Canada Goose

Swans, geese and ducks are also known as the waterfowls, which means they are birds that spend their lives on or near water for a living. Because they are waterfowls, or water birds (that is if you're putting words into direct meaning.), that puts them in a typical physical appearance, which includes flat, shovel-shaped beaks, webbed feet and waterproof feathers. Most of the waterfowls get their food either from the water itself or from underwater mud, except for geese, who are exceptions to this rule - they feed on land, pulling up grass and plants with their beaks.

Most waterfowls nest on the ground, and their chicks can swim just only a few hours after they are hatched. There are more than 150 species of these birds. Ducks are found all over the world, but most geese live in the Northern Hemisphere and breed in the Arctic.

Now the Canadian Goose is a handsome goose has a brown and white body and a black head, with white "chinstrap" on its throat. It breeds near lakes and in wetlands throughout Canada and the Northern United States, and its size varies according to where it lives. The largest geese, from the American Great Plains and be seven times heavier than the ones in Alaska - a record difference for the same species of bird. In the early evening, Canada Geese usually return to water to roost. They make a loud, honking noise as they fly.

Migrating birds, or gees, also have a ranking status while flying, the leader always is the head of a upside down V shape, or the front of a whatever shape the flock might form, depending of the group number, and the rank follows to the end whereas the lowest or the least experienced ones wrap up the rear.

The Canadian Geese's distribution are in the North America, but then introduced into Northern Europe and New Zealand and their size can go up to 3.5 ft or 1.1 m long.

Snake: The Anaconda

The photo is taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Green-anaconda.jpg

The fear or adoration for snakes rooted way back from the beginning of time. Not only that, snakes are a symbol of the devil in the Biblical sense. Satan, the most beautiful angel amongst all angels, took the form of a snake and decided to tempt Adam and Eve to take the fruit of knowledge back in the day when God created them as first humans. Amongst of all snakes, the anaconda is one of the largest and heaviest snakes on earth.

Although scientists don't know the exact maximum length of an anaconda (since they tend to grow until to their death.), but it has been recorded of a massive size of 28 ft. (8.6m) long and can weigh up to 450 lbs. A new born baby is already a hugely over-sized 3 ft. (1 m) long! Their location is in tropical Sough America, so people don't have to worry about those big snakes in other regions.

When anacondas and humans clash together can indeed be quite dangerous, and there are some incidents when one of those huge snakes swallows a human, but those attacks are very rare. When attacking a prey, usually aquatic animals, including fish, river fowl, cayman, and capybaras, the anacondas use their super strength muscles through out their whole body to wrap around the animal and strangle them to death or faint. How in details? Well, each exhale of a prey gives out, the tighter the snake wraps... well, you know the ending of this story. Imagine when a prey just faints and then wakes up in the stomach of a snake's belly? It's a slow and painful death!

Anyway! Here comes a new fun fact about hunting for anacondas, the most common knowledge that we have is that preys die from lack of oxygen because they were strangled, which is true! But since strangling can cause blood pressure to rise quickly, and a lot of times preys die from high blood pressure or a stroke.

Snakes do regurgitate when they feel they are threatened, but it's unlikely they will do that very often due to conserving energy. It's hard to get a meal in the wild, so unless the threat is definite, they will continue their meal. Besides, it's even a harder work throwing up than swallowing for them and, also, their teeth are hooked backwards and snakes don't like to risk damage to their teeth.

Giraffe

This photo is taken from www.flickr.com/photos/hypergurl/3757726776/

"Riddle me this, riddle me that..." This is a quote from the villain character, The Riddler, from Batman. Unlike Riddler, I'm not evil, but like him, I am indeed going to give you an enigma for you to guess. Here are the clues:

1) It has 7 very long neck bones. (Every mammal has 7 neck bones, from a small rat to a big elephant.)

2) It has such high blood pressure that if humans have it, we will die from high it.

3) Its hoofs are so powerful that a fully developed male lion can die from just one kick from this animal.

4) It lives in Africa.

5) It has a leopard's spots.

6) It is a herbivore, which means it eats grass and leaves.

Give up yet? Well, the answer is the "Giraffe"! Anyway, the average weight for an adult male giraffe is about 1,200 kilograms (2,600 lb) while the average weight for an adult female is 830 kilograms (1,800 lb). It is approximately 4.3 meters (14 ft) to 5.2 meters (17 ft) tall, although the tallest male recorded stood almost 6 meters (20 ft).

Although giraffes in the wild have a lifespan close to 13 years, but those in captivity can live up to 25 years, considering the fact it's a harder life in the wild.

Can you imagine if your arms are 10% longer than your legs? Well, that's how it is with giraffes, their front legs are longer than their hind legs and they walk like a camel!! What I meant was, unlike dogs, who walk something like front right paw first, then hind left paw, fallowed by left front paw and right hind paw wraps it up; where as giraffes walk like right front and right back walk together and then fallowed by left front and left back. That's kind of like a moon walk for me.

