Flamingo Friday: Out with the Old Year…

And in with the new one.


Let’s hope it’s even rosier than this guy.

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Cuttlefish Camouflage

This juvenile cuttlefish is on speckled gravel, and it's almost the exact same color and texture as its substrate...

And this juvenile is the same species on white gravel:



And they say humans are clever.

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The Carolers

“Noël, No-O-ËLLLLL…”

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Flamingo Friday: Three Steps

Guess What I Saw At the Zoo Yesterday

Admittedly it’s not as much of a news flash as if I’d seen Jimmy Hoffa there, but—I saw the lion cubs! All seven of them! (From two litters.) And they were pretty adorable. I’m waiting to see whether they’re out today and I can get better pictures of ‘em before I post too much about the sighting, but I will tell you that:

1. Mother lions like to gnaw on their young in a maternal sort of way.


2. Even cute cubs eat disgusting viscera from some prey animal.


3. Some lion cubs try to eat other things.


4. Lion cubs have trouble understanding the presence and function of stairs between one level of the enclosure and the other, and, when perplexed, make a surprisingly deep noise halfway between a yowl and a cough—sort of an “AAaaooww!”


Stay tuned for more breaking news. (You never know; I might find out the cubs were eating Jimmy Hoffa.)

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Here Comes the Sun

I know that right now the world (at least here in the Northern hemisphere) feels pretty bleak: icy cold, barren, and dark—dark so early and for so long that the days feel like a brief glimpse of light flashed in a cave. And I know that we’re all going around right now looking a bit like this:


Or at least I am.

But today the tide finally turns. Today, the Winter Solstice, will be the shortest day of the year—but after today, every day will be just a little longer, and the sun will stay with us for just a little more time.

So, despite the current gloom and the months of cold, snow, and ice we have ahead, remember that, after today, and sooner than you think, the days will be dazzling, the evenings long and golden, the sky hazy with heat.


Soon enough, the flowers, those randy plant genitalia, will open again and lift themselves to the warm heavens, and the air will fill with buzzing and birdsong and rich ripe scents.

Just hold on a few more months now, and remember: tonight the tide turns.

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One Good Shot: Cheetah Vogue

Is it just me, or does this cat bear a strong resemblance to Madonna?

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I’ve Gotten a Little Behind

Apologies for having fallen down on the job of posting lately, but rest assured that I will be getting back on track this week, even though the season of Solstice and Christmas and New Year’s is upon us, full of things to distract an innocent blogger from her task. But I shall remain steadfast! And, if I’m lucky, I may even be able to see and photograph some lion cubs before the new year. But I can’t promise anything; these zoo types are being ve-ry cagey about when the new cubs will be out… --Either way, there are plenty of zoo stories to tell. And tell them I shall! (Once I've gotten a little sleep and can stop writing in Epic Voice.)

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Flamingo Friday: The Sap Also Rises

Imagine my surprise when on a chill late-November day I stood in front of the flamingo exhibit and saw a sign informing visitors that the flamingo breeding season was upon us. Apparently the birds mate from winter through about April or so, and they’ve started now. The placard informs visitors to watch for breeding behaviors like wing-flapping and head bowing—the latter of which looks like this:


I didn’t see much of it in November, but last week I saw a huge display of flamingo flapping-and-running-around, which was so entrancing that I nearly developed flamingo-induced hypothermia in my determination to watch and document it for a long time. (I actually had to do jumping jacks a couple of times to encourage circulation in my fingers and be able to depress the shutter release).



The flamingos, as mentioned, don’t just flap their wings but also, often, run while doing it. Maybe wild birds, who don’t have clipped wings, are half-aloft during the display. These guys, though, just ran around in a rather amusing way. And the flapping of one generally incited others to flap, too, until I felt quite at home doing my jumping jacks. Both males and females, as far as I could tell from the leg tags, engage in this behavior.



I wasn’t able to check up on them yet this week (the day I visited it had snowed a whole two inches, which is panic-time for DC, and they claimed the bird area was closed due to “dangerous conditions”), but I’m looking forward to documenting more mating rituals as the winter continues. It’s a lot more entertaining and less traumatizing than the sex lives of tortoises. But then, isn’t anything?

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Is That a Fire Hose in Your Pocket, or Are You Just a Barnacle?

One of my favorite marine-related quotes is from the Peterson’s Guide to the Atlantic Seashore, which states, “Most barnacles are hermaphroditic but indulge in cross fertilization.” It really makes you feel closer to the animals, don’t you think? I mean, who among us doesn’t enjoy indulging in cross-fertilization—or at least cross-something?

The barnacles above, although I spotted them on a beach in Florida, are not to be found in the Peterson’s Guide, because they’re native to the west coast of the Americas. They’re called pink acorn barnacles (Megabalanus coccopoma), and while they’re quite gorgeous to look at, they’re doing what most invasive introduced species do, which is to take over habitat and/or other resources from native species. So let’s hope that these particular barnacles aren’t indulging in too much cross-fertilization.

