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If you volunteer at the zoo (or get an internship), you might get to hold a bug* too.
* Technically, a stick insect is not a bug because it doesn’t suck. It chews instead.
I will discharge it in either your straw-colour
beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain
beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your
perfect yellow.
I do digest the poison of thy flesh,
Being strumpeted by thy contagion.
Keep then far league and truce with thy true bed;
I live unstain’d, thou undishonoured.
Some cows aren’t tall enough to lick the food out of people’s hands.
Some cows have developed workarounds.
One of these guard cats only tells lies. The other only tells lies as well.
Basically, cats don’t care about your petty human concept of “truth”.
Porcupine that just downloaded the Shazam app and is realizing that it is of no use whatsoever in identifying the plaintful music that he hears in his dreams, echoing strains of melody like tendrils holding his mind hostage until the wee hours of the morning yawn and spread wide to welcome the day.
This otter couldn’t sleep until he finished fact-checking “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac
Though they passed the first screen test, they failed at the howling.
A while ago, I complained about photos of corn. This is an example of why.
At Ag Day in July, they set out these bins of seeds for kids to play in as if they were a sandbox. It was incredibly popular with the kids, so I took a lot of photos. What I didn’t realize at the time was that full sun reflecting off the corn would drastically change the highlights on people’s faces. In short, turning everyone bright orange. You’d think they’d be yellowed, but I guess the blood in the skin makes things orange.
Since I’m colour-blind, I may have mis-corrected, but what I found that worked was to process the photo like normal, then create an adjustment mask and hand-paint all the areas that were overly-highlighted (highlit?) and reduce the amount of orange in that mask. That results in a photo like this, where there’s a decent amount of yellow reflecting off the corn, but the people don’t look like painted monsters.
The chaulk artist at the zoo has a different theory as to what is causing all those sinkholes in Siberia.
Because she cares about the future generation, this pallas cat wants you to know that I have changed the configuration of my websites so visitor data is only retained for one day.
I mentioned over on Facebook a while back that I did something I’ve wanted to do for over a decade, but that I couldn’t talk about it yet. I can talk about it now.
Behold, a two day old Pallas Cat* kitten from Red River Zoo. I just happened to be there shortly after the birth and, because I have worked with the zoo before, we found a way for me to take photos without bothering the mother. Pallas Cats are notoriously grouchy and frightful and if the photoshoot distressed the mother, it could have boded ill for the kittens. Because the kittens are at high risk in their first 21 days, they are kept off exhibit and monitored from afar.
To get this shot, I was about fifty feet** away. The kittens were in a very dark part of the enclosure and were so very tiny. I am going to guess that this kitten head was about the size of a large grape*** when I took the photo. I didn’t have my best lens with me and I couldn’t use a tripod, as it could scare the mother. Really, I am quite lucky to get this shot.
In looking through the other photos, I thought I counted about five fuzzy lumps, which seemed like a lot. Nonetheless, I told the zoo that I was pretty confident that I saw three**** heads and there might be as many as five**** in there. As it turns out, the magic number was actually five. See official announcement here: https://www.facebook.com/redriverzoo/
Like much wildlife, Pallas cats are facing a declining population due to habitat destruction, being hunted for their fur, and poisoning campaigns that are intended to control the pika. The Red River Zoo has a strong history of helping to preserve this species. I was fortunate last summer to take photos of their new male, brought in to add genetic diversity to the reserve population in zoos. It’s very nice to see that he’s been doing his job.
Cute as they are, you don’t want them as pets. The Pallas cat has been described as being one of the meanest cats out there, having evolved in extreme isolation. I have been told that the kittens are born growling. Then a few weeks later, their eyes open and they start growling *at* things.
So while it’s not the world’s greatest photo, I am extremely pleased to be able to share it.
————————
* “Manul” for those of you from northern Asian countries
** 15m for those of you from civilized countries
*** A kumquat for those of you from delicious countries
**** III and V for those of you from ancient countries
Making dead wood more bless’d than living lips.
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.
Sometimes I can’t come up with a good caption but want to share the photo anyway.
branchandroot
