Air show - Part 6 - Gorilla steals plane!!

Oh what drama!! The likes of which I have never seen before!! This Harvard was parked on the side of the runway and the next thing we knew, a GORILLA had stolen it and was cruising past. He had the cheek to WAVE as he went past!!

 The next thing we knew he was up in the air doing acrobatics and having a ball of a time!!

 But all good things must come to an end and his stolen plane developed engine trouble and smoke came pouring out so he had to land again.

 No sooner had it came to a stop when the police rolled up and ran over to arrest him. The poor gorilla got such a fright that he threw his hands into the air in submission.

 He was a sly one though and as soon as they allowed him to get out of the plane, he picked up one of the policemen, slung him over his shoulder as a hostage and tried to get away!! Oh my!! By now my heart was in my boots!!

 The second policeman gave chase........

 and soon tackled him and brought him to the ground with reinforcements arriving, guns in the air!! Phew!! I wonder if the gorilla thought he would get away with it? Not with out good ladies and gents in blue he wouldn't!!

 The finally managed to get the handcuffs on him and marched him over to their vehicle, the cheeky bugger lifting his arm in victory!! Grrr!!

 He was loaded in and off he went to jail!! That'll teach him and all the other gorilla would be plane stealers out there!!

LOL!! Of course all this was just a show put on for our entertainment and I am sure the guy in the gorilla suite love his part he played as much as we (especially the children) did. Whats the bet that this car made off to the nearest beer tent to celebrate and enactment well played!! LOL!!

Stag Beetle - Lucanidae

Now this was an interesting find and the first one for me of this species.

It has been identified as Nigidius bubalus  family Lucanidae and the male has two large mandibles.

It also has two large horn-like protrusions which can be seen nicely in the shadow it castes in the above photograph.

The adults do not feed and some of this species are very rare and listed in the Red Data Book.

Walk - 7/31

This late in the season, it is unusual to find anything around and yet I did. This dragonfly looks almost golden in color. I have now found someone who I am hoping will help me identify them in future.

 As to be expected at the end of the season many of the insects have only one leg or half a wing as they have evaded predators during the summer and the following two grasshoppers are no exception.

 The Common Stick Grasshopper, although large - about 4" (6cm) in body length - could still jump quite far with one limb missing.

 They have a most unusual shaped head and are also found in a brown color.

 Wild plants and flowers are so pretty. This would make a wonderful ground cover in a garden with its multi-colored leaves.

Jackass penguin - Spheniscus dermersus

The Jackass Penguin (also called the African penguin or Blackfooted penguin) is a flightless seabird, and it is found nowhere in the world except off the coast of southern Africa.

Named after a donkey because of the loud, braying noise it makes, the Jackass penguin is no fool. It has so far survived many oil spills, poachers and predatory fishermen who have depleted its food stocks.

This flightless seabird is found nowhere in the world except off the coast of southern Africa, thus making it endemic to this area. It breeds on 24 offshore islands between Namibia and Port Elizabeth, including Dassen, Dyer, Jutten and Robben Island in the Western Cape region of South Africa and Boulders Beach and Betty's Bay near Cape Town. Nesting on the mainland is unusual for jackass penguins because they are ground-nesting birds and are vulnerable to the many predators on the mainland.

 Jackass penguins used to nest by burrowing into guano (bird droppings which have accumulated into a hardish substance, sometimes several metres deep). Most of the nutrient-rich guano was removed for fertiliser in the 19th century. Penguins now nest in burrows in sand, under overhanging rocks, under bushes, or even in the open. Jackass penguins can breed at any time of the year, usually laying two eggs. Most adult birds feed during the day and the chicks are fed regurgitated food in the late afternoon. Fish eaten include sardine, maasbanker and anchovy. Squid are also eaten.


Penguins are thought to mate for life. While one partner hunts, the other stays at the nest without eating or drinking, sometimes for up to a month. The hunting partner will sometimes go more than 10 miles out in search of something tasty, partially digesting it before feeding it to the chick which - not surprisingly, given this lavish treatment - stays near the nest for several months. Like other penguins, the Jackass has flippers instead of wings and spends most of its time at sea. Out of the water, penguins move with an ungainly rolling waddle, thanks to their short legs and stubby, torpedo-shaped bodies - but they can keep pace with a walking human.

Penguins lost their ability to fly millions of years ago; they "fly" underwater by using the same motions that other birds use to soar through air. Using their feet to steer, they dive deeper than any other bird and can hold their breath for up to 20 minutes.

 The Jackass is covered in thick, short feathers that keep out water. Its back and face feathers are bluish black but the belly, neck and parts of the head are covered in feathers of the snowiest white. Across the chest runs a distinctive stripe of black feathers. The average Jackass penguin weighs 6.3 pounds and stands 28 inches tall. They live an average of 20 years, although they have been known to reach 30 in captivity.


