Baboon

There are five different species of baboons. All of them live in Africa or Arabia. Baboons are some of the world's largest monkeys, and males of different species average from 33 to 82 pounds (15 to 37 kilograms). Baboon bodies are 20 to 40 inches (60 to 102 centimeters) long, not including substantial tails of varying lengths.

Baboons generally prefer savanna and other semi-arid habitats, though a few live in tropical forests.

Like other Old World monkeys, baboons do not have prehensile (gripping) tails. But they can and do climb trees to sleep, eat, or look out for trouble. They spend much of their time on the ground.

Baboons are opportunistic eaters and, fond of crops, become destructive pests to many African farmers. They eat fruits, grasses, seeds, bark, and roots, but also have a taste for meat. They eat birds, rodents, and even the young of larger mammals, such as antelopes and sheep.

Four baboon species (i.e., chacma, olive, yellow, and Guinea) are known as the savanna baboons. These animals form large troops, composed of dozens or even hundreds of baboons, governed by a complex hierarchy that fascinates scientists. Males use shows of physical power to dominate rivals, and troop members spend endless hours carefully grooming one another to remove insects and dead skin.

A fifth species, the hamadryas baboon, lives in the hills along the Red Sea coasts of Africa and Arabia. These cliff-dwelling baboons disperse to forage during the day and reconvene in much smaller groups at night.

Cactus Cat

Around 100 years ago, there were tall tales of mischievous felines known as cactus cats in the sprawling deserts of the southwestern US and northern Mexico. About the size and shape of house cats, these critters were covered in needles, and cactuslike growths protruded from their tails and ears.

The cactus cat fed off the juice of cacti but not in the way you might think. It would slash the bottom of a cactus and allow the juices to collect, but instead of drinking, it would move on to the next cactus and do the same thing. Over several days, it would make a circuit.

By the time it reached the first cactus, the juices had fermented into alcohol. After chugging the alcohol, the cat would saunter drunkenly into the night, yowling loudly, slashing at anything in his path, and leaving prickling welts cowboys after stumbling into their camps. Unfortunately, the cactus cats’ frequent inebriation made it easy for the cowboys to supposedly hunt them to extinction.

Time to protect the amazing octopus

Octopuses are extraordinary and fascinating animals and one of the most intelligent of all invertebrates. Scientists are increasingly producing evidence that they are sentient creatures. Yet they are given little or no legal protection from suffering. But, at last, that is starting to change.

Octopuses, squid and cuttlefish are a type of animal called cephalopods. A new law governing the use of animals in experiments in the EU will, for the first time, provide some protection for these animals in the same way as for vertebrate animals such as monkeys and mice. And about time too.

Fascinating creatures

So what do we know about these illusive animals of the sea? Well, a few interesting basic facts: there are over 300 known species of octopus, they have four pairs of arms and three hearts!

The challenging environment in which cephalopods live and their lifestyle means that they need to be capable of complex and flexible behaviours. For example, as they are active predators octopuses need to explore, remember their environment and understand the behaviour of other animals including their prey.

It is therefore not surprising that studies have shown that octopuses easily learn new things, simply by observing other octopuses. They can also solve problems they would not encounter in the wild such as unscrewing the lid of a container to get at prey inside.

Tool users

One of the most interesting recorded natural behaviours of octopuses is their use of tools. Researchers only recently observed veined octopuses in Australia using halved coconut shells as tools, by scooping them from the seabed, carrying with them and later using them as a shelter when needed. This is the first reported case of tool use by an invertebrate animal.

Thwarting predators

Common octopuses have a wide array of techniques they use to avoid or thwart potential predators. If there is a place to hide they can squeeze their soft bodies with no internal or external skeleton through impossibly small cracks and crevices where predators can’t follow. Or they can choose to jet off at speed by expelling water through their mantles. They can also improve their chances of escape by obscuring an attacker’s view and dulling its sense of smell by releasing a cloud of black ink.

If all else fails, they have beak-like jaws which can deliver a nasty bite, and venomous saliva which is mostly used for subduing prey. Even if a predator manages to bit off one of their eight arms they can re-grow it later with no permanent damage!

Parrots can reason

Parrots are known to be highly intelligent birds but until now it had not been proved that they can reason.

We know that humans and other great apes do it. Now a parrot has shown it can use logical reasoning to work out where food is hidden.

