Slo-mo hummingbird

I love watching hummingbirds but my attempts at filming them seem always to fail, so I was pleased to find this video.

Beware

If you are walking or cycling through Putney, beware the flying ants that seem to be everywhere....

The most incredible piece of video footage of the recent post earthquake Japanes tsunami

I believe the footage is from Minami-Sanriku. The power of the earth's natural forces never ceases to amaze me.

Has Gordon Brown got some Swedish cousins?

The Telegraph reports on a couple who have either been very unlucky or may share the Jonah like qualities of the disaster spreading ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

'A newly-wed couple on a four-month honeymoon were hit by six natural disasters, including the Australian floods, Christchurch earthquake and Japanese tsunami.

Stefan and Erika Svanstrom left Stockholm, Sweden, on December 6 and were immediately stranded in Munich, Germany, due to one of Europe's worst snowstorms.

Travelling with their baby daughter, they flew on to Cairns in Australia which was then struck by one of the most ferocious cyclones in the nation's history.

...

They then headed south to Brisbane but the city was experiencing massive flooding, so they crossed the country to Perth where they narrowly escaped raging bush fires.

The couple then flew to Christchurch, New Zealand, arriving just after a massive magnitude 6.3 earthquake devastated the city on February 22.

...

"We could not visit the city since it was completely blocked off, so instead we travelled around before going to Japan."

But days after the Svanstroms arrived, Tokyo was rocked by Japan's largest earthquake since records began.

...

The family returned to Stockholm on March 29 after a much calmer visit to their last destination China.

But Mr Svanstrom – who also survived the devastating Boxing Day tsunami that hit southeast Asia in 2004 – said the marriage was still going strong.

...

Mrs Svanstrom added: "To say we were unlucky with the weather doesn't really cover it! It's so absurd that now we can only laugh."

"Christian" the lion

Last year I blogged the story of John Rendall and Ace Berg and the lion that they raised in Chelsea - Christian - returned to the wild and were reunited with some four years later.

Here's the video of the reunion


I was reminded of this story by the Channel 5 programme tonight - The Lion Cub from Harrods - Do watch it, it is real "feel good TV".

Alternatively you could watch Born Free and/or read Christian's story


Here's Christian as a cub with John Rendall and Ace Berg

A pink dolphin

Apparently this is an albino pink dolphin pictured in Lake Calcasieu, an inland saltwater estuary, north of the Gulf of Mexico in southwestern USA.

Clever chimp

Clever chimp.

Amazeing!

I love Google Earth...


Thanks to Tuscan Tony for the spot.

Bastards

I and Mrs NotaSheep love turtles, they are such noble and peaceful creatures, a real joy to see in the wild. So I was really annoyed to see this piece of video of Palestinian fishermen landing and killing an endangered Leatherback turtle.

... and some small cats

Now Crufts is over here's some big cats

Two men, John Rendall and Ace Berg, purchased a lion cub from Harrods in 1969 for 250 guineas. They reared a lion cub in England but after a year he had reached a weight of 185lb and a chance meeting with the actors Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna (who starred in Born Free - the story of Elsa the lioness) lead to Christain the lion being sent to Joy and George Adamson in Kenya for them to ease him into life in the wild. Four years later John and Ace went to visit Christian who was now living in the Kora Reserve although he had not been seen for about 9 months...


Here's a picture of John and Ace with Christian as lion cub...




Here's some video of what happened when they went to visit Christian in 1974...






Thanks to Lady Jane for the spot and The Daily Mail for the background.

Weird story of the day

The Telegraph's headline "Zoologist's hippo disguise to infiltrate herd" says it all but the pictures at the online page are a real treat. Here's one...

The most amazing video I have seen for a long while

I heard about this video a while back but forgot to look it up. Having now seen it, I think it well worth passing on.

It is a piece of amateur footage taken at a water hole in the Kruger National Park, South Africa, and shows an amazing confrontation that takes place there. Do watch it right to the end, well worth it.








There you go, nature red in claw as they say. Buffalo, lions and crocodiles in one video; what more do you want?