Colombaccia, Wood Pigeon hunting

We have 2 strange towers in our street (don't look at me soo, it's our street on the first photo too). I thought always, those are Medieval guard towers, but somebody said me, it's not true: those towers were used to hunt Colombaccia.




What is this: colombaccia? It's a sort of wild pigeon, columba palumbus, Wood Pigeon. (Photo from this site). It's bigger than other pigeons and that is why, I think, was and is so interesting for hunters. These pigeons have white lines down the middle of the wing and are easy to distinguish. Once they were very numerouse in our zone, I think, and maybe migrated in autumn and spring, these I'm not sure. The internet sites like this don't say they are migrating birds.

I tell you here about a story I read in old books.
Once Wood Pigeons were sooo numerous that they migrated in great flocks. The hunters spread enormous nets on their ways over the mountains. And from the towers they watched if the flocks are coming in the direction of the net. Because, they say, the most difficult part of this hunt was, that they had (and have today too) to study winds and clouds, the colour of the sky, examinate territory befor the hunt begun. And had to wait many days.

Today hunters use guns. And maybe it's not so terrible for the population of pigeons. But sometimes they blind one-two pigeons to use them to attract others. Today they do it with special bung. The pigeons make noise with their wings and others come in this place too.

In the years I live here, I've never seen great flocks of Wood Pigeon. "La Colombaccia" is now a restorant that remembers the old times.

What do you call beautiful life?

On 18 January veterinarian sterilized Basja.

She is too young and too week, other cats beat her, and she is favourite female of my husband, so she lives in the house from that day. She has the wound in not very good condition too...
"Don't touch her, let her stay here till she feels good." (he feels guilt that he wanted this surgery)

Well. Now it's impossible to live in this house.
In the moment when I sit down she climbs on my knees. And she pass all the rest of the time (when not disturbing me) in bed now. With my husband! And what they do there! It's a scandal this life! Look at them!

Now we'll see what pillow is more sweet today (before they see me and catch from here)
He is not here else...
Finally together

Ahhh... She catch me "in flagrant delict"... I have to go...

Meity and Bimo the Shar Pei

Berry Sudirno from Jakarta/Indonesia, author of these interesting blogs: howtoboostyourwealth, journeytomakemoney, sweetjourneyinmylife .
You know him in my blogs from his articles Endagered Species -Orangutans, that many of you found interesting, and Batu Caves Hindu's Shrines that I posted in my "Vacation and Travel Talk" some days ago. The new article of Berry is about Shar Pei.

Meity (my daughter in law)’s friend just come back from China after long stayed there followed her father as a diplomat, she brought two male Shar Pei, one of them is namely Bimo nine months old, this kind of dog has a life span up to 10 years.

Shar Pei is a breed dog that originated in China and has the distinctive features of deep wrinkles and blue-black tongue. Shar Pei has an alternative name Chinese Shar Pei or Chinese Fighting Dog.

Shar Pei has a temperament loyal, intelligent, playful, active, dominant, stubborn, bold, brave, easy going, calm, independent, devoted, in need of a confident handler firm, gentle, consistent training. If poorly socialized or trained, it can become especially territorial and aggressive.

Shar Pei’s were once named as one of the world’s rarest dog breeds by Time Magazines and the Guinness Book of World Records, and the American Kennel Club did not recognize the breed until 1991 (Wikipedia).

Bimo the Shar Pei is suspicious of strangers, Bimo barked at me and tried to jump on me when I touch the fence of their house, fortunately Bimo was calmed by the owner. Bimo is amenable to accepting strangers given time and proper introduction like Meity, because she has frequent visits to her friend’s house, and she could play around with Bimo as seen on these pictures.

(Sequence photos when Bimo plays with Meity).

If you are interested that I publish your article/post or your photo with MY post (I can host and retouch your photos) in one of my blogs you can write me a mail (my address you can find on the right side of the page) with very clear object (that I do not cancel your mail as spam). In change I ask you to post my blog's addresses in one of your permanent posts -like this (you can copy it):

My friend's blogs:
Diary,
Animals as Friends,
Lazy Yogi,
Vacation and Travel Talk

Stick insects -so interesting!