Jackass Penguins are among the least studied and are now classed as endangered: their numbers have been depleted by commercial egg and guano collectors and by the overfishing of anchovies and pilchards.

Seals, which used to eat the same small fish, now increasingly prey on the Jackass.

Jackass numbers have also been thinned out by a number of oil spills over the past 30 years; during the 1994 Apollo Sea disaster off South Africa, about 10,000 birds were oiled. Authorities managed to save nearly half of those.

In June/July 2000, thousands of Jackass penguins were snatched squawking and snapping from their nests on Robben and Dassen Islands to save them from the deadly oil spill caused by the bulk carrier Treasure, which sunk off the southern coast of South Africa. The penguins were trucked accross the country to Port Elizabeth. Three of these penguins, dubbed Peter, Percy and Pamela, were followed by satellite. Their 1000 kilometre swim home made them the most famous Jackass penguins yet.

Information supplied by:

http://www.encounter.co.za/article/101.html

The first day of spring

The first day of spring has finally arrived!!

 This year has been the coldest in living history and I thought I would never get through it!!

 How I longed to see some kind of bug, butterfly, grasshopper, flower, ANYTHING as long as it was moving and colorful!!

 Now I have spent time in the graden planting seeds and bulbs I bought and I cannot wait for them to pop up!! It is so wonderful to have a bit of a garden again but I must admit that I do have a problem with the porcupines and monkeys eating everything!! LOL!! Oh well, as long as it is spring and things are green, who cares about an actual garden. :)

SABLE ANTELOPE ( Hippotragus niger)

The males are black and the females and young a chestnut brown.  All have white bellies and rumps, hence their name in Afrikaans "black white-stomach".

Usually the males are found by themselves and therefore when a group is together it will have a female as its leader.

Females reach sexual maturity at about two years of age.

As they are dependant on water, they will never be found more than a few kilometers from it, usually in fairly thick bush. In Kruger National Park they can often be seen around the Orpen Rocks area.


When the young are born, the female will hide it for the first few days.


After a gestation period of eight months, a single calf is born  weighing  about fifteen kilograms.

In marking off their territories, the male will also strip the bark off trees with his horns.

Both the males and females have horns and it is a known fact that they are able to kill lions with their long curved horns.

Young males are evicted from the herd at about three years old, and are  then left to find their own territory and mates.

Fighting is common amongst the males and this usually ends in one of them being killed.

Male sable are very aggressive and very often they will kill the younger ones in the herd.

Spectacular sunsets

I am always amazed at the spectacular colors in winter.

Skipper - Bushveld Sandman

Skippers are small to medium in size with broad wings and bright markings.

 They Have a flitting flight and dancing, alighting on leaves with open wings.

 A single white egg is laid in a domed and ribbed Acanthaceae (egg sack).

 Spippers are the second largest subfamily of Hesperidae.

 This is Bushveld Sandman (Spialia colotos transvaaliae). They prefer dry to arid areas.

 A close-up of the wings above and underneath, its underside.

Moon rotation

One night I was outside trying to get some shots of the moon again. You have to give me an "A" for trying. :)

 I must have been there for about 20-30 minutes but did not get anything spectacular.

 However, once I have them on the computer, I could see that I had captured a whole rotation of it.

Scorpion

I have found a few scorpions now but it is one critter I know almost nothing about.

Scorpions are fascinating animals, though most people see them as potentially deadly killers, a wildly inaccurate assessment. However, it is true that after man himself, followed by snakes and the bees, scorpions cause more human deaths than any other no-parasitic animal. Mexico is one hotspot to watch out for scorpions, as are India, North Africa parts of South America and the USA.

 The incredibly small percentage of dangerous species cause death via complex neurotoxins, bringing both local and systemic paralysis, severe convulsions and cardiac arrest, which can all occur within a few hours of being stung. Fortunately, good anti-venoms are widely available and death can be avoided with proper medication. In fact, the neurotoxins employed by Death Stalker scorpions are being studied by scientists researching a treatment for some diseases, including some forms of brain cancer and diabetes.

 Although only medium-sized, the Death Stalker is one of the deadliest. The extremely potent venom causes extreme pain, fever, convulsions, paralysis, and often coma or death for people stung. The Death Stalker Scorpion is found in North Africa and the Middle East. It prefers a dry climate, and makes its home in natural burrows or under stones.

Scorpions can truly be seen as living fossils because they have changed very little in 400 million years of evolution. These amazing creatures have some of the lowest metabolic rates ever recorded in any animal. Most species stay within 1 metre of their burrows and some may spend as much as 97% of their lives inside their burrows. Some species can go a full year without food, and some live without water at all, taking what they need from prey creatures.


Info supplied by: http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/nature-offbeat-news-ecology-envronment-history/news-savage-scorpion-victim-bad-press