Sandra Mikolasch of the University of Vienna's Konrad Lorenz Research Station in Austria and her colleagues first checked that seven African grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus) had no preference for two types of food, seeds or walnuts.

Each parrot watched a researcher hide a walnut under one opaque cup and a seed under another. Then the researcher hid the cups behind a screen, removed one of the treats and showed the bird which one had been taken. Finally, the screen was removed to see if the parrot could work out which treat must remain, and under which cup it must be.

Only one of the parrots, a female called Awisa, was able to do this. She chose correctly in three-quarters of the tests – 23 out of 30.

As with similar studies using apes, not all parrots could solve the problem. The other parrots chose more randomly, suggesting they hadn't worked out what was going on. It seems that parrots, like apes show individual differences in their abilities to reason.

"So far, only great apes have been shown to master this task," says Mikolasch. "So we now know that a grey parrot is able to logically exclude one possibility in favour of another to get a reward, known as 'inference by exclusion'."

The confirmation that parrots can reason adds to our already considerable knowledge about their complex mental abilities. The term ‘bird brains’ couldn’t be further from the truth. The more we learn about these fascinating birds the more one must surely question how long it will be generally viewed as acceptable to keep them as pets, imprisoned in cages for our own reasons.

Tragic inevitability of latest zoo deaths

We may deplore the latest announcement that captive wild animals held in a European zoo have been killed – but we should not be surprised. Copenhagen Zoo, which caused a worldwide outcry last month by killing and publicly dissecting 18-month giraffe Marius, has now killed four lions to make way for a new male.

According to the zoo, it made “a change” in the lion pride because it had received a new male lion from Givskud Zoo, also in Denmark, as a means of preventing inbreeding at Copenhagen. The new dynamic of the pride would have put existing members, and potentially the newcomer, at risk of aggression. Which meant that four of the existing pride simply had to go.

As I said when interviewed for an excellent BBC Radio 4 documentary,The Report, broadcast in the wake of the Marius episode, at least Copenhagen Zoo was honest about its highly objective approach. Other Danish zoos are equally open about the “breed and cull” strategy promoted by the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA), although the same cannot be said of British zoos.

EAZA members subscribe to the organisation's breeding programmes, with a studbook for each species involved. An EAZA spokesman once told us at OneKind that:

“The unnecessary culling of animals is of course avoided wherever possible; however, sometimes the greater good of the population as a whole is better served by allowing the animals to breed rather than engaging in birth control. In a limited number of cases it is then necessary to cull the resulting offspring.”

That was in the context of the culling of red river hog piglets in Edinburgh Zoo in 2010 and 2011. This latest example shows that the strategy extends beyond the culling of surplus offspring (who are often given names and feted as adorable at the time of their birth). This is pragmatic, pre-emptive population management.

And it is not confined to Denmark. From conversations with European studbook keepers, researchers for the BBC programme reported on the deaths of healthy giraffes, hippos, zebras and Arabian Oryx in members of the European breeding programmes, including UK zoos.

According to The Report journalist Hannah Barnes, EAZA does not publish records of healthy animals that have been culled, but an estimate was given of somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 animals being "management-euthanised" in European zoos in any given year. Speaking on the programme, one zoo spokesman suggested that the numbers game was misleading because “you know, most of those animals were rats or mice or something like that.”

Rats or mice or something like that. For OneKind, every sentient individual has intrinsic moral value and we have asked zoos questions about management culling with far less success than the BBC. The response is invariably that population management and ensuring healthy genes are very complicated matters. We get that. But what still perplexes us is how the approach can be justified at all, given that even the healthiest zoo populations are still living in captivity. Successful reintroductions are rare and it must be asked whether creating an international “Ark” of wild animals who will never live in the wild is a valid purpose for breeding them at all.

Grouse shooting opens to industry spin

The press and media are full today of predictions of a bumper year for grouse shooting, as the season opens.  Plenty of healthy well-feathered birds are waiting in the heather to be startled into the sky by lines of beaters, and then shot as they fly, fast and low, over the waiting guns.

Hopefully, most will be cleanly killed. Those that are only wounded will be retrieved by pickers-up and despatched to end their suffering.

OneKind opposes sport shooting for a number of reasons. First, we just don’t get it - why is it fun to spend a day killing hundreds of living wild creatures? It’s a rhetorical question of course, and on one level we might feel we should just be tolerant and let others make their own ethical choices about how they spend their money and their free time.

