Blogs

by Gabi Friebe from Long Grass Wildlife Refuge and Bats Qld

Tulip was an orphaned baby rescued from Esk. I got the call late afternoon and went to check. I saw the mother high up in a tree looking down and the baby was just hysterical. Seemed like a perfect reunite so I fed the baby, gave it a mumma roll tied to a branch where the mum could easily land and as I was on the way to Long Grass decided to leave the two to get together after dusk. The baby was calm by this stage and there was a helpful caller who would keep an eye on the situation who advised me that there was some altercation with dogs which is why they separated in the first place. 10pm I called to see if the mum was with bub. Sadly no and bub was screaming. Yes you guessed it back in the car for the trek to Esk to colect Tulip. Next day passing Esk on my way back to Batavia the mum was still up the tree fairly obviously injured by her altercation with the dogs and unable to fly. She had not moved. Such a sad situation but I was comforted slightly by knowing how pleased mum would be to not hear her baby screaming.  

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Peacocks and peahens prance about the Ranthambore National Forest enjoying the food found in the scrub especially near the lakes. Only a tiny hint of the splendid terracotta underfeathers from the side (see pics at bottom for a view of the magnificent plumage).

A bird cools his feet in the in the shallow edged of the lake. His famous tail feathers are tightly folded behind him, disguising its size and splendour.

By Ron House

As a child I was terrified of 'bugs' in general, but I came to an accommodation with spiders when, some years ago, I found that outside our house were lots of redback spiders. I started looking closely at them, and I soon found myself intrigued. They are not aggressive spiders, not at all, but if you lightly touch their back legs, faster than the eye can see they extract from their spinerets and hold out in defence a small glistening white 'net'.

But in doing so they looked to me more threatened than threatening, and I understood why redbacks don't willy nilly make trouble with humans. From then on I have let the redbacks go about their business without interference.

But it took me many years to discover that one insight into spider life. The Private Life of Spiders gave me so many more thought- and emotion-provoking insights in a few hours of enjoyable reading and viewing.

I say "viewing" because of the remarkable photographs. The pages are a colour-filled wonderland.  All the images in this post are from the book courtesy Princeton University Press.

We have webs, like frosting on the morning grass glistening with dew; spiders in riotous extremes of colour, like the translucent red, green and yellow Orchard Spider; spiders on colourful flowers; and more. And every single image is a top example of photographic skill.

Renowned for its tigers Ranthambore National Park is also a haven for birds. I had read about woodpeckers as a child in storybooks and imagined this was a bird that lived in the U.K., Europe and the U.S.A.