At least during the festive season, Australian human behaviour is sometimes surprisingly similar to certain fleeter-footed – but also well-fed – Namibian cats’…
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Many of Africa’s “acacias” – particularly those commonly known as thorn trees/bushes – have a great many very fierce thorns, designed to deter browsing animals.
Nesting birds – usually, one of the weavers – are undeterred, and the feathered home-builders also often get a “free kick” from those thorns.
Birds who nest in the thick of thorns are deploying the tree’s weapons to defend themselves (and their young) from bird-eating predators.
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Arguably, this particular oxymoron nicely describes Phacochoerus africanus – the common warthog.
Ugly Beauty is also the title of an unequivocally beautiful composition by one of jazz’s greatest composers.
This post’s kneeling hero was neither injured, nor pious, and although the fire in this image was part of a lovely dinner experience, warthog was not on the menu.
read more“Ugly Beauty” – warthogs rule, ok? (#13 in Namibia single-image series, with musical bonus)
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As even the most cursory googler will discover almost instantly, “facts” and opinions concerning Namibia’s seal population and human “management” thereof are widely/wildly divergent/contested.
Suffice for now that all of Namibia’s seals are Cape Fur Seals, and that an enormous number (and major proportion of the global population) of them live and die on Namibia’s coast.
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This mother and calf are black rhinos – the smaller of Africa’s two rhino species
They still “enjoy” a critically endangered conservation status, but numbers have rebounded in recent years.
Circa one third of them live in Namibia.
Photo is copyright Doug Spencer, taken at 9.30 pm on 05 November 2022 in Etosha National Park.
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On Thursday – the second day of our current “expedition” to Namibia – my beloved and I had our lifetimes’ most exciting (to date) close-range encounter with a wild carnivore.
The featured image’s leopard is coming back down from the tree in which she had just stashed “the kill” she had made that afternoon.
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Over the last 15 years seals have become an increasingly common/obvious presence in the Coorong-proper and on/around the Goolwa Barrage.
This has delighted some people, but infuriated/worried some others.
Some of the infuriated/worried people perceive the seals as “intruders”, as “fish thieves”, as “out of control”, “a threat to fish and bird populations”.
So, who are these seals, are they “newcomers”, and are they a threat to “the natural balance”?
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As Australia’s Right-“thinking” “pundits”/commentators/zealots “know”, if this “scaly, self-indulgent millennial” continues to bolt down avocados, it will never achieve home ownership!
They may, however, be pleased to know that no member of this species has ever sipped a latte…although some “pundits” surely will be disappointed to learn that its name does not salute a monarch/y.
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At the moment southwestern Australia’s very own turtle is very evident at Lake Monger.
All photos copyright Doug Spencer, taken late afternoon on 27 January 2021.
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The featured bird is very tiny, very hardy.
“His” valley’s sparsely vegetated floor – the “low ground”, locally – all sits within 200 metres either side of 4000 metres above sea level.
If transplanted to the Tibetan Plateau, New Zealand’s highest peak would fail to reach this valley’s lowest point.
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