But that’s before we consider the cost of grouse shooting. Not only the money that is expended, although that is considerable. Scottish Land and Estates put a “really good” day’s driven grouse shooting for eight or ten people, killing around 200 birds, at around £15,000, while a cheaper walked-up shoot without beaters, killing around 40 or 60 birds, would work out around £2,000 for the day.

Not only the environmental cost either, although many point to the unnatural effects on the environment when heather regularly burned so that the grouse can have a supply of young shoots to feed on – a practice said to threaten to release millions of tonnes of carbon locked into the peat bogs, not to mention the loss of wild animals trapped in the fires. Then there are the large quantities of lead shot discharged, the restrictions on public access to land (in England at least), and the scarring of landscape by roads built to allow shooters and keepers access to the moors.

No, the cost that concerns OneKind is the cost exacted of our native wildlife, sentient individuals every one of them. In addition to the thousands of birds directly shot, there is a huge toll of collateral harm to our wild creatures so that the grouse can thrive, fly up and be “harvested”. Our own field officer watched a gamekeeper beating trapped crows to death in a cage on a grouse estate, and I have literally lost count of the reports of rare, legally protected birds of prey such as buzzards and red kite being found in the vicinity of poisoned baits on grouse moors.

Iconic eagles are not safe either, with a ringed, named, satellite-tagged golden eagle poisoned in the Angus glens last November. Over the last six years, according to RSPB Scotland, another four eagles, a red kite and seven buzzards have been shot, poisoned or trapped on sporting estates in the Angus glens alone. In January 2013, the nest tree of a pair of white-tailed eagles was felled. In England, the hen harrier population is reduced to a fragile three breeding pairs, due to persecution.

The industry protests that these are the actions of a few rogue estates and individuals and that may be true, but the effects are still appalling. In numerical terms, raptor persecution pales into insignificance compared with the onslaught conducted against mammalian predators such as foxes, stoats and weasels and against hares that can pass ticks and disease to the grouse. Thousands of these animals, and plenty of non-target species such as badgers and otters, are caught in break-back traps or in the slow cruelty of snares.

A petition to the UK government calling for a ban on driven grouse shooting has already gathered 13,000 signatures. If that appears too drastic a step, there is undoubtedly a case for shoots to be licensed to provide sanctions for the most egregious wrongdoing, as the Scottish Raptor Study Groups and the RSPB have recommended. OneKind would support such a move, as soon as possible. And an alternative to banning shooting would be to educate our young people about the sentience of wild animals and to persuade landowners that, with nature tourism worth billions to the UK economy, alternative uses for our magnificent landscape are both feasible and desirable.

Yellow-Headed Blackbird

The Yellow-Headed Blackbird is an attractive resident of marshy areas throughout Western North America -- particularly the prairie regions.  Unfortunately their 'song' doesn't match their pretty feathers.  Rather than a lovely trill, the blackbird lets out a rather nasal squawking sound.  Ahh well, at least they look nice.

We were driving through Nanton, Alberta and saw a large number of the birds sitting on top of cat tails in a large marshy area (one of which is shown in the photo).  Oddly enough they were the only ones we spotted on our entire trip from Calgary to Cranbrook.  After a bit of research, we learned that they like large marshy areas -- the males are territorial, so the area must be large enough to host a few of them (at least if you want to spot them).  They tend to live in loose colonies so require enough territory for at least a few males.

We also noticed that the red winged blackbirds that usually dominate the ponds and fence posts near our home seemed to cower every time their slightly larger yellow-headed cousins let out a squawk.

While taking photographs, I was "swooped" by one of the males (apparently I ventured a bit to close to his territory so I quickly backed off).  Yellow-headed blackbird males are very territorial, though they usually only swoop at other birds that enter their area (not soccer moms with cameras).

Distribution/Location

General:  Yellow-headed blackbirds live in Western Canada and the United States in marshy areas.  They are particularly fond of cattail marshes.  In Canada and the Northern US, they migrate south during winter months (they're easy to find from April to September, but don't stick around for our harsh winters).

Description - male:  The yellow-headed blackbird is 8 to 12 inches long.

Bright yellow head and chest with the remainder black (thus the name "yellow-headed" blackbird).  Feet, legs, eyes and beak are black.  There is a streak of white on the wings, that is most noticeable while in flight.

