This week’s Photo Challenge at WordPress is Chaos. Here hundreds of blue-footed boobies and pelicans attack a bait ball in the Galapagos Islands. There birds were diving constantly, splashing, screeching, and gorging. Pelicans got so full of fish they were unable to take off again. See more depictions of CHAOS at the WordPress challenge site. Travel safe. Have fun. Advertisements
Kongo’s response to the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Enveloped. A flamingo at the San Diego Zoo envelops itself in a wing. See more enveloping ideas here.
After spending some time with the Sumatran Tigers yesterday, Kongo found this East African Crowned Crane at San Diego’s Safari Park. This bird was all decked out for the holidays with an impressive crown, Christmas red wattle, and a fuzzy little beret that seemed to come straight from 5th Avenue.
Wherever there is three, one is always BETWEEN, which is the theme for this week’s photo challenge from WordPress. Here these three blue-footed boobies (Kongo calls this image Tres Amigos) perch on a rock in the Galapagos Islands. The two on the ends look at the one between. See more of Kongo’s Galapagos images here.
It was feeding time for the vultures at the San Diego Zoo’s Safari Park yesterday when Kongo passed by. Vultures are interesting birds and provide valuable services by cleaning up carrion in the wild but these are images you wouldn’t want to see anywhere outside of a zoo, like if you were trekking across the desert and one of them landed next to you.
Okay, Kongo gets that serious birders will look down their beak in a scathing fashion about the notion of going birding at the zoo. And given that Kongo is just back from touring the Galapagos Islands where the birds were everywhere in the wild he admits that it is a bit of a let down to go to the zoo now although the San Diego Zoo happens to be one of Kongo’s favorite places and where else can you get a close up of a Hyacinth Macaw (above) and Metallic Starlings (read on) on the same day?
The Swallow-tailed Gull found on the Galapagos Islands is truly an interesting bird. Aside from their red eyes and hooked beak, these birds are the only true seabird that is nocturnal. The red eye rim indicates the bird is in breeding season, which at the Galapagos Islands is pretty much year round. Another interesting thing about these gulls is that their eyes are larger than any other species of gull. This is to give them better night vision when hunting squid and small fish that come to the surface at night to feed on plankton.
