The Medieval Bestiary

The secret to successful blogging is to only post rippingly good stuff that immediately grabs people and makes them want to see more.

And to only post every six months or so. Ahem.

I bring thee the Medieval Bestiary: Animals in the Middle Ages.

A sample:

Four Wild Lorikeets in My Lap, Eating Apples

Don't quite know how this happens, but these guys are simply unafraid of people. It's probably something that's been passed down through many generations—evidenced by the fact that these four are made up of a mating pair and their two young (they ocassionally feed them via their crops still), who they have already taught that humans like us are suckers.



Full video, with exciting (not exciting) pixellation interruptions for first minute-and-a-half:

 

Rainbow lorikeets (Trichoglossus haematodus) information at Birds In Backyards.

The Indian Clucking Purple Pig-Nosed Frog

Not its real name, but could be:

 

Two Blind Indus River Dolphins Found Dead

Tragic:

Two more blind dolphins were found dead in the Indus River here on Saturday, putting the number of dead dolphins found in Sukkur to 28 in six months.

The Wildlife Department shifted the two dead blind dolphins to Dolphin Research Institute for post- mortem. 

The wildlife and the fisheries departments have so far failed to find the possible cause of the deaths of the precious specie. Sources said that the higher authorities recently formed a probe committee, which had revealed that some fisherman threw poisonous substance into the river which is causing deaths of the endangered fish found only in two rivers Asia-Ganges and the Indus River.

I've seen those dolphins, or a closely related species, in the Ganges River. Just magical creatures, so elusive—I could only ever see them for a second as they curved up out of the water and down again quickly. Nobody else was seeing them—I thought I was seeing things. The imprint off their shape—especially the very long beak—seemed to be burned into my cornea.

Let's hope they figure out what the hell's going on.

"A Guide to Preparing and Assembling a Bear Skeleton"

I'm researching an article about bears—did you know that fossil evidence shows that polar bears diverged from brown bears starting only about 200,000 years ago? amazing!—and I just came across this:

Not a lot of people are going to be articulating bear skeletons, but if you were—this is the manual you would want. Bear skeletons are fascinating because the anatomy of a standing bear is so similar to our own. The skinned-out hands and feet are sometimes turned in as homicide remains. This manual has detailed illustrations of bear bones, including all the carpals, and tarsals from the hands and feet. This is the step by step process once used by a grade school to do a museum quality skeletal mount of a bear.

Here's a sample page:

I think we all know that we need this book. It's only $34.99—and you never know how a party might end up some night, for example.

Morning Bird Calls [updated]

It's 6 a.m. Since about 5 this bird has been serenading me:



I wish I knew what it was. I think it's a currawong, but I'm not sure.

If you listen very closely after the string of bigger, more obvious notes, there is sometimes (I think twice, here) a very tiny, two-note trill, very high. Just beautiful.

Update: It's a magpie!Thank you to the commenter below!

White-Faced Heron, Tide Pools [updated]

 A few shots from local beaches.

This beautiful bird was walking around down by the collaroy tide pools. It was about three feet tall, and it's a White-faced Heron:

An interesting fact about these birds:

When breeding, the birds have long feathers (nuptial plumes) on the head, neck and back.

"Nuptial plumes." Sexy.

Here's a bit of Eastern Rock Lobster (mentioned previously here):

Cougar Sightings

Something you will never see in the news in Australia: Cougar sightings up in Ashland, Oregon, my old home:

More cougar sightings in Ashland parks have been reported to the city's Parks and Recreation department.

The Parks Department received two reports of cougar sightings on Wednesday, just weeks after a man reported seeing a cougar feeding on a deer carcass in Lithia Park on May 20.

I saw a cougar just once in my twenty years in Ashland, leaping two lanes and shoulders of the highway in front of the car in front of me on I-5 just north of the Ashland St. exit. Beautiful sight.

Good Tasmanian Devil News

I've blogged about the Tasmanian Devil face cancer epidemic—it's communicable!—before. Well, today, some good news:

Efforts to save the Tasmanian Devil have received a boost, with the first joeys arriving in an insurance population of the species at a Hunter Valley property.

A year ago 50 devils were released in a free-range enclosure at a property owned by media mogul James Packer, as part of a plan to produce a thousand disease-free devils by 2021.

The Devil Ark program is run by the Australian Reptile Park and spokeswoman Liz Vella says the ambitious plan is paying off.

"We have got several mums with babies," she said. 

Much more info at TassieDevil..com

Lizard

Took this photo in 2006. East of Canberra got out of the car for some reason or other, saw this little guy not far from the road digging a little hole. I don't know what type of lizard he is. I'll try and find out.

Look at the back legs on that sucker.

Crab

Crab in a pool of shells, Pebbly Beach, South Coast, NSW:

Surf Fishing: Flathead and Mystery Crab

I went fishing yesterday. (Was it a Good Friday thing? Some smoke from a stirred childhood memory?) Christine came along, and spent some time trying to catch beach worms.

Just a few minutes in I caught a flathead on a little prawn (not fresh; been in the freezer for ages). Clean, hard strike, I didn't have to set the hook, it just took it and ran. Christine took a shot of the hook removal:

Eels, Leeches, And a Giant Spider on My Face [updtd]

So you're in Australia. In the southeastern state of New South Wales, the North Carolina of Australia. In Sydney. (Let's call it Wilmington). Go straight north from the city center about 20 miles, er, about 32 kilometers, and you run into Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park.

Now you all know where to search for my body.

Right. To the latest excursion.

I entered the park at the Ku-ring-gai Wildflower Garden, and soon heard a "knocking on a hollow wood box" bird-call I am completely unfamiliar with. Five-second video:

Just Make Them Die

Jesus. Here's a link to a YouTube video. I watched about 3 seconds and I want to kill people. This is horrible.

Laughing Kookaburra

My First Blue Bottle Jellyfish Sting

So I was trying to catch beach worms the other day - more on that later - when Christine noticed the delicate tentacles of a dreaded blue bottle jellyfish around my legs.

My First Aussie Fish Catch

I went fishing last night, at dusk, and then into the dark, in a light rain. You just don't know how good it is to stand in the surf up to your ankles or nipples for a few hours, especially while doing something like fishing, which has its own kinds of goodness.

Anyway, I caught my first fish. Even in the dark I could tell it was a flathead, which is supposedly a great eating fish. Mine was unfortunately a small one, about 8 inches (they need to be 26 centimeters, which is like 8 feet I think). Unfortunately again the combination of it being dark and the fact that the little bugger nearly swallowed the hook made it impossible to get the hook free without messing the fish up pretty bad. I was trying and trying and the spines on the fish's gills kept stabbing me in the hands and I'm cussing up a storm in the rain trying to get the goddamn hook out. Blech. Made me feel like shit. I finally got it and put the guy back in the ocean. He swam off.

I hope the little fella lived and grows to a really good size and gets caught on my hook one day so I can eat him.

"It's Blue Murder"

Riding off the blue bottle post from the other day, here's the front page of the ever-subtle Manly Daily today:

2,000 treated for stings. Now if only they had listened to Christine…

Signs You're in Australia [updated]

I mean that literally. (Click to enlarge signs and the lovely and vivacious Tin.)

The sign to the right says "Caution - Blue Bottles." That would be the blue bottle jellyfish:

Kur-ring-gai Chase

I spent several hours yesterday walking in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park just north of Sydney. (The name is actually redundant: a chase is "a tract of unenclosed land used as a game preserve." The founders of the chase didn't want to call it a park, as that, in their 1890s view of things, suggested a fenced in area.)