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Doing what cockatoos like to do best, Little Corella ripping cones to pieces in pine trees. Adelaide Botanic Garden.
Taken late evenng. The fish is about to eat a worm which is a little strange as I understand this type of parrotfish browses on algae.
Photographed in Kenya, Africa from a safari vehicle
Please click on the image to view at the largest size
We were fortunate to spend some time with 5 cheetahs on our first trip to Africa in 2018. The 4 young cheetahs were almost full-grown but were still playful, as you can see from this photo.
We were able to spend a considerable time with them as they approached and moved past our vehicle.
Thanks for your visit and any comments!
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From Wikipedia: The cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) is a large cat native to Africa and Southwest Asia (today restricted to central Iran). It is the fastest land animal, capable of running at 80 to 98 km/h (50 to 61 mph), as such has evolved specialized adaptations for speed, including a light build, long thin legs and a long tail. It typically reaches 67–94 cm (26–37 in) at the shoulder, and the head-and-body length is between 1.1 and 1.5 m (3 ft 7 in and 4 ft 11 in). Adults weigh between 21 and 72 kg (46 and 159 lb). Its head is small and rounded, with a short snout and black tear-like facial streaks. The coat is typically tawny to creamy white or pale buff and is mostly covered with evenly spaced, solid black spots. Four subspecies are recognised.
The cheetah lives in three main social groups: females and their cubs, male "coalitions", and solitary males. While females lead a nomadic life searching for prey in large home ranges, males are more sedentary and instead establish much smaller territories in areas with plentiful prey and access to females. The cheetah is active during the day, with peaks during dawn and dusk. It feeds on small- to medium-sized prey, mostly weighing under 40 kg (88 lb), and prefers medium-sized ungulates such as impala, springbok and Thomson's gazelles. The cheetah typically stalks its prey within 60–100 m (200–330 ft) before charging towards it, trips it during the chase and bites its throat to suffocate it to death. It breeds throughout the year. After a gestation of nearly three months, a litter of typically three or four cubs is born. Cheetah cubs are highly vulnerable to predation by other large carnivores such as hyenas and lions. They are weaned at around four months and are independent by around 20 months of age.
The cheetah occurs in a variety of habitats such as savannahs in the Serengeti, arid mountain ranges in the Sahara and hilly desert terrain in Iran. The cheetah is threatened by several factors such as habitat loss, conflict with humans, poaching and high susceptibility to diseases. Historically ranging throughout most of Sub-Saharan Africa and extending eastward into the Middle East and to central India, the cheetah is now distributed mainly in small, fragmented populations in central Iran and southern, eastern and northwestern Africa. In 2016, the global cheetah population was estimated at 7,100 individuals in the wild; it is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. In September 2022, they were reintroduced to India after being extinct in the country for 70 years. In the past, cheetahs were tamed and trained for hunting ungulates. They have been widely depicted in art, literature, advertising, and animation.
Ecology and behaviour:
Cheetahs are active mainly during the day, whereas other carnivores such as leopards and lions are active mainly at night; These larger carnivores can kill cheetahs and steal their kills; hence, the diurnal tendency of cheetahs helps them avoid larger predators in areas where they are sympatric, such as the Okavango Delta. In areas where the cheetah is the major predator (such as farmlands in Botswana and Namibia), activity tends to increase at night. This may also happen in highly arid regions such as the Sahara, where daytime temperatures can reach 43 °C (109 °F). The lunar cycle can also influence the cheetah's routine—activity might increase on moonlit nights as prey can be sighted easily, though this comes with the danger of encountering larger predators. Hunting is the major activity throughout the day, with peaks during dawn and dusk. Groups rest in grassy clearings after dusk. Cheetahs often inspect their vicinity at observation points such as elevations to check for prey or larger carnivores; even while resting, they take turns at keeping a lookout.
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This is behaviour I've not witnessed before. This pair of Robins are building a nest in our garden. For the last few days the male has been taking food from me and flying across the garden to present it to the female. I finally caught them in action today!
... all through the holiday season is to be drunk. The drunkenness culminates on New Years’ Eve, when you get so drunk you kiss the person you’re married to.
~P.J. O'Rourke
:-)))
Happy, happy New Year my Flickr friends, both near and far.
~hmbt~
A little artistic licence with this one by using Photoshop to combine two shots. Cheating or all part of the creative process?
St Aidan's Nature Park
Behaviour shot only (cropped a lot as I zoomed out expecting it to fly) - This is what a Great Blue Heron does when it wants to scare away another Great Blue Heron. Just like a cat, it will raise its plumage on its back and position its head this way... frankly if this guy or girl was walking towards me like this, I would fly away too.
Shorebirds of Ireland, Freshwater Birds of Ireland and The Birds of Ireland: A Field Guide with Jim Wilson.
www.markcarmodyphotography.com
The great black-backed gull (Larus marinus) is the largest gull in the world. It is 64–79 cm (25–31 in) long with a 1.5–1.7 m (4 ft 11 in – 5 ft 7 in) wingspan and a body weight of 0.75–2.3 kg. it is a very aggressive hunter, pirate, and scavenger. It breeds on the European and North American coasts and islands of the North Atlantic and is fairly sedentary, though some move farther south or inland to large lakes or reservoirs. The adult great black-backed gull has a white head, neck and underparts, dark grey wings and back, pink legs and yellow bill.
