Stop Wildlife Poisoning

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 09 2008 | By: Martin Odino

Hi,

Today’s post will in a simple way acknowledge animals!

In the African culture, bounty of species is a blessing. I pluralize species in the sense that the more the heads of cattle and variety of livestock; the more the wives and offspring tagged to a man’s name; the greater the bounty of crop yield from a man’s farm; amongst many other sorts of bountiful assortments especially alive, implying plants and animals, the more a man was regarded blessed by the sacred forces. I believe for sure that congregations of wildlife were and are still acknowledged by a majority of our people. I have picked on a few of the animals photograph on one of my safari’s in Kenya. in many respects, you will realize they are so similar to humans or else what we thought we understand of them, in many cases we get it all wrong. And now on to the animals:

A number of animals migrate, traversing territories of land,water and air for better seasonal conditions. Winter must be settling in temperate lands and we in the tropics are expecting human visitors from those lands. But coming along will be non-human visitors about the same time and for more or less the same physiological reasons. I am talking about migrating birds.Below is a photograph of Wildbeests that cross the Mara-Serengeti expanse every year.

The NubianWoodpecker below ‘knock knocks’ on woody stems. In many occasions, big enough burrows are seen about where the birds will be seen to knock hard. Well, the large holes are the result of prolonged enlargement and sometimes the woodpeckers even have had no role in their enlargement. Usually in the normal feeding of the bird, it will tap hard on the trunk to disrupt the insects underneath which then come to the surface and the bird eats them. The harder the knock, the greater the disruption and the more the emergent insects to satisfy the woodpecker.

Now, Eagles have a characteristic medium or long prominent tail which justifies their hunting nature and facilitates manouverability while hunting a dodging prey. But more important their tails enable them to balance their bodies. The eagle below is a young Bateleur. Other than changing to darker plumage with red on back,tail,face and feet, the proportions will remain more or less the same. The long wings exceeding the tail tip are the center of interest here. This bird is a powerful glider but seems to struggle to balance, more or less as if staggering, the explanation is in the short tail. It is also more of a scavenger rather than a hunter. Again, the short tail limits its hunting proficiency.

The Red-headed Weaver defies the conventional Yellow colouration of our weaver but a weaver nonetheless by virtue that it ‘weaves’ its nest.

I did not know that lionesses have four teats. May be this is new to you too.

The natural beauty above is worth carrying of heavy photography gadgets like the one below.

But if we should lose them, then we will find ourselves getting photos of the un-natural beauty as below. This bird is not an eagle!

Tags: animals, Bateleur, Kenya, Lion, Mara, Nubian Woodpecker, Red-headed Weaver, Serengeti, wildbeests

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