View allAll Photos Tagged Behaviour
A common red soldier beetle (a vegetarian as far as I'm aware) trying to pull apart a mating pair of dock bugs in New Ferry Butterfly Park.
I'm always fascinated by observing human behaviour, particularly how it varies across cultures. It struck me that certain postures are more prevalent in specific regions. For instance, squatting is a common resting position in many parts of Asia and Africa. Yet, it's far less common in Europe, where people typically sit on chairs, and many struggle to even get into a squat.
Interestingly, I've identified another global posture that transcends cultural boundaries: the phone hunch. No matter where you go, you'll see people hunched over their smartphones, engrossed in the digital world. This modern posture is a testament to our universal connection to technology, yet it also serves as a reminder of the physical impact our digital habits have on our bodies.
Female Sibylla pretiosa - a South African mantis species - grooming herself [possibly as a distraction technique)..
Unfortunately because of anti-social behaviour I decided that it was best to move on so I did not get the opportunity to explore this park which was a pity.
The park has many fine mature trees, beautiful flowers, horticultural displays and grassland areas.
In June 1866, Belfast Corporation (now Belfast City Council) purchased 101 acres of land on Falls Road from the Sinclair family. Some of the land was set aside for the building of Belfast City Cemetery, but the rest was earmarked for a new park.
However, because the land initially fell outside the Belfast city boundary, the area was not considered a public park until the Public Parks (Ireland) Act was passed in 1869.
The area, now known as Falls Park, was eventually established in 1873.
In 1924, an outdoor swimming pool, known locally as ‘the Cooler’, was added to the park. It cost £3,000 to build and was fed by the Ballymurphy Stream, which still flows through the area today. The pool closed in 1979 for public health reasons.
There is some question over the photos in this still-photo audiovisual. I took the photos near a dead horse removed into a gully well off Ross Highway on the third day of photographing 16-18 July 2014. All fly-in photos are post processed at 100%. There were over a hundred photos in the series and looking at them nearly two years in retrospect I cannot say whether the photos were of one bird, or the earlier more distant photos of another bird? I've only included 14 photos out of the more than 100. To post-process them all would be crazy! Which photos to choose? The first three fly in photos might be of the female, the closer ones the male? Or not? Needless to say, it was quite an amazing experience!
What I remember of that day was that this was quite a wobbly fly-in with sort of stops and as you can see, definitely the Wedgie or Wedgies taking a good look at the camera lens. I was simply swamped by all the photos taken over the three days of photographing around the dead horse ... not even able to look at them all ... sigh!
Still it happened as you can see.
Music: "Do it" by Eric Matyas - soundimage.org
Visuals and production: Jan Martin
Cock Pheasants squaring up to each other although this encounter ended peacefully with just a bit of posturing before one decided to walk away.
Okay I found the Birdie Porn shot-of course mating isn't bad-but this interspecies thing just ain't right!
Happy Birds Behaving Badly Feathery Friday
Photo by my daughter :)
There were a number of Red-breasted Mergansers in Portland Harbour this weekend. Towards the end of the day, this pair separated from the others and starting to exhibit behaviour that I had not seen before. The male courtship is often seen at this time of year, but this was different, in that the female was looking very submissive with her tail pointing up. Typical mating behaviour but surely not in December. Anyway as this series of images show it was clear was a mating attempt or pair bonding.
The Purple Hairstreaks (Neozephyrus quercus) were involved in some interesting behaviour I've observed higher up in the Oak canopy, but never low enough to photograph. They were photographed on Butterfly Conservation's Prees Heath Common Reserve.
What happens is when more than one Purple Hairstreak land on one leaf, they walk around and go head to head in a sort of embrace as shown here. I wondered what was going on, and whether it was some sort of social interact, because their mouthparts play some part.
