Monday, August 14, 2023

Grizzly Times

Well hello there, just a grizzly beear eating tasty high-protein sedge grass.
As you can see, we clearly need to fatten up before the winter hibernation.
Looking pretty cute with the claws and the fuzziness.
Also digging for shellfish on the beach.
Above is the best picture of the baby cub. If you think about it, you don't want to get too close to grizzlies, so this is good enough.
A good way to see these grizzlies is from a boat in the Khutzeymateen Park, which is a bear sanctuary. From a boat, you don't bother the bears, and incidentally they don't bother you.
I'm not good with boats, but I managed. Here is our boat selfie.
Anyway, there were scarier animals in the forest too. I learnt that British Columbia has big slugs!
And we also saw more traditional BC animals.
Finally, in the Yukon I learnt what a fish ladder was. Here is a climbing fish. They still have to work hard, even on the escalatorish system. It's like fish engineering.

Saturday, August 12, 2023

Canadian Reflections

Fun fact: Canada has the most lakes of any country
Funner fact: Canada has more lakes than all of the other countries combined. Suckers.
Funnest math: to share these lakes evenly, you can have 48.5 people per lake. Not bad. Pretty private.
I got really into lake reflecty shots. Where does forest end, and water begin?
This might be a river. It had otters, but no beavers.
Then I got the best reflecty picture of all time. We had to turn around and walk along the highway to take this because I was freaking out about the boat in the sky look. (The fog enables this illusion.)
Then we went to the Yukon, which is gloriously beautiful. I had no idea. I thought it was just all northy snowy times.
Look at these waters!
This is emerald lake, which is green from marl, which is a cool way of saying calcium deposits eroded by glaciers.

Sunday, August 6, 2023

Nocturnal visitors

Barry's parents visited, so we showed them the nightlife of Singapore. First step, accessing a speakeasy
Second step, delectable Sichuan fusion food.Then it's time to go out searching for life. We looked like this.The katydid showed her googly-eye surprise.We found various snakes, but they hid their faces to be shy. Here, shore pit viper.And here, oriental whipsnake.
See if you can spot the monitor lizard dozing in here.
Singapore's mangroves have tree crabs, and I am still entertained by crabs in trees.
Mycena chlorophos, another species of bioluminescent mushroom, which, of course, doesn't photograph easily.
But the star of the show is the colugo, photographed by Barry's mom's fancy camera.
Hello there! Your orange mini-ears really bring out the strange un-mammalian green of your fur!
This one had a surprise for us, a baby!
Speaking of un-mammalian, did you know that the mother colugo wraps her patagium and tail around the baby to form a comfy protective baby quasipouch? You can use this in your next trivia night.
Thank you Lucy for all of these photos!

Saturday, June 10, 2023

Larger Animals of Namibia

Zebras by sunset.
The wildebeest were racing and frolicking, but I'm not some kind of sports photographer.
I learnt that yawns are also contagious in the feline world.
Animals drinking are the cutest.
They can be kinda awkward about it.
This guy had a big bath.
We saw beautiful white rhinos.
The fuzz inside their ears is snuggly cute!
Also in the ugly-cute category is this spotted hyena, all cuddlys teddy bear with bloodstains on its face.
Usually, these animals were easy to spot.
I've already forgotten the names of all of the antelopes. I think this one is an Oryx. Nope, correction, it's a Kudu.
Here are the Oryx, all lined up nicely for me, showing off their desert health.