Description - female:  The female is much different than the male.  The body is brown with a yellow chest.  There are hints of yellow on the face.  The beak and legs are dark grey to black.  The females are quite a bit smaller than the males and lack their white wingbars.

Description - young:  When immature, the birds are similar in coloring to the females.

Feeding:  Diet consists of insects and seeds.  Their marshy habitat has an abundance of insect life.

Habitat:  Cattail marshes, croplands and shoreland vegetation.

Nesting:  Yellow-headed Blackbirds breed in colonies.  Males typically have 2 to 3 mates, though particularly energetic males can have 5 or 6.  Needless to say, the females do most of the work raising the chicks.

The female builds the nest, which is a bulky, open cup made of leaves, stems, and grass, and lashed to cattails or other plants growing over the water.  The female uses wet vegetation to weave a nest which tightens and strengthens as it drys.  The female typically lays a clutch of 3 - 5 eggs each year which they incubate for 12 days.

The female provides most of the food for the young, but the male may help feed the young of one of his mates. The young leave the nest 9 to 12 days after hatching, but stay nearby, close to the water, until they can fly, about 9 to 12 days later.  The female feeds the young for a few days after they fledge.  Females typically raise one brood each season but may raise two.

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Enemies:  The main enemy of the Yellow-Headed Blackbird is the Marsh Wren (surprisingly, it's a much smaller bird).  The wren competes for nesting space and will attack the blackbird's eggs and young.

Crows and grackles also raid the nests to feed on the eggs and young.

Migration:  Migrate south to winter in the southern United States and Mexico.  Only found in Canada from April through September.  They migrate during the day in loose flocks.

Willow Ptarmigan

The Willow Ptarmigan is found only in the colder regions of North America.  During particularly chilly winters they do migrate further south than normal and can be seen in locations throughout Canada where they normally are not found.

The same species is also found in Britain, but it is called the Red Grouse.  Unlike its North American counterpart, it does not turn white in the winter.

Distribution/Location

General:  The North American species turn snow white in the winter.  They will often fly into snow banks and nestle in the snow to sleep.  By flying into the banks instead of walking, they don't leave tracks for predators to follow.

Description - male:  Willow ptarmigan are fairly large birds, the size of a small chicken.  During the summer, the male has a chestnut brown head and neck, with a mainly white belly splashed with brown.  The tail feathers are black and the eyebrows are red.  

During the winter, the bird is entirely white but for its black eyes, bill and outer tail.  It also retains the red eyebrow.  The feet of the bird are heavily feathered and act much like snow shoes.

Description - female:  The female is identical to the male in winter.  During the summer it is a mottled brown (less reddish than the male) with some white on the belly.

Feeding:  The willow ptarmigan feeds mainly on leaves and shoots of plants, but also eats berries, seeds and insects.  It prefers willow and birch.

Habitat:  The willow ptarmigan can be found in the tundra and in thickets with alder and willow trees.  They are found in open forests and shrub meadows high in the mountains where the temperature is colder.

Nesting:  The nests contain seven to ten eggs in a hollowed out area on the ground lined with feathers and grass.  The female will try to find a place sheltered by rocks or logs.  The male guards the area while the female incubates the eggs.  The chicks hatch after about three weeks.

Steller's Jay

The Steller's Jay is a very pretty bird that doesn't seem to be particularly shy of people.  Although it is lovely to look at, it has very harsh, noisy vocalizations.

It is the provincial bird of British Columbia, Canada.  Steller's Jays are frequently seen in the Rockie Mountains.

Distribution/Location

General:  The Steller's Jay is a member of the Jays and Crows family.  Just as the Blue Jay is common on the East Coast of North America, the Steller's Jay is common on the West Coast, from Alaska and the Yukon in the north to Arizona and New Mexico in the south.

Description - male:  Charcoal colored head and nape with a large black crest on top of the head.  Most have white streaks on the forehead and chin though there are some subspecies that do not.  The body, wings and tail are a deep blue.  The bill and legs are black.  The birds are about 11 inches long.

Description - female:  same as male, though slightly smaller.

Description - young:  Nestlings are born featherless.  Three weeks after hatching, they have the same coloring as the parents.

Feeding:  The Steller's Jay feeds on insects, other birds' eggs and nestlings, nuts, seeds, acorns and berries.  They are also frequent visitors of campground picnic tables and bird feeders.  The Steller's Jay hoards food like acorns, seeds and nuts in caches around it's territory for occasions when it can't find fresh food.