However, going through the photos and looking more closely at what is going on, and the whole sequence, it dawn on me what was going on. Far from some friendly interaction, they actually seem to be trying to push the other off. You can see their legs on the other butterfly, and their mouthparts being used as an extra limb. Notice how they are dug in and braced. Presumably these are rival males, trying to push their rival out of a prime spot. This same part of the Oak tree was where this took place several times, and the encounters on each photo, took place on different occasions.
I called this wrestling, because if you look closely this is more like the grasp of 2 wrestlers, than a friendly embrace.
I should have added that I'd be grateful for any insight or suggestions on what is going on. It was suggested that the photo of 3 was 2 males and a female. However, in none of these encounters, either on this day, or my previous observations of this behaviour, was there even any attempted coupling. It's all just going head to head and pushing each other about.
Some really nice visitors to a local reserve including a pair of Redpolls, unfortunately I couldn't get any shots of the female on this occasion.
Found on the path near the pond at Woods Mill - really large, are these hornets or queen wasps? What are they doing? Fighting or mating? They did now move much and were not distracted by me standing over them.
ID as European Hornets (Vespa crabro)
Fuut/Podiceps cristatus/Great crested grebe. Baltsende futen, Kwakelweg, Midden-Delfland, bij Duifpolder, 6 january 2022. Dit schijnt de 'plantendans' te heten en wordt alleen uitgevoerd door futen die al langer bij elkaar zijn.
"_ I use alcohol or drugs before entering a feared social situation"
_ If I attend a social situation I stay only a certain length of time
_ I'm likely to avoid eye contact
_ I'm likely to set other conditions on attendance such as staying close to certain "safe" people or staying in a certain place
_ I frequently try to distract myself by daydreaming or thinking about other things
Other: _____"
Ring-billed Seagulls. The female is whining & circling the male. I had no idea that he held a present for her!
Member of the Flickr Bird Brigade
Activists for birds and wildlife
As the Pacific Eden left Fremantle this afternoon a small pod of dolphins had some fun with the
bow-wave. I've never seen this behaviour in the harbour before. The ship was only doing eight knots.
a highly gifted hunter:
African Wild Dog
Kwando, Botswana
We were waiting for this dog to come up a termite mount, so I was able to take that low angle shot, thanks to our guide who sniffed that the animal would go there.
African Wild Dogs (Lycaon Pictus) are highly endangered.
Only about 4500 are living in the wild.
Although they are not as cute as Polar Bears or Cheetah, not as human as Gorilla or Chimpanzee, they deserve our protection.
They are excellent hunters, much more successfull than any of the big cats.
They chase their prey for miles and can reach a speed up to 25kmh.
Despite that, they do have a great sense of family. The offspring gets food first. We often witnessed, that the adult dogs didn´t get any food, when the prey was only enough for the pups.
Photographing African Wild Dogs is always a bit of a challenge. Besides the greatest challenge of finding them, it´s tricky to get contrast in their face because it´s mostly totally black. You have to find a compromise as you don´t want to burn out the bright parts.
You also don´t want to shoot them just sitting or lying, because their interactive behaviour is what makes them so attractive. As they always appear in packs, you will likely concentrate on the "wrong" animals. The interesting interaction may happen between other dogs than you´re focussed on in that particular moment. So don´t just look through your view finder. My wife always helps me and points out if something interesting is happening while I´m focussed on a different spot.
You also have to position yourself a bit further away to capture all the interaction. The animals may likely come close to you, and if they are too close, you will look down to them, which results in an unattractive angle in photos. The eye level is the most important thing in animal photography IMHO. Sitting in a Safari vehicle mostly means you´re having a bad angle, but you can´t do much against it.
Here I was lucky as the dog was watching from a termite mount, which was higher than our position in the car.
One of Greater Manchester Police’s dedicated anti-social behaviour vehicles at work on the streets of Stockport.
The Force recognises that anti-social behaviour can blight community life and is dedicated to effectively policing the problem.
The vehicle’s distinctive livery is designed to be a highly visible deterrent to would be culprits and they are fitted with video surveillance equipment.
For more information about Neighbourhood Policing in Greater Manchester please visit our website.