Monday, April 18, 2011

Unusual Finds in our Backyard

I am trying to look for critters from my files,  as my beloved blogger friend One, likes them. I am not that good in getting small critters photos with handheld camera, and i don't bring a tripod during walks. So here are what i found one weekend.

 raintree (Samanea saman)
This is a big raintree near our property in the province. The small road passes under its canopy. It is home to many birds, butterflies and insects. We also love to stay under it when watching other birds in the vicinity. There is also a mini 2nd growth forest nearby. We noticed that when this crows are there, the other smaller birds go away. And i am sure the little birds cannot make their nest on the tree because the crows will eat their eggs as they do with our chicken eggs and chicks when my mother is not around. These are already nuisance in our area.
 Large billed crow or jungle crow (Corvus macrorhynchos)


 Oriental magpie robin (Copsychus saularis)

This bird comes down to the ground often, and very near our house. It has several kinds of tweets, and my niece can immitate a few of its songs. A pair has been roosting at the eaves of our house for already a few years. They brought a young one along sometime but our male cat did not let it pass unnoticed. We just saw some leftover feathers nearby one morning.  
 Female cow

This cow is normally tithered among the weeds and bushes. Its color caught my attention, as it looks so dirty from afar. Approaching it i realized the prints are actually its normal skin design. I suppose its parents are dark brown and light brown, or black and brown. However, the mixture did not homogenize properly resulting in the dirty look it now has! hahaha


 anole

One morning I immediately approached my 10-yr old nephew calling me frantically for something which the dog has been barking on. It turned out to be this anole. When i finally arrive, the dog thought it was a dangerous creature and immediately killed it. My nephew was so guilty and so sorry for the anole, which he thought died because of his loud calls to me. The dog misinterpreted him to be calling for help. I am so sorry to, but the dog has a mind of its own! His primary purpose is to protect us, he just did his role, oh how sweet! So I told my nephew to just be calm whenever he saw something unusual, or he should just whistle as our signal that i should see something nearby.

Then i found this green spider luminiscing with the light. However, i cannot get a better photo as it is near the ground. I also do not know its name.

If only i have a macro lens for the small creatures, and a telephoto lens for the birds, lovelier photos will manifest from our walks during weekends. 

17 comments:

  1. Thank you for the shout out. I've just found that One is being mentioned in Kebun Malay Kadazan Girl, My Little Potted Garden, The Sundial Garden and also several times in Andrea in this Lifetime. What did she do to deserve this? Hmmm... To thank you all, maybe I should send some critters over.

    Actually I thought the cow has tiger skin. See the orange skin with black stripes? You cannot be sure how its ancestors look like. Just look at my dogs.

    I bring my dogs for walks in the mornings. Now and then they will spot a vole and go after it. Tell your nephew that I did not scream for Andrea when the dogs decided to catch the mouse. Today they caught one again outside my neighbour's house. Sometimes they fail and end up chasing the vole into someone's house.

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  2. Hahaha, you really put some fun in everything and i always like it that way. Maybe a lot of us are awed by One's post, so you deserve the mentions. I hope it brings some commenters to your post. In my case whenever i go to someone's post from another site, I normally mention the name where i came from. But our genetics subject taught us the basis of color segregation in reproduction! However, maybe i am not really a good student. But i know the basic Mendelian Law of Segregation, hahaha! Someone there might laugh at this too.

    If i tell you what else our dogs killed, you will screeach! Thanks for the early comment. haha.

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  3. Andrea,
    That Oriental magpie robin is very neat never heard of it before. Nice find,

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  4. Poor anole but cute sorry about the boy screaming. One is on Donna's (Gardens Eye View)post today too. She gets around.

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  5. Well you caught some good critters indeed. The crows are neat.

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  6. Really great photo shots. Really different area. Thanks.
    Cher
    Goldenray Yorkies

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  7. Your pictures tell me that our world is so beautiful. These are the creatures that share our Mother Earth.

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  8. Hi Andrea, Even without the fancy lenses, you have some fabulous pictures of the 'critters' in your area... Love that little Robin.

    Thanks for sharing.. We have those big crows here..
    Hugs,
    Betsy

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  9. Love that spider. I have been missing some spiders in my garden this year. Don't know if they have moved on, or if the birds have eaten them!

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  10. What a great variety of creatures, big and small. Crows are a nuisance here too, but your robin is really lovely.

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  11. Fascinating green spider. I think we need to fatten up that cow! Great pics and I always enjoy your writing style.

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  12. That is a beautiful cow. I like that look in dogs too!

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  13. So there's a murder going on in your place... a murder of crows... hehehe.

    Pardon my ignorance but what it the Filipino equivalent for 'anole' and 'raintree'?

    I have to admit, growing up in the city the closest creature to anole I've seen is the 'butiki'.

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  14. You took very good photos of critters. I found very difficult to capture any spider web pictures. You did a good job!

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  15. Randy - high, the word for it in the dialect is 'Maria kapra', which is actually the pied fantail. Ours does not fan its tail, so i looked for the nearest equivalent and i settled for the Oriental magpie robin.

    Donna - we always feel sorry for any living thing that dies, even the hairy, itchy, unwanted caterpillars, which mother torched!

    Tina - haha, i got the biggest critters! thanks

    Sunray Gardening - we are in the hot and humid tropics, our country is one of the few megadiversity areas of the world. thanks for your visit.

    Autumn Belle - i tried to show you some unusual, uncommonly blogged about creatures! I also put the honest happenings as i experienced them, and see them, even put my feelings!

    Betsy - thanks for appreciating my photos without the appropriate lenses! I hope to have your lenses too in the future.

    HolleyGarden - maybe your spiders have life cycles too, am not really familiar also with spiders.

    Masha - thanks for appreciating our local inhabitants, haha! Those crows are nuisance but i love to watch them, and their ingenious tricks.

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  16. Kate - yes that cow is really a bit deprived. It's dry season and grasses are not really much available, besides, the owner maybe is not really that industrious in feeding her! haha.

    Mud - oh, i haven't seen that design in dogs, that is very uncommon!

    SR - i didn't say there is murder going on here, haha! Crows are creatures you cannot just kill, they are the most intelligent of the birds, and their vision is counted in kilometers! Even if my mother wants to kill them, she just can't.

    Ami - thanks for appreciating the photos, that spider photo is far from my best, haha! Joke, but actually if posted a better spider web few months ago much better than that!

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  17. Cool shots Andrea. I take it these are not from the city. Crows?

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Your comments inspire me to post more, and our conversations make life and gardening more meaningful.

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