Habitat:  The Steller's Jay can be found in campgrounds, picnic areas and towns making it a fairly easy bird for an amateur bird watcher to spot.  It also spends time in coniferous and mixed forests.

Nesting:  They mainly nest in conifer trees, using the needles of the tree to line their nest.  The nest is built of sticks, twigs and mud.  However, they have adapted to urban life by occasionally nesting under the roof of a building.

The female typically lays a clutch of 3 to 4 eggs (though it can be anywhere from 2 to 6 eggs) which she incubates for about 16 days.  The eggs are bluish-green with dark brown markings.  The male feeds the female while she's incubating the eggs.

Migration:  The Steller's Jay lives in its territory year round.  They often live in mountainous areas and will move up the mountain in the summer and back down the mountain into the valley areas in the winter.

Ruffed Grouse

The most notable characteristic of the Ruffed Grouse isn't how they looks -- it's how they sound.  In the spring and a little in the fall, the male ruffed grouse beats the air with his wings to make a loud drumming sound.  It's such a deep sound that you feel it more than hear it.  He does this to show where his territory is and to attract females.

Another characteristic of this bird is their ability to stay perfectly still if they are threatened.  Only when the predator (or unknowing hiker) is within a few feet of the grouse will it leave cover and blast into the air in a flurry of wings.

Distribution/Location

General:  Ruffed Grouse live throughout most of Canada all year round.  The birds are territorial and typically never leave the approximately 100 hectare (about 240 acre) territory they call home.

Description - male:  The Ruffed Grouse is 15 to 19 inches long.

It has a small crest on top of its head with reddish or grey-brown coloring.

The name, Ruffed Grouse, comes from the black 'ruffs' on the side of his neck.

Description - female:  same as the male, though the neck ruff and tail band are not as defined.

Description - young:  Newly hatched chicks are white to light gray.  When immature, the goshawk is a brownish color with pale underparts.

Feeding:  Ruffed grouse feed mainly on ground vegetation though they do eat a few insects.

Habitat:  Ruffed Grouse are most commonly found in deciduous woodlands (mixed and poplar forests) with dense undergrowth.

The Ruffed Grouse is well adapted to Canadian winters.  They have scales on their toes that extend out -- almost like snowshoes.  They also nestle themselves in the snow for warmth and to hide from predators.

Nesting:  Ruffed grouse nest on the ground, typically in a shallow depression.  They rely on camouflage, so you'll often find the nests surrounded by a litter of leaves or nestled near a log, tree or boulders.

The female typically lays a clutch of 9 - 12 buff colored eggs each year.  The female (hen) will lay a second time if the first clutch is destroyed by predators early in the year.

The eggs typically take three to four weeks to incubate.  The hen does not necessarily build the nest near the male.  The hen alone is responsible for building the nest, incubating the eggs and raising the chicks.

The hen leaves the nest to feed in early morning and late evening.  She chooses these times because the low sunlight makes it more difficult for predators to find her unprotected nest.

Northern Goshawk

If you're an avid birdwatcher, the Northern Goshawk is one bird you'll likely want to view from a distance.  It is a very aggressive bird that will swoop and possibly attack anything that comes too close for comfort.

Having said that it's a very beautiful raptor, both in and out of flight.

Summer Locations

General:  Generally found in remote northern areas in North America, Europe and Asia.

Description - male:  Northern Goshawks are large birds, 20 to 23 inches long with a wingspan of 40 to 43 inches.

Northern Goshawks have a dark gray to black crown, white eyebrow and black eyeline.  The rest of their face, throat, breast and belly are white to light gray with fine vertical barring.  They have a blue-gray back.  Wings and tail and piercing red eyes.

Description - female:  same as the male, though slightly larger -- 23 to 25 inches long with a wingspan of 43 to 46 inches.

Description - young:  Newly hatched chicks are white to light gray.  When immature, the goshawk is a brownish color with pale underparts.

Feeding:  Northern Goshawks feed mainly on grouse, ground squirrels, tree squirrels, jays, songbirds and rabbits.

Habitat:  Northern Goshawks nest in deep woods, high in trees.  Because they prefer deep woods and tall trees, the logging of old growth forests have caused a decline in the population of these birds (they are not endangered though).

When not breeding, the Goshawks can also be seen on forest edges, parks and agricultural areas.