As we all know that we have women's group in the human society to support women. Giraffes also have them, female giraffes associate in groups of a dozen or so members, occasionally including a few younger males. Younger males tend to live in "bachelor" herds, with older males often leading solitary lives.

When it comes to pregnancy, giraffe's pregnancy period lasts between 400 and 460 days, after which a single calf is normally born, although twins do occasionally occur. The mother gives birth standing up and the embryonic sack usually bursts when the baby falls to the ground. Newborn giraffes are about 1.8 m (6 ft) tall. Only about 25 to 50% of giraffe calves reach adulthood.

Rabbit Diary III

I finally caught Regular eating apples, it is really cute, if you listen carefully, you could actually hear the sound of it chewing on its food.

But these days I found that he became a scared rabbit, even with me! I have no idea why it became so nervous.I guess I need to approach it more often again.

Rabbit Diary Part II

The photo is Regular resting in our front yard, now there is a spot that's concaved like a small whole big enough for an adult rabbit. It was dug mostly by Regular and I think Baldie helped as well.

I didn't realize how rabbits can be quite smart until yesterday. I had some apple slices yesterday for both Baldie and Regular as usual, and you know what happened? Regular just took the apple slice away from my hand and took it a couple of feet away from me like how a dog would usually do if not wanting to be disturbed while eating! Same thing happened to Baldie as well just last week.

But it seems to me that although I approached Regular first and it trusted me and ate from my hand first, but it seems like Baldie is more relaxed around me than Regular. Oh, well! I guess it's their personality as rabbits. I read on a book saying that rabbits do know who is friendly and who is mean, it's just that they are more independent and not as attachable as dogs do. I guess I'm ok with it.

One thing I'm happy that now I reached my hand out to move the apple slices which are near the rabbits and they don't scare as easily as before! Hey, would I be Mama Bunny in the future with like 10 rabbits in our yards?

Bunny Diary

This photo is taken from Image Search.

Good news, everyone! Baldie, Regular (the rabbit that came often before.) and a new comer, which I called "Rolly", came last Tuesday. And I have found out an interesting story about those threesome.

As you readers might know that Regular came to our backyard first, also the longest and, of course, which I have been in contact from the start. For a while I was wondering where Regular had gone since I haven't seen it for a few weeks, since it came to visit our backyard almost daily before. Now seeing all three together, I gathered information and pieced together a possibility.

For those who are animal lovers, we all know that there is a ranking system and also a territorial claiming in the animal kingdom (this exists even in human society as well.), now Regular was the "claimer" of our front and back yard but when Boldie came along, Baldie must have fought Regular for this territory and lost a patch of fur on its side but it won, so Baldie became the new land owner. *By the way, just a little note on the side, I think Baldie is younger than Regular, that's probably also the reason why it won and the both rabbit could be males.* So now, Rolly, the possible female, came and joined the clan to meet up with the new "tycoon", or at least I hope.

So now, whenever Baldie shows up to eat the fruit that I put out, Regular seems to be nervous and has to wait until Baldie finishes before it's Regular's turn to feed. By seeing that, I just simply just put the fruit in two different sides so both rabbits can eat at the same time.

A New Rabbit.

There is a new rabbit that's been coming to our yard these days that I've been observing and trying to get close to it, which, by the way, is going on pretty well. Just like the previous one, the new rabbit was very nervous in the beginning on what I was going to do. It even ran away from me just because I scratched my nose or slowly waved my hand to get rid of a fly. Just last week I tried to move closer to it while it was eating a piece of banana but when I came to a certain point that the rabbit thought I was too close, it froze, and I froze with it. Then it gave it a huge "thump" on the ground and bolted a few steps away from me. It was cute! Now I know why some people name their pet rabbit "Thumper", because they truly thump!


Anyway, I call this new rabbit "Baldie", the reason I call it that is because it is missing a bit of fur on its side, which kind of concerns me for few reasons:

1) Has it been biting its fur off by its own?

2) Could the loss of fur is caused by fighting and the opponent bit the fur off?

3) Is it a rash that caused the problem? If that's the case, I really hope one day the rabbit really trusts me to let me hold it and take it to a vet in order to have a look.

You know some? Baldie came again today and it is starting to trust me just like the previous one, although it was hesitating weather it should eat from my hand or not, but it was very near me, looking at me from side to side just a couple of feet away from me. I guessed it wasn't ready to get near me yet, so I just put the banana on the floor and backed away a bit so it can come closer and eat it in a more relaxed energy.

Speaking of rabbits, I really do wonder where the previous rabbit is, it had a bit of a missing piece on its left ear, hmm... I hope nothing bad comes to that bunny.

PS. Sorry that I had to use the same picture twice, I haven't gotten the chance to take Baldie's picture yet. I'll have wait for a little while longer in order not to scare it with my camera in its face.