“Life In The So-Called Space Age”
Remember in yesterdays post when I mentioned making a timelapse video of the camera photos? Well I did something clever:
That’s about half of the photos compiled into a timelapse video! About 6 days separates the first and last shot.
Toward the end you can see two frames of a furry rogue being very close to the camera! Very shortly after those photos the camera was knocked over, which is why the viewing angle changes afterwards 🙂
Ok fellows, time again for some candid camera backyard snaps! This entry is a good one…
Firstly, I set the camera up leaning against our house looking directly in the backyard onto the grass. I left it there for a few days and… almost no animal photos! However, by sheer coincidence our backyard neighbour was having a tree removed during this period and the entire process was captured in about 300 photos 🙂
Interesting… but not furry! However this next one – one of the very few animal shots captured during that period, is most definitely interesting:
Now I’m no zoologist, but that to me looks like either:
a) A bear
b) A cougar
c) A thylacine
Sadly, with no further photos of the mysterious beast, accurate identification may remain elusive.
I then moved the camera, placing it on the patio angled toward the tree you see in the right side of the above pictures. Here was the new vista when moved:
This was a good spot! It seems this little tree sits atop a backyard highway, since over the next few days many types of beast wandered into shot. I’ll not show the usual suspects (squirrels, birds) and focus on two visitors.
Here’s a rabbit hopping into view:
And here, my friends, is an up-until-now elusive opossum:
Look at that ratty tail and pointed snout. Could this be the same guy I saw with my own eyes years ago?
Now we cut to about a week later (ignore the date stamp on the photos; I never bother to set it when). For Christmas we received a brand new squirrel feeder. It is a wheel on an axel that rotates freely and has place to put three corn cobs. In addition, I purchased a different feeder myself, which hangs a food block off a spring. About two weeks ago we installed these and set a camera on them. Here’s an establishing shot:
300 photos would be captured in this spot, about 90% of them containing squirrels making use of their feeders. Here’s two examples:
The photos not containing squirrels fall into two categories:
1) Night photos, that almost always contain only deer, and
2) Photos of birds
Here is a night example:
And here is a bird example:
That’s a bluejay. We have yet to see any squirrels attempt to feed from the new hanging feeder (as opposed to the corncob feeder hanging behind it). I think it may be too far from the branch.
By the way, compare the lushness of the greenery in the above shot to the establishing shot above. Only six days separate the two. Next year I should do a timelapse in early spring to show the growth of the trees and ferns.
Now we get to the good stuff, as in the really good stuff. I also moved the camera to look directly at the rotating feeder, and switched it over to video mode. It was set to record 30 second clips, and during the very first night hit the jackpot. Here are four such clips edited together:
Yes, that’s a raccoon! Possibly the same guy we captured in a photo a few weeks back. According to the timestamps, he was there for about 14 minutes in total. Cute little bugger, isn’t he? 🙂
So the list is squirrels, chipmunks, deer, birds, cats, rabbits, opossum and raccoons that we have caught on our cameras over the years. We know of three other mammals we know to visit our backyard that have still not been captured on film. Will I ever see them? Can you guess what they are?
Back when I was at the Reptile Park, I overheard a parent answer a child’s question “What is a platypus?” with “It’s a type of fish”. At the time I was amazed, and remembered the moment yesterday when I overheard this:
Child: “What *is* a dinosaur?”
Dad: “It’s like a giraffe”
The mind boggles!
Dinosaurs?! These are an installation at Taronga Zoo, which I visited yesterday. They’ve got about a dozen large animatronic dinos scattered around the zoo. I was impressed but the kids were just berserk with joy, especially when they roared or in one case sprayed water 🙂
It had been a couple of years since I’d visited the zoo and either it has seen changes or my memory has gone since I was surprised by how different it seemed. Furthermore I arrived at opening, and since there had been a light rain earlier, the animals were very active.
That’s one of the ‘babies’. He seemed quite interested in me!
A sailfin lizard, a close relative of the Jesus Christ Lizard. This big guy can also run across water! They also had an actual JC lizard in a nearby enclosure.
Looks like a rooster doesn’t it? It’s actually The Lord of all Roosters, aka an African Red Fowl, which is the ancestor of all common chickens. This one had escaped his enclosure, and was crowing like a king.
My $15 lunch. I would later buy a $5 magnum ice cream and a $4 bottle of lift. Believe it or not I didn’t think these prices outrageous, since food is expensive here everywhere!
The free flight bird show here is very special since it uses only Australian birds. After it was over I handed a $2 to a parrot who took it from me with his beak and dropped it into the donation box 🙂
I very much enjoyed the zoo. It took me about 6 hours to see all the animals at a relaxed pace, and it was a fine way to spend my last day in the country.
Right now it’s the morning of the day I leave, and I’ll be heading to the airport in about an hour for a 27-hour trip home. This will be the last blog post covering this trip. I hope you have enjoyed it 🙂