Amazing underwater shots of sailfish feeding on a school of sardines, from National Geographic:
More photos here.
9 years ago
Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts
Beautiful Sailfish Photographs
More photos here.
Another Awesome Kenyan Wildlife Blog
As a marine ecologist I have a serious fascination for terrestrial ecology blogs, and I've stumbled across another stunner - Notes From Kenya. It's a blog written by Michigan State University students in the Holekamp Lab, about their experiences in Kenya as they research spotted hyenas in the field.
Source: Brittany Gunther at Notes From Kenya
Source: Notes From KenyaSpectacular Pictures of Bugs
Over at Dark Roasted Blend they have curated an amazing selection of Scanning Election Micrographs (SEM) and macro photographs of insect heads. There are some amazingly beautiful pictures of some spectacularly ugly creatures.
More Amazing Golden Ray Photo's
I've previously posted about Golden Rays here.
Here are some more photos, from the Telegraph this time:
Source: www.telegraph.com
More photo's here.
The Mara Triangle - Best Wildlife Blog On The Web. Read It! Donate!
Kenyan ranger and blogger Joseph Kimojino. Source Wired Magazine.
Emily Meehan of Wired covered this story at the end of May. Basically as told by Wired the story goes like this:
A ranger in Kenya's acclaimed Mara Triangle wildlife park Kimojino is a member of the Masai tribe. He first learned how to click a computer mouse in November. Now he blogs about the Mara Triangle and posts wild animal photos on Flickr nearly every day. Kimojino's online outreach is an effort to raise awareness and money for the park, and it's urgent: Without the funds he raises online, his employer, the Mara Conservancy, would go broke. Admission fees from park visitors are the conservancy's primary source of revenue, but tourism dropped to almost zero during Kenya's post-election violence, and hasn't snapped back.The thing is though, it's a really great read. Updates are frequent, and Kimojino posts some amazing wildlife shots almost every day. At the moment the Wildebeest are massing on the banks of the river as part of their famous migration (see photo). Earlier in the week they arrested poachers armed with AK47's in the park, and blogged it. Last month the Zebra were migrating and the Crocodiles were feasting.
Source: The Mara Triangle
But there is some bad news:Working on a reduced budget for two months is starting to have an impact on the effectiveness of the Conservancy, and there are warning signs which indicate that the situation may deteriorate further. Our work is now threatened as a direct result of the collapse of tourism in Kenya. Due to lack of funds, all non-essential activities have been stopped since January, as well as the halting of the cattle compensation scheme and regular night patrols by rangers.
Tourist projection for the month of July and August is 50% occupancy. For the rest of the year it is expected to fall back to 20% like it has been up until now. This means that our situation will remain dire until 2009, however this is not an appeal for money (although if you have some it will help a lot) but instead we need ideas on how to fundraise for the long term. We thought that things would improve, which they have slightly, but unfortunately not as much as we had hoped.
So - what should you do?
- Read the blog - it's great.
- Follow Kimojino's photostream on Flickr - amazing photos.
- Donate - make a difference. It's easy and rewarding.
- Tell everyone you know to read the blog - it's really great. Really.
A Beautiful Ray Migration Photo
Source: PixdausGolden Cownose Ray (Rhinoptera steindachneri) migration off Key West, Florida.
Cownose rays are known for their long migrations in large schools. They are strong swimmers, able to cover long distances. The Monterey Bay aquarium site reports that the population in the Gulf of Mexico migrates in schools of as many as 10,000 rays, clockwise from western Florida to the Yucatan in Mexico.
A 1989 article from the journal Copeia: A Massive School of Cownose Rays, Rhinoptera bonasus (Rhinopteridae), in Lower Chesapeake Bay, Virginia (Blaylock 1989) describes the following massive migration event:
A concentration of Cownose rays, Rhinoptera bonasus, so great as to render direct counting of individuals impossible, was observed during surveys of the lower Chesapeake Bay on 25 July and 2 Aug. 1988.The Florida Museum of Natural History website includes further detail on the migration habits of this species:
...
The school was too large to photograph in it's entirety. Therefore, while flying transects across it, portions were photographed vertically...
The migration patterns, in the Atlantic, include a northward movement in the late spring and southward movements in the late fall. Southbound migration has been observed to contain larger schools than the northbound migration. Smith and Merriner (1987) believe that the changes in water temperature, coupled with sun orientation, may initiate seasonal mass migration. They also suggest that the southward migration might be influenced by solar orientation while the northward migration might be influenced by water temperature cooling below 22ºC, but further studies are needed to confirm this. The migratory congregation, thus far, has not been linked to feeding or premigratory mating activity.
Surfing Hippo
A hippo swims in the surf at Thompsons Bay, about 50km (31 miles) from Durban, May 27, 2008. It is thought that the lone young male hippo has wandered from its habitat in Richards Bay. (REUTERS/Rogan Ward)
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