On 31 December I wrote a post Animals of Campania: Monster without name
where asked you if you know this insect.

Today finally I know it's name. One of the magazines about life in a village published it's photo and an article. I wanted to know more about it, and here the very surprising things I read.

Stick insect or walking stick so as the leave insects are relatives of mantis. They are from the family Phyliidae and live mostly in tropics. There are 3000 described species today and nobody knows how many of not described are there, even from those that are in museums! In Europe there are about 20 species, 2 of them I've seen in my garden.

One of the sticks is the longest insect in the world and is a female Pharnacia serratipes that measured 555 mm. Other, Pharnacia kirbyi, from Indonesia (have to ask well known to you Berry, author of the post about orangutans: how can he live with these neighbours?) arrives till 36 cm.

These insects are vegetarians.
They eat leaves of one branch. And are SOOOOOOO LAZY to move to kill themselves with hunger but do not move in an other place. The only period when they move is when they go out from the egg and look for their home. It lasts some days.

Many species have only females.
They can make their kids with a male too, but if the girl do not find a male, she makes eggs without male. In this case she gives life to clones, all females. The female makes eggs all the life, 3-12 months (if I understood good). They are similar to seems or excrement. And even the eggs are too slow: they need about 2-18 months to develop.

Imagine, there are persons that raise them!!!!!
And there are even FARMS cultivating them!

Endagered Species -Orangutans

I'm very happy to present you Berry Sudirno from Indonesia, author of these interesting blogs:
howtoboostyourwealth,
journeytomakemoney,
sweetjourneyinmylife
and his article that I publish here.

Orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) are endangered species, nowadays they are found only at the parts of Sumatera and Kalimantan (Borneo) of Indonesian Archipelago. Their habitats are highly disturbed by illegal logging and other forest destructions.

Adult male orangutans can weight 90 kilograms, with his long arms they can grasp the tree branch, or use their weight to sway the trees so they could reach the other branch.

Orangutans living at the tree top as their home, they eat fruits, leaves, shoots and animal protein like insect, bird nest and eggs.

According to recent research by Harvard University psychologist, James Lee, orangutans are the world most intelligent animal other than humans, with higher learning and problem solving ability than Chimpanzees, which were previously considered to have greater abilities (Wikipedia)

Orangutans live as single animals, young may stay until six years old, female are mature about ten years old, but they breed every five years until they reached 30 years age.

We ought to be doing our best to save endangered species.

Photos: My daughter, a few years ago when she was at the high school.

Place Taman Safari Indonesia (Wild Park) at Bogor, West Java, Indonesia.

Related post:
A Monkey with a Nose Like Pinnochio! written by my other friend JB


If you are interested that I publish your article/post or your photo with MY post (I can host and retouch your photos) in one of my blogs you can write to me a mail (address on the right side) with very clear object (that I do not cancel your mail as spam). In change I ask you to post my blog's addresses in one of your permanent posts -like this (you can copy it):

My friend's blogs:
Diary,
Animals as Friends,
Lazy Yogi,
Vacation and Travel Talk

Ants-Suicide

In my post Rats attracted by cats I just wrote about parasits that provoke abnormal behaviour of some animals ( rats and snails) that begin to do everything possible to be cought and eaten. The story I'll tell you today is one more study about these clever parasits.

These are the protagonists of this tragic for ants story:

One of the species of ants, Cephalotes atratus, lives in Peru and Panama. They are normally black and, as many ants, provided with efficient arms, so that birds do not eat them.

Nematode, the second main character, is a roundworm (80 000 species with 15000 of them parasitic)

2 researchers,Yanoviak and Michael E. Kaspari, noticed in the colonies 5% of strange ant with red abdomen.
They, ants, went in a place where birds could see them, took the pose you see on the photo, (that means "danger" in ant language), the birds thought those are red fruits they normally eat (and they say they are really very similar) -and eat them.

