Hartlaub’s gulls on stormy sea

As the wind blows and the cold, stormy weather moves in, Hartlaub’s gulls are seen on the coastline at Walker Bay, Western Cape, South Africa, in the Earth-Touch clip, Wind howls in from the Atlantic.

Because of the harsh weather, the Earth-Touch crew were unable to see much at sea and a day of whale watching ultimately turned into a day of bird and flower viewing.

The Hartlaub’s gulls (Larus hartlaubii) were filmed as they flew from the shore and settled in the rough sea.

This species is a common seabird which is found foraging in groups of up to 60 birds, dipping into the water and snatching fish from close to the surface.

Image © Earth-Touch 2007

Did you know? How to tell the difference between a male and a female buffalo

Buffalo bulls can be distinguished from the females by size – a mature bull can weigh as much as 900kg (1 984lb) – and by the “boss” on their head.

The horns of a Cape buffalo (Syncerus caffer) grow out to the side from the top of the head and as a buffalo bull matures, the area of horn on its head develops into a large mass, known as a boss.

This is used to protect the head during the battles for dominance that the males frequently engage in.

Females have what looks like a hair parting down the middle of their horns, while males don’t.

View a large herd of about 400 of the African bovines, many with calves, in the Earth-Touch clip Buffalo herd on the alert – and see if you can spot the difference between the bulls and the cows.

Image: Cape buffalo cow © Earth-Touch 2007

Moose outwit bears

To save their newborn calves from predatory brown bears, pregnant moose (Alces alces) in the Yellowstone ecosystem of the USA are moving closer to roads, and therefore humans, to give birth.

LiveScience, Nature and BBC News have reported the findings of Wildlife Conservation Society researcher Dr Joel Berger.

His study, conducted from 1995 to 2004, showed there had been a significant increase in the population of brown bears, which prey on moose calves but avoid humans.

Over the same period, pregnant moose were moving an average of 122m (400ft) closer to roads each year. Bears seldom come within 500m (1600ft) of roads.

According to BBC News, this phenomenon of using humans as shields is not limited to moose. Monkeys, deer and elephants have also been known to do it.

Dr Berger told the BBC: “If we’re using our national parks to understand pristine conditions, the presence of humans is altering interactions in very subtle but important ways.”

Details of the study were published in the journal Biology Letters.

Image, moose calf: Courtesy Yellowstone National Park

Southern right whales easily identified

The southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) is found in the Southern Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans.

The Earth-Touch film crew has been watching these whales on the Western Cape coast of South Africa.

These whales are easily identifiable as they have rough growths on the skin on their heads. These patches are infested with whale lice and barnacles.

These markings, however, have made them easy to spot and therefore hunt. There are at present fewer than 8 000 southern right whales.

See the last of the Earth-Touch footage of these whales this year in the clip, Last days with whales.

Image © Earth-Touch 2007

Elephant musth

In the Earth-Touch clip, Elephant bulls feeding, a bull elephant is seen to be in musth. In this state, the bull drips concentrated, testosterone-filled urine onto its legs, advertising its quest to find a mate. Secretions from the temporal glands run down the side of its head.

This happens only when the male is in his 20s. As the bull ages, musth occurs more often and for longer periods of time.

During this time elephant bulls are often aggressive because of surges of testosterone in the blood. They are engrossed in finding a mate and do not spend as much time as usual foraging.

Image: African elephant in musth © Earth-Touch 2007

Did you know? The giraffe’s neck

The giraffe’s neck is made up of seven elongated vertebrae. This adaptation allows the animal to feed high in the trees.

Giraffes also have extremely elastic blood vessels in their neck so that they don’t lose consciousness from a sudden rush of blood to the head when they lean down to drink. The neck contains valves and a network of tiny veins that constrict blood flow to the brain when the head is lowered. The animals have to spread their legs when they drink because their legs are longer than their necks.

Male giraffes use their necks to establish dominance. They are often seen neck-wrestling with other males. A giraffe also uses its neck in expressive ways. When angry, a giraffe will lower its head menacingly, and to show submissiveness, it will stretch out its neck.

See giraffe feeding in the Earth-Touch clip, Giraffe encounter.

Image © Earth-Touch 2007

Encounter with a baby in hiding

A few years ago a group of friends and I went on an early morning bush walk in one of South Africa’s private game reserves. It was the middle of winter, and after a fairly jolly evening the night before, it was with bleary eyes and pounding heads that we stumbled out of our tents before sunrise and followed our guide reluctantly into the chilly, frost-rimed bushveld.

Just after sunrise, we were trudging along in single file, shivering and grumbling, when our guide suddenly held up his hand and signalled for us to stop.