Nesting:  Northern Goshawks build a large nest of sticks and twigs.  Within their territory, a breeding pair may build as many as 9 nests each of which they'll often reuse for several years.

Although the goshawks maintain up to 9 nests, they only defend 1 each year.  The remaining nests are often 'borrowed' by owls, squirrels and hawks.

The female typically lays a clutch of 3 pale blue eggs (though the number can range anywhere from 2 to 5).  The eggs are not laid all at once.  Instead the female waits 2 or 3 days between each egg.

The eggs typically take about a month to incubate.  It is mainly the female that sits on the nest during this time, though the male does help long enough for her to feed herself.

Once the eggs hatch, the female stays with them for 3 to 4 weeks.  During this time, the male must provide food for the female and nestlings.

Lynx

Enemies:  The Northern Goshawks are tough birds with few enemies.  They are somewhat more vulnerable during nesting times when other large hawks, owls, tree climbing bears or lynx may kill a goshawk -- typically the young ones.

Migration:  Most Northern Goshawks remain in their territory year round, moving only to find prey.  However migration does occur in late August to early September with the birds returning to their nesting areas in February.

Great Horned Owl

We live in Alberta, Canada and we've often seen Great Horned Owls sitting on poles or gliding in the air as we drive around in our van.  The Great Horned Owl was adopted as Alberta's provincial bird on May 3, 1977, by a province wide children's vote.

Distribution/Location

General:  The Great Horned Owl is one of Canada's most common birds of prey (raptos) and lives here (and throughout North America) year round.  This owl hunts only at night and is most easily identified by its large size and feathery ear tufts (horns).  Most Great Horned Owls mate for life laying 1 to 5 eggs each year well before the snow melts.

The black area in the picture to the left represents the Great Horned Owl's living area.  As you can see, it's extremely widespread.

 

Description - male:  Great Horned Owls are large owls -- about 18 to 25 inches long and have a wingspan between 35-60 inches.  They have light gray to dark brown feathery ear tufts (which is how they ended up with the name 'Horned' owl).

They have horizontal breast barring with gray to brown, mottled bodies.  Their face has a dark outline with a lighter brown center and sometimes a white bib under the chin.  They have sharp, black talons and beaks.

They have large, round gold eyes.  Like all owls, their large eyes cannot move.  To look up, down or to the side the owls must move their entire heads and are able to turn their necks 180 degrees.

There are some differences in coloring of the Great Horned Owls, depending on where they live.  But their ear tufts make them easy to identify.

Description - female:  same as the male, but larger in size.  The male weighs about 3 pounds while the female weighs about 4 1/2.

Description - young:  The young owls are almost fully feathered and capable of short flights around eight weeks of age.

Feeding:  Great Horned Owls hunt by perching or gliding slowly high above the ground.  When they spot prey, they dive down to the ground with wings folded.  The prey is usually killed instantly when grasped by the owl's large, curved talons.

Great Horned Owls are mainly nocturnal (meaning they hunt at night), but they also hunt during the day in the wintertime.  They eat rodents, hares, squirrels, skunks, various birds such as geese, grouse, ducks and pigeons.  They sometimes eat fish, large insects and scavenge road killed animals.

One of my 8 year old daughter's favorite science experiments in school was when the class got to dissect owl pellets.  Owls eat their prey whole but cannot digest the fur, feather or bones.  They periodically cough up pellets containing the undigested bits of their meal.  In class the children picked out the bones from the pellet and worked at identifying what the meal had been.  Tasha's owl pellet had the remains of a mouse.

Canada Goose

One of my favorite spring and autumn memories ever since my early childhood was hearing the honk of the Canada Geese.  I'd peer up at the sky and look for the telltale V-formation of the flock of geese returning to Canada for the summer or leaving for the winter.  This spring, I couldn't help but smile when I noticed my daughters straining their necks in search of the geese.

Distribution/Location

General:  Canada Geese are waterfowl that live throughout most of North America.   They are famous for their life-long mating, though a widowed goose will usually choose another mate.

The gray area in the picture to the left represents the Canada Goose's breeding area.  As you can see, it's extremely widespread.

Tracks:  The webbed feet of the Canada Goose are apparent when looking at their tracks.

Feeding: 
Canada Geese, like most waterfowl, eat aquatic vegetation, grass, roots and young sprouts.   They also eat grain and corn from agricultural areas.