But let’s get back to the fun part of this discussion—that is, the sex lives of marine organisms—because it reminds me that I haven’t yet recommended either of two magnificent videos to you. The first is very fitting for this post; it’s called “Barnacles Tell No Lies,” and it was made by Randy Olson, who was a biologist before he decided to make movies. It’s a short, four-minute video about all that is good about barnacles, and it includes a jazz song. About barnacles. It may be worth pointing out that barnacles are completely stationary as adults. This means that, if they want to engage in some hanky-panky with those around them, they need to be able to reach those around them. This has led, through a long history of natural selection, to current-day barnacles being the most well-endowed (proportionately) of all species. Also, the members of most barnacle species are simultaneous hermaphrodites. Freud, eat your heart out! (If you really want to get a visual on this, here’s a link to a photo of a barnacle with itsfeeding appendages and its penis extended. When a barnacle isn’t indulging in anything, it keeps its penis folded up in a manner that’s been described as similar to a coiled hose or a folded accordion.)

[you wouldn't know it
to look at 'em, would you?]

The second great video—or series of videos—I should recommend are the “Green Porno” series made for the Sundance Channel (and available to watch on their site) by Isabella Rossellini. The actress dresses up like different (usually invertebrate) animals and acts out—with narration—their sex lives. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Isabella Rossellini in a male-bee costume exclaiming, “A female! SEX!!” (The only problem with this series is that the episode on “limpets” is WRONG, horribly wrong. The behaviors Rossellini describes are actually those of slipper-shell snails—rarely called slipper-shell limpets—which are in fact the snails I did my Ph.D. work on; they do behave pretty much as she describes, but they are not true limpets, and they don’t look anything like the “limpets” portrayed in the episode. So. Just to make that clear.)

And if anyone expresses any interest, I will be happy to spend a heartwarming holiday- or post-holiday-season blog entry on more details of the sex lives of marine creatures in general and the snails I studied in particular. In fact, I might write such an entry even if no one expresses any interest! I’m sure I will at some point in the future, so consider yourselves forewarned.

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One Shot: "I said I was TIRED of Christmas carols"

[And if you're in a reading mood, for something more serious but quite important, visit this site to read "The Price of Convenience" by Susannah at "Wanderin' Weeta"]


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Wild Wildlife: Nature Red in Beak and Claw

Partly because the trees are now bare of those damn obscuring leaves and partly because everything is flitting around looking for food to stave off the cold season, I’ve been seeing a lot more wild birds in the zoo lately. This includes birds like the Carolina wren featured above (in the single semi-decent shot of it I’ve ever gotten; taking pictures of a bird the size of a child’s fist and with the frenetic energy of a speed addict is not the simple task that it seems) and the ruby-crowned kinglet captured here:


It also includes slightly less elusive birds, like this tufted titmouse:


And this white-breasted nuthatch:


And of course any number of cardinals:


But the other birds that I’ve been seeing a lot of lately, and in more dramatic situations than usual, have been hawks—mainly red-tailed hawks these days.

Although I would see red-tailed and red-shouldered hawks in the trees even in summer, I’ve never before seen them making so many attacks. I watched one eat some small feathered creature near the bird house:


And I saw another with its beak still stained red from whatever prey it had recently devoured.


And then, as I was intently photographing the wren next to the peccary exhibit (where a lone peccary was braving the cold), I heard the shrill cry of birds and looked up from my lens in time to see a hurtling shape plunge into a yucca plant within the exhibit and then fly out again, fast as a bolt of lightning.

I think I can safely say that the peccary and I were both equally startled, although only I swore. (All of its hair stood on end, though, which I think is the peccary version of swearing.)

The hawk didn’t catch anything in that particular strike, but from a glance at the suddenly silent, empty branches, it was clear that the other birds knew it was only a matter of time.

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Sunday Best: The Importance of Good Grooming

The two cheetah brothers are back in the exhibit with the female, and all three seem interested in spending a lot of time together—or, at least, two of them seem very interested in spending time with the third, and I’ll make the assumption that the males are feeling chummy about the female (though I’m willing to acknowledge other possibilities).


In any case, there was a lot of grooming going on in the time that I observed the three cheetahs.

It wasn’t necessarily reciprocal; either one was grooming the other or the same individual was grooming him(?)self.

Nevertheless, all three seemed very comfortable together. Maybe they consider it philosophically: some are born groomed…


some receive grooming…


and some have grooming thrust upon them.

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Flamingo Friday: Tandem in Tangerine

The Charisma Continues: Asian Small-Clawed Otters (part one)

I love the clownish sincerity of otters—their adorable, slightly buffoonish concentration as they play with shells or rocks, dive for food, or carry grasses in their mouths back to their sleeping sites. I think that’s often best illustrated in photos when the subject is an otter on its own (I would say it’s “otterly alone,” but that would be a particularly sad pun and also not very accurate—there are always other otters in the exhibit). So, feast your eyes on these individual otters as they…

Scratch:


Investigate:


Make funny faces while eating:




Swim:


Play with shells, rocks, or a black walnut:




And pose:


Could they get any cuter? I ask you.

More otters to come!

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