About 50m (160ft) away, we could just see the head of a female giraffe sticking up above the thick bushes. Unusually for a giraffe – they normally behave more like statues and will stare at you, unmoving, for minutes at a time – she seemed agitated, marching backwards and forwards behind the bushes, never taking her eyes off us, but not coming any nearer or moving away.

Our guide was peering around underneath the bushes much closer to us, obviously looking for something. He spotted what he was looking for and beckoned us to come closer and keep dead quiet.

And there, almost invisible under a thick green bush, lay a baby giraffe, probably only a day or two old. Its head was bent back and resting on its hindquarters and its legs tucked in underneath it, making it look even smaller. It reminded me of a heap of spotted rags dropped willy-nilly on top of one another.

We gazed at it in awe for a minute or so, during which time it didn’t move a muscle, before the guide drew us away.

Once out of earshot, he told us that the baby giraffe was very likely hiding from us, instinctively curling itself up into the smallest possible ball, while the mother, very much aware of where her baby was, was trying in her own way to distract us.

Whether the reasons he gave us for this behaviour were accurate or not, it was nevertheless a breathtaking experience for all of us. With the adrenaline pumping, our headaches evaporated into the morning mist and we returned to camp exhilarated, babbling to each other about what we’d seen and thought, and completely re-energised by such a rare sighting of one of the wonders of nature.

Visit the Earth-Touch crew’s latest footage from the Okavango Delta in Botswana and watch a herd of giraffe in Giraffe encounter, behaving in the way they normally do, quiet and statuesque as they stroll across the open plain and disappear into the treeline.

– By Reina Luck, editorial team

Image © Earth-Touch 2007

Did you know? Tiger sharks

The tiger shark is one of the largest sharks, growing to 3 or 4m (10 to 13ft) in length and weighing upwards of 350kg (772lb).

Tiger sharks are not fussy about what they eat – in fact they will consume just about anything, including turtles, seals, rays, dolphins, sea birds, other sharks, bony fishes, crustaceans, jellyfish and carrion. Garbage and refuse scavenged from harbour mouths and coastal areas near human habitation are commonly found in the stomachs of tiger sharks that have been caught.

Although humans are not part of their natural prey, the tiger shark is credited with numerous attacks on humans – second in number to the great white shark. This may be at least to some extent due to their preference for shallower waters near land, and in river mouths, harbours and other inlets where prey is plentiful – as are humans.

Click on Tiger sharks at close range to see these large sharks swimming in the Indian Ocean.

Image: Tiger shark © Earth-Touch 2007

Having a whale of a time

Earth-Touch has served some spectacular footage of southern right whales (Eubalaena australis) off the south-eastern coast of South Africa in the past few weeks.

The whales come to these waters every year to calve, and have become so well known, South Africans now sometimes refer to the ‘Big Six’ (lion, rhino, elephant, leopard, buffalo and now whale) as must-see animals.

An iconic aspect of whale behaviour is what cetacean experts call ‘sailing’, which is balancing head down with the tail extended above the surface.

Watch Whale sailing, in which the whales hold a brief ‘sail stall’ before disappearing beneath the water – a spectacular sight.

Drops of water run off the flukes as the massive tail is balanced carefully in the air, forming a characteristic image of delicacy and power.

Image © Earth-Touch 2007

This week’s most viewed stories

The most popular stories on Earth-Touch in the past week (from Friday 19 October to Thursday 25 October 2007) were:

Number 1

Swimming amongst seals

The water around Geyser Rock is full of Cape fur seals, a favourite meal for the great white sharks in this area.

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Number 2

Barbel run in the Okavango

While shoals of hungry catfish mass in the channels and feed on smaller fish, birds and crocodiles move in to get their share of the spoils.

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Number 3

Return of the skimmers

Several pairs of African skimmers return to the nesting site and jostle for a spot on the sandbank.

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All images © Earth-Touch 2007

Did you know? Shark skin

A shark’s skin is covered with tiny, hard, tooth-like structures called ‘dermal denticles’ which form a tough, protective layer with an abrasive texture when rubbed against the grain.

In fact, shark skin has been used in some cultures as sandpaper, by seafarers to help keep their footing on slippery decks, and by the Japanese as non-slip coverings for sword handles.

The way the denticles are laid out, overlapping each other and facing backwards, gives sharks a unique hydrodynamic advantage which has been the subject of much research.

Olympic swimsuits have been modelled on sharkskin, and according to Speedo, can reduce drag by up to 4%.

