Favoritos de wynand_uys

One of the most wonderful sounds of the Vumba must be the eerie humming of distant fog horns on misty nights. Obviously no fishing port nearby at 1700 m altitude in the mountains, the sounds are the calls of the mysterious Buff-spotted Flufftails in the forests around our house. These birds are often heard but never seen until one day the guy in the photo casually walked into the lounge of our guesthouse and parked himself at our bar. He stayed for quite a while but didn't drink much and he did not become a regular.

I went down to my swimming spot with the aim of removing some branches from a tree which had fallen across the river. As I arrived I disturbed a young Fish Eagle who was sitting on this tree. Rustling in the undergrowth on the opposite bank alerted Dog and me that we were not alone and soon an otter popped up its head, sending the dog into a fit (she probably thought it was a swimming honey badger). Another otter also started popping up and down and doing a sort of long moan-growl. To my surprise the closer otter started making a bee-line for us and was probably only 3m away from the dog when I called her back. After a while they settled down so I entered the water to commence my pruning task, keeping a close eye on the nearest otter. Dog was sensibly sticking to the bank. After a few minutes I noticed the otter had moved closer, was staring at me intently and again moan-growling. Being waist-deep in water with nothing for protection but a swimming costume and a folding saw, I decided to calmly retreat and the otter immediately snaked over and claimed the territory I had just vacated. Video here:

https://youtu.be/GHbui1YX31k

First known wild observations and discovery of natural fluorescent in an old world mammal or any mammal outside of North and Central America, images of the Springhare taken in August 2019. Incredible to see it’s orange and pink glow firsthand, especially when it wasn’t expected! Accidental discovery whilst out photographing scorpions under UV light

Shot using a Nikon D850 Handheld with a Nitecore Chameleon C6 ( 365nm ) torch.

For anyone interested in February 2020 a Scientific journal was released by a American research group ( no relation to me ) about this UV trait and science behind it from research in museum & zoo specimens in the US.

There are a few more images, but you might be able to imagine photographing a rather skittish nocturnal creature on foot with a UV torch in one hand and a large DSLR in the other during a unexpected encounter whilst also trying to expose a camera correctly for UV light isn’t the easiest thing to do the split second.

Photographs include: male, female with caterpillar prey, view of rocks under which nest was situated (nest can be seen in the shade), nest with two young, and nestsite on hillside (indicated by blue arrow). Mainly stills from videos.

We saw the snake eagle as it flew up from the ground. It flew in slow circles while it controlled and started to eat the snake. One minute from pic 1 to pic 8 where it started to eat the snake. Total time for this series, three minutes.

Snake at https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/14774517

minor ants approx 5mm.
Never seen this before, ants raiding antlion traps and stealing their prey, removing the dead/dying termites. Didn't see any antlions being attacked, but the ants were in the bottom of two different traps wrestling food from the antlions.

Antlion here:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/16928137

Prey here:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/16928134