Saturday, 6 April 2019
Friday, 5 April 2019
18-11-2017 HANNINGFIELD RESERVOIR, ESSEX - GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER (Dendrocopos major)
%2030.jpg)
The great spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopos major) is a medium-sized woodpecker with pied black and white plumage and a red patch on the lower belly. Males and young birds also have red markings on the neck or head. This species is found across the Palearctic including parts of North Africa. Across most of its range it is resident, but in the north some will migrate if the conifer cone crop fails. Some individuals have a tendency to wander, leading to the recolonisation of Ireland in the first decade of the 21st century and to vagrancy to North America. Great spotted woodpeckers chisel into trees to find food or excavate nest holes, and also drum for contact and territorial advertisement; like other woodpeckers, they have anatomical adaptations to manage the physical stresses from the hammering action. This species is similar to the Syrian woodpecker.
%2010.jpg)
This woodpecker occurs in all types of woodlands and eats a variety of foods, being capable of extracting seeds from pine cones, insect larvae from inside trees or eggs and chicks of other birds from their nests. It breeds in holes excavated in living or dead trees, unlined apart from wood chips. The typical clutch is four to six glossy white eggs. Both parents incubate the eggs, feed the chicks, and keep the nest clean. When the young fledge they are fed by the adults for about ten days, each parent taking responsibility for feeding part of the brood.
The species is closely related to some other members of its genus. It has a number of subspecies, some of which are distinctive enough to be potential new species. It has a huge range and large population, with no widespread threats, so it is classed as a species of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
%2020.jpg)
Thursday, 4 April 2019
Wednesday, 3 April 2019
Tuesday, 2 April 2019
30-3-2018 KNYSNA, SOUTH AFRICA - BLACK EYED SUSAN VINE (Thunbergia alata)
Thunbergia alata, commonly called black-eyed Susan vine, is a herbaceous perennial climbing plant species in the family Acanthaceae. It is native to Eastern Africa, and has been naturalized in other parts of the world.
It is grown as an ornamental plant in gardens and in hanging baskets. The name 'Black-eyed Susan' is thought to have come from a character that figures in many traditional ballads and songs. In the Ballad of Black-eyed Susan by John Gay, Susan goes aboard a ship in-dock to ask the sailors where her lover Sweet William has gone. Black-eyed Susan is also a name given to other species of flowers in the genus Rudbeckia.
The plant is originally from East Africa, and has almost a world distribution including tropical and subtropical areas like China, eastern Australia, Hawaii, Southern US in the states of Texas and Florida, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Mexico, South Africa, Portugal, Japan, New Zealand, Cerrado vegetation of Brazil, Argentina, Madagascar, India, Thailand and Philippines, among others.
It is used all around the world as a garden plant, but has managed to "escape" to the wilderness, naturalizing in tropical and temperate forests. It has been widely reported as Invasive species, especially in the Caribbean and Pacific islands, from Mexico to Colombia, and in Japan, due to the fast growing of the plant; the ease of wild pollination during sporadic flowering times; its vine-growing strategies that strangle or create shadow on other plants; its difficulty to eradicate by hand (as it leaves underground rhizomes that rapidly grow back); its lack of usual predators in non native regions; plus, people who are unaware of its harmful nature to other plants in the wilderness tend to admire its beauty and might opt not to remove it.
Sunday, 31 March 2019
Saturday, 30 March 2019
Friday, 29 March 2019
30-11-2015 SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA - COMMON EVENING BROWN BUTTERFLY (Melanitis leda)
Melanitis leda, the common evening brown, is a common species of butterfly found flying at dusk. The flight of this species is erratic. They are found in Africa, South Asia and South-east Asia extending to parts of Australia.
Wet-season form: Forewing: apex subacute; termen slightly angulated just below apex, or straight. Upperside brown. Forewing with two large subapical black spots, each with a smaller spot outwardly of pure white inwardly bordered by a ferruginous interrupted lunule; costal margin narrowly pale. Hindwing with a dark, white-centred, fulvous-ringed ocellus subterminally in interspace two, and the apical ocellus, sometimes also others of the ocelli, on the underside, showing through.
Underside paler, densely covered with transverse dark brown striae; a discal curved dark brown narrow band on forewing; a post-discal similar oblique band, followed by a series of ocelli: four on the forewing, that in interspace 8 the largest; six on the hindwing, the apical and subtornal the largest.
Dry-season form: Forewing: apex obtuse and more or less falcate; termen posterior to falcation straight or sinuous. Upperside: ground colour similar to that in the wet-season form, the markings, especially the ferruginous lunules inwardly bordering the black sub-apical spots on forewing, larger, more extended below and above the black costa. Hindwing: the ocellus in interspace 2 absent, posteriorly replaced by three or four minute white subterminal spots.
Underside varies in colour greatly. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen in both seasonal forms brown or greyish brown: the antennae annulated with white, ochraceous at apex.
26-11-2015 BOTANICAL GARDENS, SINGAPORE - PINK WATER LILY (Nymphaea rubra)
Nymphaea rubra is a species of waterlily native to the region spanning from Sri Lanka and northeastern India to western and central Malesia. Additionally, it has been introduced to regions such as Southeast China, Cuba, Guyana, Hungary, and Suriname.
Nymphaea rubra has 15.1 cm long, and 7.9 cm wide rhizomes. The petiolate, orbicular leaves are 25–48 cm wide. The adaxial leaf surface is bronzy red to dark green, and the abaxial leaf surface is dark purple. The leaf venation is very prominent. The petiole is 140 cm long.
%2010.jpg)
The flowers are 15–25 cm wide. The four purplish-red sepals are oblong to lanceolate. The 12-20 narrowly oval petals have a rounded apex. The androecium consists of 55 red stamens. The gynoecium consists of 16-21 carpels. The fruit bears 1.85 mm long, and 1.6 mm wide seeds. The peduncle is 116 cm long. The flowers are pleasantly fragrant.
One case of the development of a proliferating pseudanthia has been reported for a Nymphaea rubra specimen cultivated in the Botanical Garden of the University of Heidelberg, Germany in 1886.
Nymphaea rubra may reproduce an apomictically.
It occurs in rivers, lakes, and ponds.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)