So impressive is this feature that research is being carried out on the use of synthetic sharkskin for cladding the hulls of navy ships. This would prevent bio-fouling by barnacles, mussels and algae and reduce drag by up to 15%, thereby increasing speed and reducing the need for costly and time-consuming hull-cleaning.

The skin of the great white shark is so tough it serves as protection from other sharks as well as parasites.

Check out the Earth-Touch footage of these amazing creatures in the clips Spellbound by great whites and Eyeball to eyeball with a great white shark.

Image © Earth-Touch 2007

Ocean expedition makes new finds

Researchers have found what may be dozens of new species in their expedition to Southeast Asia’s Celebes Sea, AP reports.

The Celebes Sea, between Malaysia and the Philippines, has some of the world’s deepest sea basins, the lowest point being about 5 000m (16 500ft) below sea level. Because the basins are so isolated and cold they are among the most richly diverse marine areas.

According to researcher Larry Madin of the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, this area has kept some species isolated for millions of years.

“This is probably the centre where many species evolved and spread to other parts of the ocean, so it’s going back to the source in many ways,” said Madin.

The creatures that may be new to science include a swimming sea cucumber, a black jellyfish and a spiny, orange worm with tentacles growing out of its head.

Experts will study them to determine whether they have ever been described before.

The boxfish in this photograph is one of the creatures observed by divers on the research expedition.

Image courtesy: Ocean Geographic Magazine through WHOI/ISSP/Michael Aw/HO/AP

Birds flock to barbel run

The barbel run in the Okavango Delta, Botswana, attracts birds to feast on the multitude of fish.

In the Earth-Touch clip, Barbel run in the Okavango, squacco heron (Ardeola ralloides) and great egret (Egretta alba) are spotted around the water’s edge looking for fish. These birds perch on the overhanging papyrus and catch fish pushed to the surface by the barbel, or catfish.

The waters bubble as catfish rouse their prey.

Image: squacco heron © Earth-Touch 2007

Scallop beds recover

Tasmania’s scallop fishery was dead a few years ago. Every time new scallop beds had been found over the previous century, a fishing boom had depleted them.

But now, reports ScienceAlert, catches are regular and prices firm. The reason is that the industry realised it had to know more about its resource and use it sustainably.

University of Tasmania fisheries scientist Malcolm Haddon got fishers – usually a competitive group of people – to agree that the scallop beds had to be left undisturbed to give them time to mature.

The fishers surveyed the beds themselves in a scientific way, a process which indicated what was there and how long the sites and their biodiversity might take to recover.

Now the scallops (Pecten fumatus) are treated more like a crop to be tended than something to be hunted.

Haddon sees the experience as a lesson for others: “You’ve got strong industry participation in managing the resource, an effective harvest strategy based on real information, steady economic returns, benefits to employment and to consumers and minimum disturbance to the environment,” he concludes.

Scallop image courtesy: Fisheries R&D Corporation, Australia

Did you know? - American bison

The American bison is a bovine mammal, also known as the American buffalo. It is not related to the Asian or African buffalo, however.

At one time millions of bison roamed the North American continent, but over the years poaching and hunting greatly affected the bison population. There were only about 1500 bison in Yellowstone National Park in the 1950s. This has increased to about 3500 today as a result of conservation initiatives.

These are massive animals; a bison bull can reach 1.8m (6ft) in height and weigh over 900kg (2000lb). Yet bison can run at speeds of up to 48 km/h (30 mph).

See a bison scratching his head on a fence post in the Earth-Touch clip, Clouds gather over the peaks.

Image © Earth-Touch 2007

Ocean swell: how big is big?

Living and working on the coast, I often hear arguments about the size of waves or swells that end up crashing on our shore. The banter is usually divided between fishermen and surfers, each having a different perspective on why the size of a wave is relevant.

Fishermen who navigate the surface of the sea in boats have the utmost respect for big swells and waves. At all costs these mountains of water must be avoided.

Surfers on the other hand make it their mission to get in the path of the waves, searching for the ‘stoke’ of riding a powerful wall of water.

Understanding that measuring the size of a moving lump of seawater, usually driven by wind, is impossible, one can only draw rough estimates. A surfer may refer to a wave that is ‘double overhead’, meaning that when he or she was riding it, the face was twice the surfer’s height. A fisherman is not going to have as intimate a view, and will reply with a comment like ‘it was as big as in ’63 when Ralf’s boat was overturned’.

One thing is agreed on, the height of a swell or wave is measured by the vertical distance from the crest to the adjacent trough. This makes measuring a breaking wave very difficult, as the trough behind the wave is hidden. The true height of a breaking wave is taken from the back, not the front.

