird.

Source: holophusicon.blogspot.com.au

The 10 Best Ways To Attract a Mate (Bird Style)

1.     Serenade them with a love song.

2.     Show her your dance moves. Every girl can’t help but fall for a guy with the smooth moves. Like this Bird. It can moonwalk.

Watch more about it here.

#8 The Lying Lyrebird

This bird really knows how to copy other peoples sounds. The Lyrebird is native to Australia and it's name really suggests what it's capable of (sounding like a lyre/being a liar).

Male Lyre bird - Photo taken by Flagstaffotos Source: wikipedia

#1 The Little Kiwi

My first Natural wonder is a national icon and native to New Zealand, the Kiwi Bird.

Photo taken by Chris McLennan Photography

The Kiwi bird is quite an amazing species, being able to lay the largest egg relative to their size of any species of bird in the world. That goes to show, how dedicated these birds are if their mother's are prepared to lay an egg, half their size, as seen in the photo below.