Habitat: 
Canada Geese live around ponds, river and lake shores.  They've become quite a common sight in city parks -- some cities are having trouble with overpopulation of the geese and, for this reason, are trying to discourage people from feeding them in the overpopulated areas.

Nesting: 
Canada Geese build their nest with grass and plant material and line it with feather down.  The geese typically nest on the ground on islands and shorelines.  However, they're very adaptable birds and in urban settings nest where ever it seems safe to them -- even on the edge of the runway at the airport or on the edge of the water traps on the golf course!

The female lays her eggs as soon as there is open water for mating and snow-free nest sites.

The female typically lays a clutch of 5 to 7 white eggs (though the number can range anywhere from 2 to 12) while the male guards the nesting area.   Laying the eggs is not a simple task.  Each egg takes a little over a day to lay.

I can tell you from personal experience that if you accidentally wander into a nesting male's territory while looking for a good spot to lie your picnic blanket down, he'll come after you hissing with wings spread -- they look a lot bigger and move a fair bit faster when they're upset about something *grin*.

The eggs typically take about a month to incubate.  The process is faster the farther north the geese nest since the summers are shorter.

The baby geese peck at their shells with the 'egg tooth' found at the end of their bill.  It takes 1 to 2 days for them to free themselves from the egg.

The newly hatched babies (called 'goslings') are able to swim immediately.  The male and female goose both accompany the babies during their swims.

Goslings can dive and swim for 30-40 feet underwater and they eat almost continuously to attain growth for the first migration flight.

Arctic Fox

Enemies:  
The main enemy of the Canada Goose is people.  In an attempt to control rising populations some areas have begun egg collection and/or hunting efforts to decrease the number of geese in their area.

Natural enemies include the Arctic fox, gulls, Bald Eagles, Peregrine Falcons, Snowy Owls, and Prairie Falcons.

Migration: 
After the babies (called 'goslings') have hatched, the family moves away from the nesting site on foot toward more favorable feeding areas.  Five weeks after the goslings hatch, the females begin moulting (the males begin right after mating).  During this time, the adults are unable to fly.  The adults regrow their flight feathers and are ready to fly at about the same time as the goslings are able to learn - at nine weeks old.

In autumn, as soon as the young are strong enough for the trip, they begin their migration south.   They learn the migration routes from their parents and follow the same route in subsequent years.

Although an increasing number of Canada Geese are choosing to winter in Canada, especially in urban areas, the majority fly south to the United States and even Mexico.

Hippopotamus

Hippo Teeth

The hippopotamus (or hippo) is a very large mammal found in Africa. Its name comes from a Greek word meaning "water horse". They spend their days in water to stay cool and then graze on the land in the evenings.

Hippos have large barrel shaped bodies and mouths that open extremely wide with large canine tusks. They can run rather quickly given their size but only for short distances. Hippos are known to be very aggressive and have consequently made a list of the most dangerous animals in Africa.

Gorillas

• Gorillas are a sub-group of the family of great apes.  They are mammals.
• There are four species of gorillas:
  • the eastern lowland or Grauer’s gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri);
  • the mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei);
  • the western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla); and
  • the Cross River gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehl).
• The cross river and mountain gorillas are endangered species with under 1000 (combined) still remaining in the wild.
•  
  Gorilla mother and child
  
  Gorillas live in family groups of about a dozen, led by a dominant male. 
  • This dominant male is usually over a decade old and is called a "silverback" due to the silvery colored hair on his back.
  • Males younger than a decade old are called blackbacks as their hair has not yet turned silver.
  • Similar to humans, gorilla mothers are pregnant for 8.5 months and tend to give birth to only one baby at a time.  They nurse their baby for about 3 years.
• An adult male gorilla is the size of a human, but three times as heavy (they weigh up to 600 pounds).
• Although gorillas are considered plant eaters, their favorite food is termites -- the protein, minerals and fat of these little insects is important to their health.  The gorillas break open the termite nests and enjoy a feast at a leisurely pace.
•  
  The eyes are windows to the soul.
  
  When not eating termites, gorillas spend most of their time feeding on fruit -- they live on a diet of as many as 100 different types of fruit.
• A gorilla's arms are longer than its legs and they tend to walk on all four limbs, curling their hands into fists and "knuckle walking".
• Gorillas are most active during the day, but they are shy.
• At night, they make nests of grass and leaves to sleep in.

Rock Dove

The rock dove is a very pretty name -- and the bird is actually pretty too when you step back and look at it.