The researchers opened many ants with red abdomen and saw them FULL of the eggs of a species of parasitic nematode.
Nematode needs to pass to birds to complet their cycle of life.
Ants become infected when they feed to ant larvae the bird feces containing parasite eggs.

Source and ants photo
Nematode photo

Working dogs

photo

Working dogs are amazing animals specially trained to protect people and to make life easier for them. Some working dogs act as eyes for blind people, ears for the hearing impaired, and helpers for the physically challenged. They also protect sheep from wolves, and they can help a police officer catch criminals. These special dogs can find victims of disasters under lots of rubble, and they can find people lost in the woods. They are awesome. (sourse)

I think, it's a training of the dogs:



And this is real TV case:

Who made this egg?

Read the first part A Hen and an Egg
and Healing qualities of the eggs too


I found a crime in my henhouse.
Somebody has made 4 eggs and hidden them behind the great leave of cardboard.

I have 4 hen. 1 old and 3 young. The old hen ( in background on the photo) makes eggs in the special place. So I'm sure she is not that delinquent.

So, one of the young hen began to make eggs and doesn't know where to go else, so she found a hidden place and makes eggs in that place.
How can I know, who of the hen makes me these little eggs?

Look at these photos (in the bottom).
Do you see the difference?
One is the old hen (left) and other is the young one that do not makes eggs else (right). It's a girl.
The crest and the bart are very different.
When the hen beginns to make eggs, the crest becomes more and more red in colour and begins to grow.

Now turn to the first photo.
The hen on the left has the crest and the bart little, but more great and more red as that of the "girl". So, this hen began to make eggs for me.

And what have I to do to teach her that she makes them in the special place?
Nothing special. I take all the eggs, put them all in the special place, leave them there for some days. And because the hen are very curious and explore always the henhouse, the young will find many eggs in that place and will go there next time. She needs time to become adult and know all the trics.













Read the first part
A Hen and an Egg

Don't look at my girl!

I write sometimes about animal's attacs at the persons that are too invasive. It's the new case, notice by Daily Mail from 4th january with entire splendid reportage of photos

Interesting is this quater, I really like it.

So the important thing to remember when you're invited into a silverback gorilla's backyard is just who's the boss.

And this is the reason of this demonstration of force:
an American – got between the male gorilla and the true object of its attentions, a young female

He (this mail of gorilla) is even quite chummy with humans, whose money and patronage helps support the planet's desperately dwindling gorilla population.
There are currently fewer than 650 individuals scattered across several hundred square miles of this region and, without help, they could vanish.

I say, we had once a cock and sold him to one friend. The cock was very happy to own some hen all for him. One day mother in law of that man wanted to take eggs and entered in the henhouse. The cock kicked her so grave that she passed the day in a hospital.

What do you want from that enormous beast?

Related posts:
Hippo's,Gorilla's and Ranger's Tragedy
What happens with gorillas?

Imir and Stassi,rottweiler-family in photos

This is a life of our rottweiler-family

Imir



First time in sea 1996



Finally I have a friend! 1996



I can't even stay near my children! 1998



1 week and 1 month



He was a real shark.Adored swimming... 2002



...and chickens and hen too.



...not more then 5 days 2001



open the eyes



Last photo of Imir. 2004



This photos are in Flikr

World's ''Monster'' Fishes by NG

NG has a Gallery of world's gigant freshwater fishes and there I found this incredible creature you see on this photo. If it was not NG, I would never believe it's a real fish. I would think it's or pre-historic animal or maybe computer-invention. But NG writes it's Mississippi paddlefish (Polyodon spathula) 221 centimeters long with population about 1,353, based on a 2001 study.

For those who likes this game Bloggers of the world award in the
Chris's blog
Animals as friends
Colin
Canine kids
Curious animals
Diamond's lair
El Diario DeLorenza
Marvin - hollow hound
Princess Snowball
My pink notes
Cats are crazy
Chissy's girls

if you post this list in your blog, write me and I'll add your link here.

Thank you.

Smile!

Some more photos collected all round the internet to make you smile today.