The little corella is another one of those birds that goes by several names. If you prefer, you can also call it the bare-eyed cockatoo, the blood-stained cockatoo, the short-billed corella, the little cockatoo or the blue-eyed cockatoo. It is native to Australia and southern New Guinea (this one was photographed on Kangaroo Island in South Australia). The downy feathers have been used in the past to make head and armbands for traditional ceremonies and dances.
This was the dominant silverback gorilla in the troop that I saw in Uganda. There was a younger silverback in the troop as well, and eventually he will challenge for the top spot. When this happens, the troop will probably split in two, with each silverback taking roughly half the members. There are only 700 mountain gorillas left in the wild in Uganda, the Congo and Rwanda.
This looked like a shift change, as the one lion gave way to the other as soon as he approached the water hole. They had just spent the last few hours feasting on an oryx kill and were both bloated and thirsty. The water hole was within sight of our camp in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve of Botswana.
The Madagascar flying fox isn’t a fox at all — it’s a bat. But it is the largest bat in Madagascar with a wingspan of more than four feet. I was in the extreme southern part of the country when I came across a bunch of flying foxes early in the morning. They were just coming in to roost for the day after a night of foraging for fruits, flowers, figs and leaves.
This black bear sow appeared to be posing for the camera just before climbing up the tree to join her pair of year-old cubs. I took this photo a couple of years ago in Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee.
Not much happening up at Rocky Mountain National Park this weekend — just the way it goes sometimes — but other than an occasional elk or deer, I did come across a few creatures, including this golden-mantled ground squirrel. These ground squirrels look a lot like chipmunks, but they are much larger and don’t have stripes on their heads. This is the time of year that they are fattening up for hibernation and as you can see, this guy was quite the little pudge.
There are fifteen different species of marmot in the world. This one is a hoary marmot and it is native to the Pacific northwest. I was hiking in Rainier National Park in Washington when I came across a bunch of these guys scattered throughout the alpine wildflowers. Enjoy the long weekend. I’m off to Colorado and will be back on Tuesday — hopefully with some new creatures to share.
The male impala were in their rut when we were in Kenya in November. The males were chasing each other all over the place, vying for mating rights with the females. This guy seemed to be getting the best of his competition, running down any challengers.
This one is from my trip to Madagascar back in 2007. Of all the lemurs (53 different species depending upon who’s doing the counting) the ring-tailed is perhaps the best known. They’re latin name is Lemur Catta — appropriate because they meow somewhat like a cat. This one was either waving to say hello, or telling me to get the camera out of her face.
I was up in Bronxville, New York this past weekend at a house party and saw a few black squirrels running around in the back yard. It reminded me of the ones that I used to get at my house in Michigan, including this guy here peeking out of a hole in a tree. Black squirrels are actually a melanistic subgroup of the eastern grey squirrel that carry a mutant black pigment gene. They are common in the Midwestern United States, Ontario, Quebec and parts of the Northeastern United States and Britain. One theory suggests that they have thrived in these colder areas because their dark fur gives them the advantage of heat retention over grey colored squirrels.