So depending on who you talk to, you’ll get a different take on how big a swell or wave is. It’s all relative, and normally, as a diver, I rely on a mixture of warnings from fishermen and comments from surfers who describe the same terrifying swells as ‘sick’ or ‘filthy’!

See the Earth-Touch clip, Dramatic ocean vista.

– By Graeme Duane, Earth-Touch crew

Image © Earth-Touch 2007

The skimmers have returned

After a period of absence from the sandbanks of the Nxamaseri Channel in the Okavango Delta, Botswana, the African skimmers appear to have returned.

The Earth-Touch film crew spotted these endangered birds after it was thought that they had left the Nxamaseri area for the season.

Nineteen eggs were laid but only one chick is believed to have survived and reached fledgling status. However, in the Earth-Touch clip, Return of the skimmers, it seems as though these birds may nest again and hopefully more chicks will survive this time.

Image © Earth-Touch 2007

Did you know? How whales sleep

Whales do not sleep like humans and other mammals do. They do not go into a deep sleep and do not have regular sleeping patterns linked to periods of the day or night.

If they were to fall into a deep sleep they would drown as their breathing pattern is not automatic. As they need to be conscious in order to breathe, whales swim slowly at the water’s surface and take short naps.

During these naps half the brain is asleep while the other half remains awake to regulate breathing.

See whales in the cold Atlantic Ocean, off the South African coast, in some Earth-Touch clips:

Whales at rocky ledge

Dramatic ocean vista

Whales ride the swells

A new view of whales

Close encounter with a leviathan

Bay full of whales

Whale watching

Whales at play

Images © Earth-Touch 2007

Earth-Touch in the Rocky Mountains, USA

Our Earth-Touch crew recently embarked on a journey through northwestern Wyoming, USA, on their way to Yellowstone National Park. In The painted hills you will see parts of the Wind River Indian Reservation, one of the largest in the USA. As they moved further into the northwest the crew filmed breath-taking vistas of the Absaroka and Teton mountain ranges which line the Togwotee Trail. By the fourth day, winter weather was starting to move in, as can be seen in Clouds gather over the peaks.

Image © Earth-Touch

Crocodilians do cry while they eat

The old expression “crying crocodile tears”, meaning false or insincere weeping, was based on the belief that crocodiles cry with fake remorse while tearing into their prey. And there’s some truth in it after all.

Research has now shown that their closest relatives, alligators and caimans, actually do shed tears when eating, though it’s not out of remorse, CBC News and National Geographic News have reported.

A University of Florida zoologist, Kent Vlient, videotaped seven reptiles while they were eating and found that five of them teared up, some even frothing and bubbling in the eyes. The reason crocodiles were not part of the study was that they are difficult to train to eat on land.

As for why these reptiles weep: well, that remains a mystery, but Vlient suspects it may have to do with the way they hiss and huff as they eat.

Findings of the research appear in the journal BioScience.

According to CBC News “the term ‘crocodile tears’ may have gained currency as a result of a passage in a book titled The Voyage and Travel of Sir John Mandeville, first published in 1400 and read widely.”

The passage reads: “In that country be a general plenty of crocodiles … these serpents slay men and they eat them weeping.”

PICTURE: An alligator weeps while eating. Image: Courtesy of Kent Vliet/University of Florida

Did you know? Giant anteater

This odd-looking animal is the largest member of the anteater family. The giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) lives on ants and termites, as its name suggests.

Its long, narrow head houses a long and sticky tongue. Giant anteaters can stick their tongue in and out as many as 150 times a minute. They can eat as many as 35 000 insects a day.

The giant anteater also has long claws on its short legs. These claws can be up to 15cm (6in) long and are used to tear open logs and anthills to get at food. The anteater walks on the sides of its feet with its claws curled up.

See this strange animal in the Brazilian Earth-Touch footage, Anteater on the move.

Image © Earth-Touch 2007

This week’s most viewed stories

The most popular stories on Earth-Touch in the past week (from Friday 12 October to Thursday 18 October 2007) were:

Number 1

A new view of whales

A mother whale wallows gracefully among the rocks close to the shore while her calf, a smaller and clumsier version of herself, ducks and dives nearby.

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Number 2

Trees in spring flush

Though the rain has not yet returned, trees and bushes are starting to show a feathering of small new leaves.

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Number 3

Whales ride the swells

Drifting inshore and close to the kelp beds, whales bob up and down on the incoming Atlantic swells.

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All images © Earth-Touch 2007

Feast for the African black oystercatchers

Rough seas provide lots of feeding opportunities for the African black oystercatcher (Haematopus moquini) as well as other seabirds, as seen in the Earth-Touch clip, Waves clean out rocky inlets.

