For #WaterfallWednesday I have this view of Narada Falls in Mount Rainier National Park (Washington State, USA). Wider views of the falls tend to look a bit the same, so I used a longer lens and picked out some details.
Amboseli National Park is a national park in Kenya that spreads across the Kenya-Tanzania border. It has great views of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest free-standing mountain in the world.
Almost 85 percent of the ice cover on Kilimanjaro disappeared between October 1912 and June 2011. At the current rate, most of the ice on Kilimanjaro will disappear by 2040. 😢
“The Snows of Kilimanjaro” is a short story by Ernest Hemingway.
The plains zebra is highly social and usually forms small family groups called harems, which consist of a single stallion, several mares and their recent offspring.
Early on, a mother zebra keeps any other zebra away from her foal, including the stallion, the other mares, and even her previous offspring. Later, though, they all bond. Within the group, a foal has the same rank as its mother.
May the artwork take you to a place of great beauty and majesty, one in which you feel watched over by a benevolent force of goodness, truth, and peace.
Elephant mothers carry their babies for nearly two years before giving birth. Then they ensure their babies get the best food, teach their children the most useful skills and show their children how to lead the herd during hard times.
Elephants learn how to pick the best plants for eating, how to defend against predators and how to navigate steep embankments — all from their mothers.
As we drove slowly through the large empty spaces of the Maasai Mara National Reserve, I was fortunate enough to perceive a spot of slightly different color in a small group of bushes.
It was difficult to really see what it was, luckily a little bit of photography gear material can help!
The African fish eagle is a large species of eagle found throughout sub-Saharan Africa wherever large bodies of open water with an abundant food supply occur, like lake Nakuru.
The adult is very distinctive in appearance with a mostly brown body with a white head like the bald eagle and large, powerful, black wings. The head, breast, and tail of African fish eagles are snow white, with the exception of the featherless face, which is yellow.
Some people say lions sleep 22 out of every 24 hours. It's true we often see them lying in the grass, sometimes yawning. But it doesn't mean they sleep when we're not there. “Lions lying sleeping in the shade on a hot day are […] conserving energy during the least energetically efficient time of the day. […] If the energy costs involved in an activity aren’t outweighed by its potential benefits, they simply won’t do it.” Clever.
View of the Big Room
Carlsbad Caverns National Park, NM
[tall photo]
A few days ago I presented a photo of the footpath leading down into the natural entrance of the caverns. Here is a view looking into the large chamber. This was before the conversion to all LED lighting which is supposed to be quite nice.
The ostriches of the Kenyan savannah have never been so prized: first by jockeys, who ride them to the delight of spectators, and then by meat lovers, their flesh being reputed to be healthy.
These birds, which can reach up to 2.60 meters and weigh a hundred kilos, can kill with a single blow of their legs.
The ban imposed at the end of 2003 on the sale of meat from wild animals, apart from ostrich and crocodile, has led to an increase in demand for ostrich meat, which is high in protein and low in cholesterol. Only the meat of the legs is marketed. Ostriches are slaughtered at the age of eight months to ensure that the meat is tender.
Ostriches have a life expectancy of 70 years and females can lay up to 35 eggs per clutch, some of which are never fertilized.
The Masai giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis tippelskirchii), also spelled Maasai giraffe, also called Kilimanjaro giraffe, is the largest subspecies of giraffe. It is native to East Africa. The Masai giraffe can be found in central and southern Kenya and in Tanzania. It has distinctive, irregular, jagged, star-like blotches that extend to the hooves. A median forehead lump is usually present in bulls.
D'Arnaud's barbet is a small East African bird that feeds on insects, fruits, and seeds.
It grows to about eight inches, and is equally at home in trees or on the ground. A vertical tunnel two to three feet into the ground with a sideways and upward turn leads to the nest chamber.
In a striking dance the male and female face each on nearby twigs and twitch, bob and sing like mechanical toys.
Ranger Sarah spots the first set of Petroglyphs. These where made between 400-700 years ago. Stone chisels and hammerstones were used to chip away the desert varnish on the rock to expose the lighter color underneath.
— at Petroglyph National Monument.
Ranger Sarah learns the area is home to the Western Diamondback Rattlesnake (Crotalus Atrox). It is cold and wet out so Ranger Sarah hopes she won't be running into any.
— at Petroglyph National Monument.
A walk in the woods. The forest along the C&O Canal National Park at Great Falls is a mix of new and old growth trees. I was amazed at how large many of the trees are along the Gold Mine Loop Trail. We saw three white tailed deer, a few birds and somewhere in the distance the hollow sound of a Pileated Woodpecker hammering against a tree echoed across the forest.
Lake Nakuru joined in 2013 the list of other lakes in Rift Valley whose water levels have abnormally increased endangering the lives of residents and the ecosystems around the lake.
Some lakes are recognized as Wetlands of International Importance, and all are Important Bird Areas, with several being within UNESCO-listed World Heritage Sites.
The lake level rises are worrying because of the destruction to homes, livelihoods, industry, and infrastructure, and loss of terrestrial wildlife habitat.
The effects on lake ecologies are a concern as flooding increases lake turbidity and dilutes the saline waters of alkaline lakes. Alkaline lakes like Nakuru provide unique feeding habitats for East Africa’s famous lesser flamingos.
Lake Nakuru is well known in Kenya for its rhino population, and it has one hundred white and fifty black rhinos to be seen.
Black and white rhinos naming has created confusion because both species of rhino are in fact grey… I hope I didn't make a mistake identifying this one as black!