The alien abductors have moved on from cows.
Category Archives: Mammal
Black and Gold Howler Monkey (Alouatta caraya)
Peru 2015 – Marmoset
Pictures not by me
I went, with friends, to a place called Nurtured by Nature, where you get to swim with otters (and see other things but, really, it’s the otters that are the highlights). So since you normally don’t get to see photos of me, I thought I’d post these before I queue up the photos that I did take. (If you’re seeing this on FB or Twitter, click through to see all of the photos).
This is what I look like when I’m being prevented from taking photos by manipulative otters.
This is what I look like when I am being investigated by inquisitive otters.
This is what I look like when I am taking photos of a friend being attacked by vicious otters.
And this is what I look like most of the time when I’m off visiting zoos and such.
(All photos taken by my friend K, whose name I will not give as this is a public post and I do not have permission to share names.)
Speke’s Gazelle (Gazella spekei)
Black and White Ruffed Lemur (Varecia variegata variegata)
Takin (Budorcas taxicolor)
Alaotran gentle lemur (Hapalemur alaotrensis)
Black and Gold Howler Monkey (Alouatta caraya)
Andean Bear (Tremarctos ornatus)
Asian elephant (Elephas maximus)
Sun Bear (Helarctos malayanus)
Common Brown Lemur (Eulemur fulvus)
African Wild Dog (Lycaon pictus)
Aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis)
Squirrel in the snow
I’m half way through my first pass at the photos I took in the snow today and had to share this one early.
If I hadn’t decided to brave the elements, I would not have gotten this shot.
If I hadn’t practiced with that camera on so many shoots, I wouldn’t have been able to spin around in time to get the shot.
If I hadn’t have been lucky, I wouldn’t have gotten this shot.
Sometimes, it all comes together.
Squirrel
He had known it was against the rules. They’d made that abundantly clear.
Still, he thought, there had to be room for flexibility. The world consisted not of endlessly cycling identical days. If the rays of the rising sun can hit the shards of the fallen and shattered night, pushing the pieces into a fresh new day, is not reasonable to think that everything could change?
An egg can do nothing for weeks, then can crack and the next day be a bird.
A tree can stand for years, get struck by lightning one day and the next day be nothing but a pile of ash.
Flat, unmarked ground can sit for eons and, suddenly become a thriving megalopolis full of ants.
Is it so unreasonable to think that borders could change as well? Sure, to the west there were still the mountains and to the south was still the sea. But the river, that changed constantly.
Time, also, had borders – each sunset, each sunrise, completely different every time.
He had understood the rule, back when it was put into place. At first, it had seemed unfair that others could cross the river, but when he gazed at the crocodiles shining red and gold in the setting sun, and he had understood.
But since then, the sky had changed so much, from black to pink, to blue, and to orange and red then black once again. Then, to nothing but grey and black for three entire days as the rain came down. However, even the rainy days were different, sometimes soft and gentle and almost entirely quiet. Sometimes coming down so hard that the eggshells were blown from the trees and the ants were washed up and out of the ground. Sometimes the rain even moved sideways, wetting everyone no matter how they hid.
This morning, though, he the first was awakened by the rising sun and, though the sky looked as it had may days before, it was the river’s time to change. Where once it had sat still, off in the distance, glinting softly as the fish nibbled at the surface, it was now wider and much less flat. There were trees in it, moving all together. Most importantly, there wasn’t a single crocodile to be seen.
Everything was different. He knew he could make it. He knew everyone was asleep. He knew that this was his time. He picked out a promising looking tree and got ready to leap upon it when he suddenly found himself hauled back to the muddy shore and then dragged back into the forest.
So here he sits, caught, cuffed, and confined. Watched by all, actively prevented from pursuing his own goals, from living his own life. Though he was surrounded by the group, he was completely alone with his thoughts, playing back the morning, thinking about what had gone wrong.
There was but one conclusion.
Dad was just a big old meanie.