The pounding waves on South Africa’s Western Cape seashore dislodge kelp and overturn rocks, exposing snails and crabs.

This provides a feast for the locally common African black oystercatcher. These birds use their long beaks to get at mussels and crustaceans.

The species has grown in numbers in the past few years due to alien Mediterranean mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) increasing the food supply on the Southern African coastline.


Images © Earth-Touch 2007

Did You Know? Pantanal

The Pantanal wetland of Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay supports 650 species of birds, 80 species of mammals, 260 fish species and 50 reptile species. It is estimated that there are 10 million caimans here. (See the Earth-Touch clip, Caimans swim and bask.)

But it is also cattle country. Ninety-nine percent of the Pantanal is privately owned and much of this land is used for ranching.

The Pantanal Conservation Complex, a cluster of sites protected by Unesco, makes up 1.3% of the region.

Image courtesy: Wikipedia

Did you know? Seals

There are 33 seal species and they are found only in cold waters or warmer seas that have colder currents washing into them.

Seals have adapted over the ages to survive in these cold conditions. The layer of blubber under their skin is protection from the cold and enables them to swim quickly, giving them a streamlined physique.

It is believed that this aquatic animal evolved from land mammals similar to bears or otters that began swimming in the sea millions of years ago.

Seals return to land or ice to breed and rest.

See Cape fur seals (Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus) swimming in the cold Atlantic Ocean in the Earth-Touch clip, Swimming amongst seals.

Image © Earth-Touch 2007

From bushveld to flood plain – overnight

Filming in Botswana’s Okavango Delta has always presented challenges.

The two major issues are (a) finding one’s way around and (b) actually getting around, both of which have created many interesting, occasionally terrifying and even less often very funny situations.

It’s only (b) that creates problems for Earth-Touch field crew member Brad Bestelink as, unlike me, he was born with an intact and functioning direction-finding mechanism.

I was hopeless in Botswana. The Okavango Delta is an ever-changing expanse of beautiful bushveld and for the first few years I never knew in which direction I was pointing.

I made a breakthrough after about 18 months when I finally figured out where the islands ended and the floodplains started.

It took me a while longer to work out the sand-tongues. This may sound simple but it is not.

My epiphany happened one morning in April. We had spent the evening chatting around the campfire and as usual the talk was about the water – where it was, how soon it would arrive, how high the flood would be. This is always the primary topic of conversation among delta-dwellers.

When I emerged from the tent the next morning I was utterly astounded to see a vast sheet of silver shimmering water where the previous evening there had been nothing but yellow grass. The transformation was extraordinary. Visit the Earth-Touch clip Dawn on the flood plain.

The annual flooding of the delta is not as dramatic an experience as one might envisage. The word “flood” conjures up images of a raging wall of water. In the Okavango the water trickles slowly from north to south, generally travelling at about 9 or 10 metres (30 or 33 ft) a day, but in some areas the transformation can be dramatic.

In this particular location the topography was such that the water rapidly covered the floodplain and we awoke to a lake where hours before no lake had been.

Only then did it become obvious where the islands began and the floodplains ended. Prior to this it had all just looked like bushveld.

Almost incredibly, the islands in the Okavango are created by termites. These little insects carry seeds down into their nests to store as food. If the conditions are good, some of the seeds germinate and become trees, eventually forming small islands which slowly expand over many decades.

– By Andy Crawford, field crew

Image: SUNRISE AT NXAMASERI. The early morning light is reflected on flood waters of the Okavango Delta. © Earth-Touch

Do penguins pick their teams?

Do penguins team up with the same group of individuals when they cross the beach and go fishing? New Scientist reports that researchers led by André Chiaradia of the Phillip Island Nature Park in Victoria, Australia, recorded the groupings of micro-chipped little penguins (Eudyptula minor) over four breeding seasons.

They found that middle-aged birds tended to go fishing with particular partners, but only when there was plenty of food to share and the breeding season had been successful.

The research appears in the journal Animal Behaviour.

Watch the Earth-Touch clip Penguins dive into stormy sea to see groups of African penguins (Spheniscus demersus) crossing the beach and rocks to the sea.

Image, The African penguin © Earth-Touch 2007

At ease with sea creatures

One of the fantastic things you can experience working underwater with a camera, holding your breath, is a feeling of affinity with other big creatures in the sea.

Sharks are one such species, as they’re scared of the sound of scuba (an acronym for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus) and in general don’t care to come close to look at something with a bright yellow steel cylinder on its back. (See the Earth-Touch clips Eyeball to eyeball with a great white shark and Blackfin sharks at close range.)

