Asiatic Lion

This juvenile Asiatic Lion male is walking through the woodlands in the Gir National Park, Gujarat, India. The park is the only area in the world where lions still live in the wild outside of Africa and is a major success with over 700 animals now living in some nineteen prides.

SERENDIPITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

I don’t profess to know much about education let alone environmental education in Africa or the rest of the world. I do know that people have become more distanced from nature and that the knowledge of nature is decreasing.

I suppose the main reason is urbanisation and the lack of formal environmental education in schools. Moving to the city takes kids out of the rural environment away from nature and school learning is often just book learning and no attempt is made to link the learning to the environment. If you are poor and live in a township the chances are that you will never encounter anything wild or natural and you will hardly leave the township.

Serendipity made the last penguin release by the South African Marine Rehabilitation and Education Centre (SAMREC) a much bigger success than usual. A large group of kids had been bussed to the beach and were there at the same time the penguins were released. It was wonderful to watch how the kids followed the penguins as they swam along the beach. The teachers (or organisers) had to answer many questions about penguins, where they came from, why they came and where they were going.

A small victory for environmental education but none the less a sweet one!

New Print Shop

Ecoscene is delighted to announce that their new Print Shop is open for business. Now you can buy prints, mousemats, fridge magnets of your favourite images. More images will be added in the coming months. Happy shopping! www.ecosceneprints.com

Cool Elephants

No they were not wearing sunglasses but I really thought the African Elephants at Addo in South Africa were trying hard to be cool during the warm spell we had last week.

If you are their size it is difficult to hide from the sun and they do overheat. Their habit of flapping their ears to expose the blood in the ears to the air order to cool the blood is well known. It is something they do continually when feeding in hot weather. They do however love water and when it is hot they come down to drink several times a day. Something they do then is spray water and mud over their bodies to help the cooling process and they pay particular attention to their ears. It makes sense and the water and mud on the ears will promote the cooling they obtain from the ears. It was nice to see this happen on many occasions and they sprayed water on both the outside surface of the ear and the inside surface between the body and the ear. They also deliberately cover the rest of their bodies in mud and clay. This cools and also provides a layer on the skin which protects them from the sun and irritating insects.

Of course if you give an elephant half a chance most of them will end up in the water and get completely soaked. They were almost human in their playing in the water and in the picture above the elephants in the water seem to be trying to convince the one out of the water saying “come in, the water is great.” The youngsters have the most fun in the water while the larger elephants seem almost reluctant to enter the water. The reason for this is probably their greater bulk which is difficult to haul up the side of a slippery clay surfaced waterhole wall.

They were also so much into staying cool that they totally ignored the boiling photographer in the car (which is a good thing).

Elephants Picking Daisies

Elephants are incongruous creatures, large and lumbering, they eat and amble around the veld in the Addo National Park in South Africa. The drought has not helped and the vegetation in the park always looks tired, there are no big trees left and most of the growth seems stunted. We tend to blame the mega-herbivores (lovely word!). Anything that gets walked on or eaten by a mega-herbivore is entitled to look jaded.

Then we had some rain over a period of a few weeks and the appearance of the park has suddenly changed. It seems to have been sprinkled from above with yellow flowers! I have been trying to photograph the flowers for years but this event is difficult to predict. The daisies can flower anytime from September to January but often their numbers are too low to be spectacular. The heat of the African sun can also curtail their flowering period.

The only elephant to cooperate was a mother and her calf and even so she was not the ideal model – she seemed more interested in the grazing than posing for the camera. Her calf was also more interested in her mother’s milk than the daisies. I wonder what elephant’s milk looks like – I can imagine that the milk coming from a cow that has grazed on daisies must be yellowish and rich. Think this elephant calf is going to grow big and strong! As I write this, there are clouds gathering, and there is the chance of more rain which should be followed by temperatures in the mid 30degrees. The flowers could be really spectacular this year and I can see myself spending a lot of time waiting for the elephants.

Rio's Botanical Gardens

Directly below the right arm of the statue of Christ the Redeemer lies Rio de Janeiro’s Botanical Gardens. Strolling among the 6,000 different species of tropical and subtropical plants and trees offers a complete change of pace from the throb of Brazil’s iconic first capital.

Founded by the Prince Regent of the United Kingdom of Portugal and Brazil in 1808, the garden was initially used to cultivate spices from the West Indies, including cinnamon, nutmeg and pepper. The 350-acre exotic garden was opened to the public in 1832.