This species can be found breeding in coastal areas from the extreme northwest portion of Russia, through much of coastal Scandinavia, on the Baltic Sea coasts, to the coasts of northwestern France, the United Kingdom and Ireland. Across the northern portion of the Atlantic, this gull is distributed in Iceland, the Faroe Islands, southern Greenland and on the Atlantic coasts of Canada and the United States.
Great black-backed gulls are opportunistic feeders, apex predators, and are very curious. They will investigate any small organism they encounter and will readily eat almost anything that they can swallow. Unlike most other Larus gulls, they are highly predatory and frequently hunt and kill any prey smaller than themselves, behaving more like a raptor than a typical larid gull. They get much of their dietary energy from scavenging, with refuse, most provided directly by humans, locally constituting more than half of their diet. (wikipedia)
The Great-black backed Gull is resident along all Irish coasts. Less frequently seen inland, usually only following storms. They follow trawlers and other fishing boats along the coast, even hitching a ride on smaller lobster and crab fishermen's boats, just like this one. This was off Dun Laoghaire, Dublin.
Shorebirds of Ireland, Freshwater Birds of Ireland and The Birds of Ireland: A Field Guide with Jim Wilson.
www.markcarmodyphotography.com
The Crested Lark, Galerida cristata, breeds across most of temperate Eurasia from Portugal to northeast China and eastern India, and in Africa south to Niger. It is non-migratory, and the sedentary nature of this species is illustrated by the fact that it is only a very rare vagrant to Ireland, despite breeding as close as northern France.
This is a common bird of dry open country and cultivation. Its food is weed seeds and insects, the latter especially in the breeding season.
This is a smallish lark, slightly larger and plumper than the Skylark. It has a long spiky erectile crest. It is greyer than the Skylark, and lacks the white wing and tail edges of that species.
In flight it shows reddish underwings. The body is mainly dark-streaked grey above and whitish below. The song is melodious and varied, with mournful whistles and mimicry included.
Some care must be taken to distinguish this lark, which has many subspecies, from its close relatives in areas where they also occur. In the west of its range the Thekla Lark, Galerida theklae, is very similar. (wikipedia)
I did not stumble upon too many Crested Lark during our family holiday in 2023 in Portugal. However, a pair were holding territory along the edge of a nature reserve close to where we were staying. They were quite skittish and best views were had across the road from them.
Cormorants diving for fish and Egret catching the fish that almost escaped ... :-D
Taken at Rye Harbour, East Sussex, UK.
This is a behaviour I've only recently noted. Here, Apples has stretched out a bit on the fence post near its nest. When I see this, it gives me such a wonderful feeling that this little critter is healthy, well fed, and can take a little break, all safe in the yard. Apples The Squirrel is a Red Squirrel, a native Alberta critter, pushed out of many urban settings by the bigger, nastier, invasive species, the Black and Grey Squirrels from eastern North America. A note: the Black and Grey Squirrels do not do well deep in the woods. My suspicion is that they are too heavy and slow to evade the nice predators that habit our forests...
Love & Aggression - Mute Swans showing differing aspects of their personality.
Please see my other Photographs at: www.jamespdeans.co.uk
Space Science image of the week:
In the early hours of Saturday morning, the international Cassini–Huygens mission made its final close flyby of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, coming within 1000 km of the atmosphere-clad world.
The image presented here is a raw image sent back to Earth yesterday, taken on Saturday at 18:42 GMT. It is one of many that can be found in the Cassini raw image archive.
The latest flyby used Titan’s gravity to slingshot Cassini into the final phase of its mission, setting it up for a series of 22 weekly ‘Grand Finale’ orbits that will see the spacecraft dive between Saturn’s inner rings and the outer atmosphere of the planet. The first of these ring plane dives occurs on Wednesday.
Cassini will make many additional non-targeted flybys of Titan and other moons in the Saturnian system in the coming months, at much greater distances. Non-targeted flybys require no special manoeuvres, but rather the moon happens to be relatively close to the spacecraft’s path.
A final, distant, flyby of Titan will occur on 11 September, in what has been nicknamed the ‘goodbye kiss,’ because it will direct Cassini on a collision course with Saturn on 15 September. This will conclude the mission in a manner that avoids the possibility of a future crash into the potentially habitable ocean-moon Enceladus, protecting that world for future exploration.
A press conference will be held on 25 April at 13:30 GMT (15:30 CEST), at the European Geosciences Union meeting in Vienna, to preview the Grand Finale, as well as celebrate the scientific highlights of Cassini’s incredible 13-year odyssey at Saturn.
Just today a new result was published in Nature Astronomy finds that when viewed from Cassini's orbit, Titan's nightside likely shines 10-200 times brighter than its dayside. Scientists think that this is caused by efficient forward scattering of sunlight by its extended atmospheric haze, a behaviour unique to Titan in our Solar System.
Cassini–Huygens is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA and ASI, the Italian space agency.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
20+ lightpainted domes in a row, down a flight of steps off a footbridge, in a heavily light polluted area.
Single exposure.
Do you dome? Here's how
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