Recently we’ve seen that whales have an amazing acceptance of humans on breath-hold. To us, it even feels like affection. (See Close encounter with a leviathan.)

Yesterday I had the opportunity to spend some time underwater at the seal colony at Dyer Island, off the Western Cape coast of South Africa.

This experience reinforced my feeling that approaching marine creatures while holding your breath is far less intrusive than any other method, including by boat.

Once I’d jumped overboard, I had to orientate myself as a hundred or so seals swarmed around me to see who this new arrival was that had suddenly dropped into the water, apparently from out of the sky!

I began by diving down to the bottom and lying there, waiting. Before long the seals would congregate around me, and I could shoot up into the sunlight with a ballet of agile bodies writhing above me.

I’d then float up towards the surface and mingle with the females that were floating upside down. They’d let me drift within less than a metre of them before speeding away in a burst of bubbles. I even found one sleeping.

The feeling of being accepted, albeit a little, into a natural environment with a mass of relatively big wild animals is hard to describe. Humbled and privileged are words that spring to mind.

– By Graeme Duane, Earth-Touch crew

Image courtesy: Roger Horrocks

Frogs’ toes inspire sticky tape

Materials scientists have created a strong, reusable adhesive tape which can be removed cleanly. Their inspiration: the toe pads of tree frogs, lizards and crickets, which remain sticky without picking up dust particles.

Dr Animangsu Ghatak and colleagues at the Indian Institute of Technology have reported their work in the journal Science.

The secret is that there are microscopic channel patterns on the surface of frogs’ toe pads, beneath which are fluid vessels. The capillary pressure greatly increases adhesiveness, says Dr Ghatak.

The adhesive tape is an elastic material containing microchannels filled with air or oil.

An earlier study reported by the BBC found that tiny bumps on frogs’ toes create direct friction with surfaces, protruding through the thin mucus on the amphibians’ feet.

Another tape has been developed in the past, based on a different kind of adhesive mechanism: tiny, hairlike structures on geckos’ toes.

Red-eyed tree frog picture: Courtesy Wikipedia

Blog action day

The natural environment around us is not only the lifeblood of Earth-Touch, we feel it’s also the lifeblood of the planet.

Unfortunately, elsewhere, film-makers sometimes compromise their principles by harming the environment they are in to get that important piece of footage they need.

We’ve heard all sorts of stories – from simple things like trees being cut down to rare birds having their nests disturbed, in the name of getting that prize-winning shot.

Sadly, this behaviour is not rare, nor does it seem to arouse the kind of universal outrage that it should.

This is not the way we do things at Earth-Touch. Instead of talking about how we need to protect our natural environment, we have published our Code of Conduct which clearly spells out how every writer, photographer, film-maker, editor and member of staff is committed to respecting and preserving the environment.

When you see wildlife footage on www.earth-touch.com you see real life, without harming the natural environment.

We welcome the topic of Blog Action Day 2007 and encourage all our readers and subscribers to get involved. Fifteen thousand blogs and 12 million readers can surely make a difference in working towards a better future.

- by Brian Palmer, Earth-Touch

Did you know? Red-billed oxpecker

Red-billed oxpeckers (Buphagus erythrorhynchus) live off the ticks and mites that they pick off the skin of their mammalian hosts, to which they cling with their short legs and sharp claws.

But not all species welcome their presence: elephants in good health reject oxpeckers, and even giraffe, warthog, waterbuck and impala, which are common hosts, will sometimes toss their heads and shake their bodies to dislodge these birds.

See if you can spot the single oxpecker riding on a kudu’s back in Frog chorus.

Image Lee R Berger. Creative Commons, some rights reserved

Did You Know? Hermit crabs borrow shells

Hermit crabs live in the cast-off shells of other creatures. The abdomen of these crabs is soft and twisted, an adaptation enabling them to fit into shells.

As the crab grows it becomes too big for its shell and has to find a bigger one. This is particularly important for the females, which require extra space to carry eggs.

It is for this reason that intense competition for shells occurs. Large shells are thoroughly examined by hermit crabs to check for size and whether another crab has already moved in.

See these crabs searching for food in a rock pool on Pearly Beach, Western Cape, South Africa in the clip, Hermit crabs scuttle in rock pool.

Hermit crab picture: Courtesy Wikipedia

Blowing hard: Wind and whales

Working as a videographer in the whale season can be quite difficult or quite easy, depending on where you are and the conditions in your chosen location.

Working with a whale in the water has its practical and ethical challenges, and getting out with good footage and a story without disturbing the whale (or other people) is an art.

Since arriving at Gansbaai, on the eastern side of Walker Bay on the Western Cape coast of South Africa, I’ve been doing a lot of land-based whale filming. (See Peaceful whales in Walker Bay.)

