Cheering Up bird 3- Night Heron

Night Heron, Lisbon - image (c) Victoria Neblik, 2009

Compared with the previous cheering-up birds, the Night Heron has a very subdued appearance, but his head wires are just ridiculous enough to secure him the dubious honour of cheering-up bird number 3.

The world's Most Terrifying Penises - Leopard Slugs

There are times when I think that I've seen many of the world's weirdest creatures. Then time and again, I get proven wrong. The latest unexpected surprise is this wonderful tongue-in-cheek video on the penis and truly bizarre natural history of the leopard slug-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2tZLWIo9nY&feature=channel_page

Spineless Hedgehog

Ever wondered what a hedgehog would look like without the spines?

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2321923.ece

Cheering-Up Bird 2

OK so it's not quite as unusual as the quetzal, but the Toucan is a pretty close second cheering-up bird- http://victorianeblik.blogspot.com/2010/03/cheering-up-bird-24-toucan.html

Beautiful pictures of waves

The Daily Mail has some wonderful photos of waves online today taken by a surfer from inside the waves. What an amazing world we inhabit.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1156222/Pictured-The-daredevil-surfer-taking-amazing-photos-INSIDE-huge-breaking-waves.html

Giant ant nest-

Ever wondered how big an ant nest can be? I was recently shown this wonderful video of some researchers filling a giant ants nest with concrete and then excavating the solidified concrete cast- it’s truly amazing-
http://www.flixxy.com/ant-city-development.htm
I can’t help wondering if the scientists expected to use to much concrete or the nest to take so much excavation when they started out...

(VN wishes to thank SL for this information)

WELCOME

Hello. Thank you for visiting my blog. This blog is mostly about the natural world- the amazing plants and animals around us. Some of the posts here were previously published in a different format elsewhere; I have dated them according to when they were either first published or completed, so some posts are dated prior to the creation of this blog.