Animals

I do like animals and I like the challenge of photographing them. Unlike people, they don't hold still when they are supposed to... Getting a good shot is sometimes really hard and I have found reptiles to be a lot easier to photograph than any other kind. That is of course because many of them move slower or don't move at all. The eye of last time is of one of the animals in this posting.



I love anything black and white. Penguins are therefore naturally one of my favorite animals. Did you know there are 17 different species of penguins? The ones in this picture are King penguins. They can get up to 37 inches high and weigh 30-35 pounds. Not bad for a bird!
Seaworld has a good page on penguins.



















Another black and white bird, the woodpecker. This one decided to feast on the bird food we put out a few years ago during the winter. I could observe it almost every day for at least a week. The woodpecker was a bit larger than most of the other birds that stopped by and could become quite agressive with the smaller birds.





Lets move on to reptiles:

I like turtles a lot and in fact almost got one when I was little. Although, mine would have been a lot smaller than these two guys. They are Aldabra Giant Turtoises or Galapagos Tortoise. I can't really tell because the only difference between them is a small shell plate. One of the most fascinating aspects about turtles and tortoises are their age. The Galapagos tortoise can be up to 200 years old. Maybe walking slower makes you live longer? They can only go about 1km/h. Tortoises have also existed for about 200 million years, so there's got to be something about them we could learn from. Maybe we should all start using dial up again...
The Hannover Zoo has a pretty funny entry on Galapagos turtles





And here is another reptile, this one I never wanted to own. I can't really tell you guys too much about them because there are so many crocodiles and alligators. I do know though, that I don't want to get too close to one.
This is a good site about crocodiles I found: http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/cnhc/csl.html






And one more, not a reptile but the only mammal in my animal gallery: The sea otter. That one is just so cute!














For next time, why not flowers?
What might this flower's scent be? Do you think it's strong, mild, sweet, pungent? What makes you think so?