If the conditions are right you can get really good sequences of the southern rights and their calves. The rock ledges offer good vantage points to get relatively close to the animals without disturbing them at all.

The one danger in working on the ledge is that one has to do some rock climbing to reach the desired vantage point. Easier said than done with a 12kg (26lb) tripod and a camera worth more than my house strapped to my back.

On a calm day this is all good and well, but when the wind howls (as it often does in this part of the world) it becomes more difficult.

The 40x zoom lens suddenly becomes a fluttering, uncontrollable machine in your hands. You hold your breath for entire extended sequences just to try to brace the camera against the buffeting of the wind.

Even the slightest breeze, if gusting at the wrong moment, can upset a great, dramatic interlude with a lumbering cetacean.

However, the drama of the surrounding scenery more than compensates for these problems, and between three-minute breath-holds (which are good training for free-diving) you can take in a landscape that seems to continually challenge you.

By Graeme Duane, field crew

Image: © Earth-Touch

This week’s most viewed stories

The most popular stories on Earth-Touch in the past week (from Friday 05 October to Thursday 11 October 2007) were:

Number 1

Elephants take a shower

Two bull elephants take their time to drink and shower themselves with mud, rumbling contentedly as they amble around between the waterholes.

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Number 2

Giant otters frolic

The Brazilian Pantanal reveals a rare sight as a family of giant otters flit about in the water, popping their heads out from time to time to check on their surroundings.

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Number 3

Life teems in the kelp forest

In the icy water, kelp fronds harbour all sorts of fish and invertebrates, protecting them from predators.

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All images © Earth-Touch 2007

A shock to the system

An electrified fence runs around the perimeter of the Makgadikgadi and Nxai Pans National Park in central Botswana. It is standard practice to have fences of this nature around national parks. They demarcate boundaries and are multi-functional as they protect wild animals from outside interference and prevent domestic animals from straying into the protected areas.

To be effective, the fences need to be strong enough to discourage large game from crashing through. They deliver a whopping 9 000 volt electric shock. Any living creature touching the fence wires will be jarringly discouraged from ever doing so again.

There are various gates and points of entrance through the fence and into the park. Visitors entering through gates other than the official, staffed park entrances have to have steady hands and nerves of steel.

They have to open the metal gate themselves by carefully putting a hand through the strands of exposed electric wires, holding on to an insulated grip, undoing a locking mechanism and removing the chain that secures the closed gate. The gates must remain secured at all times so this process has to be repeated in reverse once they are through.

Not for the faint-hearted or clumsy.

The following incident relating to the fence was told to me by Liam Westell, a gap year UK volunteer working at Meno A Kwena, a private, licensed tourist venue operating within the confines of the fenced reserve.

Recently a group of employees from the camp arrived at the gate. They had been on an excursion and were returning to the main site. Some of these employees are from nearby villages and have local knowledge and survival skills handed down to them from generation to generation. Their game-tracking abilities are invaluable and legendary and their services at the camp include guiding tourists and accompanying them on game drives.

When the employees arrived at the gate, the area was deserted. But they started to fall about, laughing. Clearly there had been an incident at the gate.

As experienced trackers, it was obvious to them that the person to have passed through the gate most recently had made an unfortunate acquaintance with the exposed electric wires and undergone a hair-raising and probably mind-jolting experience.

They could read the hapless visitor’s animated footprints and scuffles, left in the soft sand around the gate.

Drawing on their tracking skills, they were able to reconstruct the electrifying involuntary dance that had taken place on the spot as 9 000 volts had flowed through that person’s body.

Clearly, ancient skills still have many functions in contemporary society.

I never did find out the identity of what I see as the wide-eyed, recharged, speechless and somewhat rattled visitor who would have finally managed to stagger into the main camp site.

By Pierre Minnie, field crew

Image: Noah Bulgaria, some rights reserved

Buzz off, elephants

African elephants have less and less room to live in, as people move into their territory. This creates the potential for conflict, especially when the animals destroy farmers’ crops.

Researchers at Oxford University performed an experiment in Kenya to see whether African honeybees (Apis mellifera scutellata) could be used to deter elephants from a particular area.

In the experiment, most elephants moved away when they heard the buzz of disturbed bees, recorded and played over loudspeakers.

Lead researcher Lucy King and her colleagues found that the elephants responded within seconds. The only group of elephants not to respond was a young family, possibly because they had not experienced a bee attack before.

The research is reported in the scientific journal Current Biology.

There are problems with the deterrent idea, however, as the BBC reports: poor farmers can’t set up expensive sound systems; and elephants would learn that they weren’t going to get stung.

