The Natural History Museum presents a gallery of winning and commended images from the 2008 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. Loads of amazing images, like this one of a hungry snake and an uncooperative tree frog: Deadlock by David Maitland (UK) (via NewScientist )

It was quite amazing this afternoon. As I opened my front door to go in, I noticed four butterflies over my front door...and three of them flew into the open doorway,flew a fair distance in disciplined...on their wings, so, I feel, given the logic of butterfly nomenclature, they might *not* be called Common Five-Rings...I thought they might be Evening Browns, but am not sure of that, too....

I spent the last day of my Dandeli trip at the Timber Depot. Lot of my friends had told me about this place and how it is the place where the hornbills come and roost. I woke up early morning and walked...was something very amazing. I also got to see other birds like the YELLOW-FOOTED GREEN PIGEON, RACKET-TAILED DRONGO, BLACK DRONGO, SPOTTED OWLET etc. Yellow-Footed Green Pigeons(Above)

I was at work passing out breakfast to the dogs when something orange scurried across the ground. I like orange. It turned out to be a spider! I do not like spiders. But I usually won't kill them. I either...history with spider bites. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysderidae WikiSpidey http://www.spiderzrule.com/woodlouse.htm Lots of spidey photos... mine looked most like the second set of photos

  Or, almost free - I think this one wanted a donation.  Taken at the State Fair, August 2008 (if you have to ask what state fair, you don't know me).   Handheld, Canon 28-135 IS, so forgive the slight...wish I could do more insect work, but they don't like holding still and without a real macro lens there are limits to what I can capture.  Plus, I don't want to constantly work off a tripod.  Ah well...

On Monday Maggie and I headed off to the Healesville Sanctuary, a native wildlife zoo about 1.5 hours from Melbourne. It was raining off and on, but we hoped it would be clear at our destination (and it was). To get there, we drove through gorgeous temperate rainforest and lush countryside. Despite the green-ness, the area is still technically in a drought, not having received average rainfall in 12...

I've started running. Today was my first day. I've been walking with weights but I figured it was time to take it up a notch. I alternated running and walking with weights to sort of ease into it. I just...: Fall Echinacea 11. Cartoon name: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now): Banana Pajamas 12. Hippie name (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree): Oatmeal Popla

...to watch them fight?! Did you know that in some waters sharks are fished, caught, de-finned and thrown back into the water to bleed to death?! Closer to home-did you know that this summer Alaska wildlife personnel reportedly staked out a known wolf denning site? Even better, this is a practice that is illegal under Alaska law! They then gunned down 14 adult wolves from the air. When they landed...

Plans to go to Ayr in search of a decent rat cage have been dashed. Well, they were dashed yesterday, all weather reports pointed to today being another wet and windy one. Definitely glad we didn't go...today. I convinced Dad when we were shopping last Saturday that I really needed a dalek biscuit baking kit... it's taking up room in the cupboard and I think they'd make a nice snack for supper

Spent some time on the allotment weeding and tidying yesterday and met this chap on the way - Google tells me he's a Common Darter Sadly, I think this one's darting days were nearly over - he... but aren't forming proper sprouts - many of them are open flower shapes, which is rather unhelpful. I sprayed them with soapy water again, as there still seem to be a lot of whitefly around.