Meanwhile, down at the lake

 

- My dear evolutionary cousin, I assumed you lived in East Africa all year long! What on earth are you doing here???

- Actually, my dear grebe, I grew up in a zoo in Atlanta, but decided to go AWOL because of the solar eclipse. You know, those naked and not very gentle apes who currently think they control this planet know surprisingly little about astronomy, and I fear they might go completely mustang! 

- Yes, you are right, I mean, any self-respecting phoenicopterimorph knows that it´s simply the Moon temporarily covering the Sun due to differences in distance!

- Exactly. So I decided to hide out at your Swedish birdlake for at least a week or so...

- You´re welcome!

Cladistic art

 

If you know, you know. 

Dead as a Leguatia

 

Credit: savi.odl

A fascinating tale (and tall tale?) about a supposed mega-sized rail (rallid bird) at the island of Mauritius. Probably a misidentified flamingo...but then, that flamingoes once roamed this island was unknown until recently! So it´s still kind of a true cryptid story...

The Enigma of Leguatia

Perfectly wild

"A Perfect Planet" is a new series shown on BBC Earth, narrated by David Attenborough. When shown on Swedish TV, however, we have to rest contented with Henrik Ekman! I recently watched the first episode, "Volcano".

It´s ostensibly an educational production about the pivotal role of volcanic activity in sustaining life on Earth. Except, of course, that it isn´t. The "educational" angle is just an excuse to show the most spectacular footage of wildlife the BBC could lay their hands on this season. No hard feelings, btw! I mean, who cares about geology, anyway?

First, we get to see Lake Natron in Tanzania, a large volcanic lake where literally millions of lesser flamingoes breed and nest every year. It looks like another planet. Unfortunately for the flamingoes, but fortunately for the ecological balance in nature, marabou storks also gather to feast at those young flamingoes which aren´t fit enough to run away. I assumed the truly spectacular footage from Lake Natron was made by drones (the lake seems to be strongly acidic) but actually it was shot by an actual human who reached the interior of the lake area with a hovercraft! The local Massai tribeswomen even had to help him repair the hovercraft´s skirt... 

Next, we get to see some bizarre footage from the Galapagos Islands. At the small island of Wolf, one of "Darwin´s finches" (actually tanagers) have evolved a truly remarkable behavior. The "vampire ground finch" sometimes attacks the Nazca boobies and literally sucks their blood, weirldy enough without the boobies even noticing. At the island of Fernardina, an iguana climbs down into a volcanic crater 800 meters deep to lay its eggs in the hot sands surrounding the volcanic lake. This almost literal descensus into hell is extremely dangerous for the lizard, due to steep cliffs and falling rocks. 

This first episode ends with scenes of otters and coyotes from Yellowstone and a large gathering of cute-looking but dangerous brown bears from Kamchatka in Russia. 

I´m not sure if "A Perfect Planet" really proves that the planet is perfect, but at the very least, it does seem to be perfectly wild! 

I will certainly continue watching this series with great interest. 

A handbook of exciting birds

"Handbook of the Birds of the World" (HBW) is a 13-volume encyclopedia whose ultimate aim is to describe and illustrate *all* living species of birds. Three more volumes are projected. The series began in 1992, and the last volume won't be published until 2011.

This is the first volume, and it covers many exciting bird groups, including pelicans, tropicbirds, frigatebirds, penguins, flamingos, albatrosses, and the non-flying birds, such as the ostrich and the emu. It also covers a more boring bird group, namely the ducks! Each section begins with a general introduction, followed by species presentations. These include color plates and range maps. Unfortunately, the color plates are quite bad. The birds often look caricatured, even ugly, and some of the plates are poorly printed. Thankfully, the book also contain hundreds of photos, all in color, and these are much better. Despite its high price (265 dollars), the book is well-worth buying if you are seriously interested in these particular bird groups.

As already mentioned, this is just the first volume in a 13-volume series. Naturally, a work that takes almost 20 years to publish, will tend to change over time. I noticed this when I leafed through the other HBW volumes at my local university library. The first volume looks like a regular encyclopedia. Anyone with a general interest in birds can read it. The later volumes are superbly illustrated, with much better color plates, but the text feels heavy and technical. These later HBW volumes also suffer from total information over-load. Essentially, the HBW has been transformed from a regular encyclopedia to a scientific reference work for ornithologists.

Be that as it may, I give this first volume of the HBW four stars, for the text and the photos. Had the color plates been better, I would have given it five stars. The entire series also deserve five stars, despite becoming progressively more difficult to digest for ordinary mortals, since it's extremely well-produced.