Image © Earth-Touch 2007

Our 250th story hits the site!

Today Earth-Touch published its 250th story, Seabirds forage in the intertidal zone.

Of the total number of stories published so far, about half have been coastal or marine stories and the rest have come from deserts, jungles, wetlands, tropical rainforests, mangrove swamps, dune forests, mountains, canyons and woodlands.

The stars of the shows include nearly 100 different species of birds, mammals, fish, reptiles and invertebrates.

We’ve witnessed ocean storms, windswept beaches, floods, drought-stricken deserts, dried-up river beds, spring rains, chilly winter scenes, and days of just.....perfect weather.

Our smallest star has been the leaf-cutter ant of the Amazon Basin, and our biggest the southern right whale. The rarest creatures we’ve spotted so far were the giant otters filmed in Brazil’s Pantanal.

And, arguably, we’ve barely scratched the surface!

By Reina Luck, editorial team

Image: Kelp washed up on beach © Earth-Touch

What happened to the skimmers?

Much to everyone’s surprise, the migratory African skimmers have already left the sandbank at Nxamaseri in the Okavango Delta, where they were nesting and attempting to raise their chicks. This abrupt departure brings to an end a spectacularly unsuccessful season for the endangered birds.

The number of skimmers that arrive to nest on the sandbank fluctuates from year to year. In 2004 a single pair set up home and raised a single chick. In 2005 four pairs managed to fledge three chicks in total. A good year followed, with five pairs nesting and 16 chicks surviving in 2006. This year, of the seven pairs that laid 19 eggs, only one pair managed to see one chick to adulthood.

This dismal survival rate gives us an inkling as to why they are endangered. Their nests are mere indentations in the sand, not protected at all from the elements and at the mercy of predators. On numerous occasions we saw crocodile or monitor lizard drag marks near and sometimes even right over the nests.

In addition to this, the high mortality rate this year could have been due to the particularly high water this season. The fact that the water didn’t drop to its usual level meant that fewer sandbanks were exposed. The repercussions of this were that a greater number of skimmers had to depend on the Nxamaseri sandbank, resulting in increased crowding and competition. See Tension mounts on skimmer bank.

There were fewer sandbanks for the crocodiles to bask on, too, making the skimmer bank an attractive option for the reptiles.

The high water level also contributed to the erosion and collapse of the sandbank walls. These steep edges created perilous obstacles for the tiny chicks, many of which plunged off the edge and could not get back to their nests, as can be seen in Nature takes its course.

On occasion a pair will lay another batch of eggs once their first batch has either failed or hatched and fledged. None of the birds did so this year. Instead, they left well before they usually do.

By Andy Crawford, field crew

Image: © Earth-Touch

Life in the ice

Plant and animal life has been present in Antarctica over millions of years of glacial cycles, reports the journal Science.

It used to be thought that tiny creatures and plants on the icy continent moved in during periods of relative climate warmth and were wiped out in the ice ages.

Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey and Massey University, New Zealand now say fossil and biological evidence suggests that these forms of life evolved there.

ANTARCTIC SPRINGTAIL (Cryptopygus antarcticus), one of the most successful terrestrial arthropods to have colonised the Antarctic continent.
Image: Pete Bucktrout, British Antarctic Survey

Did you know? Pythons as incubators

Although snakes are cold-blooded creatures, the female southern African python (Python natalensis) is able to raise her body temperature and regulate it to within a few degrees of the required 30ºC (86ºF) throughout the incubation period of her eggs (65 to 80 days). During this time she seldom leaves the nest.

To view an encounter with a python in the Kalahari Desert, click on Python regurgitates bird.

Image © Earth-Touch

New footage from Brazil

Earth-Touch has already published footage from the expedition crew in Ecuador. The same crew also went to the Pantanal wetlands in Brazil and Earth-Touch is now publishing that material.

The first clip was filmed on the Paraguay River. The crew was lucky enough to encounter a group of endangered giant otters.

Keep watching the site for more from Brazil.

Image © Earth-Touch

Cycad’s scent secret revealed

Cycads reproduce when pollen from male cones is transported to female cones. But an Australian species, Macrozamia lucida, has cone scales too close together to allow wind pollination. It relies instead on an insect called thrips eating the male pollen and carrying some of it inadvertently to female cones.

Researchers have now found out why the insects go the female cones, reports New Scientist.

During the four-week pollination period, the temperature in the male cones rises and the stronger-than-usual odour they produce as a result drives the thrips away to the less smelly female cones. Low levels of the odour attract the insect and high levels repel them.

Image: Irene Terry, University of Utah