However, the rock dove is really just the fancy name for the plain old pigeon we see everywhere!  My husband affectionately calls it a "flying rat" -- it isn't, but it is a bit of a pest sometimes.

I love to watch them walk around -- their heads bob when they walk.

General:  Pigeons live throughout the world including Europe, North Africa, Asia and throughout all of North America.

Description - male:  The feathers can be a wide variety of colors.  Typically they have a dark bill, grey head, back and belly with mottled dark and light grey wings.  They usually have a very pretty green and purple iridescence on their necks.  The birds are about 11 inches long.

Description - female:  same as male though they tend to be a bit less iridescent.

Description - young:  Nestlings are born with fluffy yellow feathers (they're a bit ugly).  About four weeks after hatching, they have the same coloring as the parents.

Feeding:  Rock doves eat mainly seeds, although in cities their diet has been expanded to include popcorn, peanuts and bits of bread.  They flock while roosting, sunning, and feeding.

Habitat:  The wild rock doves nest in crevices in rocky seaside cliffs or in open shrub vegetation.  Rock doves have adapted to "human encroachment" on their natural habitat very well.  They nest on skyscrapers, bridges, old farm buildings (and even under our deck one year!).

Nesting:  Rock doves mate for life -- they can meet their partner at any time during the year.  Both the male and female help with the care and raising of the young.

The male builds the nest, and the eggs are laid shortly after the nest is finished. 

In the nesting territory, both sexes are aggressive, pecking intruders (even people) on the head.

Migration:  Rock doves do not migrate.

Predators:  Common predators of North American rock doves are opossums, raccoons, great horned owls, screech-owls, golden eagles, American kestrels, and peregrine falcons.

Other neat facts:  Some people breed pigeons to eat -- the meat of young pigeon is called squab.  Some people used pigeons as messengers -- these "homing pigeons" would be carried by a person who would tie a message to their leg.  Then the pigeon would be released and would fly "home" with their message.  They were so useful carrying messages during some wars that a few were even given medals.

Wild bees on the decline in key US agricultural ecosystems.

Researchers point to concerns over pesticides as diseases as bee numbers drop while farmland requiring the pollinators increases 

Wild bees, crucial pollinators for many crops, are on the decline in some of the main agricultural regions of the United States, according to scientists who produced the first national map of bee populations and identified numerous trouble spots.

The researchers on Monday cited 139 counties as especially worrisome, with wild bee numbers decreasing while farmland for crops dependent on such pollinators is increasing.

Pesticides stop bumblebees from pollinating apple trees, research shows

 

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The counties included agricultural regions of California such as the Central Valley, as well as the Pacific northwest, the upper midwest and Great Plains, west Texas and the southern Mississippi river valley.

The counties grew crops such as almonds, pumpkins, squashes, blueberries, watermelons, peaches and apples that are highly dependent on pollinators, or had large amounts of less-pollinator-dependent crops including soybeans, canola and cotton.

Taylor Ricketts, director of the University of Vermont’s Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, said the 139 counties represent 39% of the pollinator-dependent crop area of the United States and most likely will face inadequate pollination in the future.

“Wild bee declines may increase costs for farmers and, over time, could even destabilize crop production,” Ricketts said.

Some crops, such as corn and wheat, do not need pollinators.

The study estimated that wild bee numbers diminished in 23% of the continental United States between 2008 and 2013 in a trend driven by conversion of their natural habitat into farmland including corn for biofuel production.

Pesticides blamed for bee declines widespread in US waterways

 

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Pesticides and diseases were cited as other factors behind the declines among the roughly 4,000 US species of wild bees.

“Wild bees help pollinate many of our most nutritious crops, support natural ecosystems and contribute over $3bn to the US economy each year,” Ricketts said.

Their decline may prompt greater dependence on commercial honeybee colonies for pollinating crops, but honeybee numbers also are falling, added Gund Institute researcher Insu Koh, the lead author of the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Our results highlight the need for strategies to maintain pollinator populations in farmland, and the importance of conservation programs that provide flowering habitat that can support wild bees and other pollinators,” said Michigan State University entomologist Rufus Isaacs, who heads the US Department of Agriculture-funded Integrated Crop Pollination Project.

The study followed a 2014 memorandum by Barack Obama creating a task force to study pollinator losses. The task force in May called for preserving wide swathes of pollinator habitats.