The Botanical Gardens are best known for the avenues of Royal Palms photographed above. They line the paths near the entrance and originally, this area was only accessible to the royal family. It is believed that the palms were all grown from the seeds of a single tree known as the Palma Mater. There are over 900 other varieties of palm in the gardens.

Contrasting with the formal layout of the European and Japanese parts of the garden, it was the Amazonia section that interested me most. Wild and alive with a profusion of lush vegetation (and insects), the air was noticeably heavier and warmer than in other parts of the garden.

I was disappointed with the Victoria Regis lilies in the Frei Leandro pond. The pads were less than half the size of those I had first seen years ago in Brazil’s tiny northern neighbour, Guyana.

Birds abound in the Botanical Gardens. I was able to photograph Great Kiskadee and Dusky-legged Guan, but didn’t see any Channel-billed Toucan which also frequent the gardens.

Brazil’s largest Botanical library is at one end of the gardens, next to a well-stocked gift shop and agreeable outdoor café.

Harvest mouse - extinct in 25 years?

The farming conservation organization, Conservation Grade,  has threatened that some of the UK's farmland animals could become extinct within 25 years. They include the harvest mouse, the small agile rodent found along field margins near cereal crops. Its numbers have fallen drastically over the last few decades as farming has intensified with the loss of hedgerows, drainage of reed-sedge habitats, and increased use of pesticides, so it has been added the UK Red List. This sweetie makes its distinctive ball-like nest in hedgerows, so its is particularly vulnerable to hedge cutting and removal. Helping this mouse can be quite easy, simply making sure hedgerows are not cut before the fruits and nuts have been removed in autumn helps the animal survive winter, together with leaving grassy margins around fields.

Some conservation groups have been placing tennis ball nests in appropriate sites to encourage the harvest mouse to return. The tennis ball is the perfect size of the mouse and it's highly visible,  making monitoring easy.

 

New photographers

Ecoscene is delighted to welcome some new contributing photographers. Dave Amis is busy documenting the managed retreat at Standford Marshes on the Greater Thames Estuary near Thurrock, Essex. The first part of the process is breaching the sea wall to allow the tides to cover the low lying marsh land again.

David Lygo is a wildlife photographer based in Northern Ireland. He has supplied a great selection of  birds and insects, mostly in flight and taken in the most gorgeous light.

Tom Leighton is London-based and has sent in some images of the new Cycle Super Highways in London. The roads along the route are marked with highly visible blue tracks and each is clearly marked with its own number so that cyclists can follow the routes easily.  Junctions have been redesigned to make them more cyclist-friendly. Route CS7 shown in this images  runs from Merton to Bank,  following the route of the Northern Line.

POLITICIANS AND THE AFRICAN BLACK OYSTERCATCHER

I had a strange start to my work career and spent the first 5 years of my working life as a Committee Secretary in Parliament in South Africa. Because I have always had an interest in nature it was natural that I should have Environmental Affairs in my committee portfolio. I had to sit at the chairman’s left and do secretarial things like taking minutes and the like. I remember looking down at the chairman’s shoes and noticing that he liked ostrich and crocodile leather. From an early age my scepticism regarding politicians and the environment started growing.

The African Black Oystercatcher (Haematopus moquini) is either Threatened, Near Threatened or Vulnerable depending on which website you look. They are down to between 5000 and 6000 birds which is not a lot and they are in trouble. I always felt sorry for the Oystercatchers as their nest is just a scrape in the sand somewhere above the high-water mark. They also have the most unfortunate breeding time of all – during the peak summer during the school holidays when the beaches are under most pressure. South Africa also had a severe problem with vehicles on beaches with joy riders and fishermen putting their car tracks on all beaches and in the process crushing eggs or just generally disturbing oystercatchers and scarring the beaches.

Then, with the new government in South Africa in 1994, came Minister Valli Moosa who, in his wisdom, (and to the credit of his department), powered legislation through Parliament effectively banning vehicles on beaches. Since then the African Black Oystercatcher is pulling itself out of trouble and the population has stabilised and is increasing! Shows what a bit of relevant and intelligent legislation can do.

Of course it doesn’t end there. The population of Oiks (as the birdwatchers call them) is still low and much research is being done. The research is very noticeable when you spot an Oystercatcher as most of them seem to have rings on their legs. This one you see above has so many rings I thought of calling it the “African Bling Oystercatcher.” I personally think that a lot of the disturbing of animals in the name of research is unnecessary. I also thought of suggesting they call the Oystercatcher after Minister Moosa but as a leopard was caught on a farm belonging to him in a gin trap I won't consider it. I am still sceptical about 99.9% of politicians but appreciate what was done for the African Black Oystercatcher.