Talking pictures

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Africat foundation: Okonjima, Namibia

Disclaimer: This is a captive cat.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Drinking bull and butterfly:Halali waterhole, Etosha National park, Namibia

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Black rhino at Okaukuejo waterhole in Etosha National park, Namibia

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Namibia

I finally went to Africa. It was more than I imagined it would be. It was too short. I want to go back and spend much much longer. I'll post more images as I edit them and make some sense of it all. Just now, all I feel is a little bereft.

Copyright © Natasha Mhatre If you're reading this without attribution to me anywhere other than at my blog Talking Pictures, its probably being plagiarized.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Today was a good day

Monday, October 22, 2012

Lamberts dome

Monday, October 15, 2012

Mono lake flies

Does anyone remember these ads in the back of Archies comics? I do. Those ads were full of unattainable, fascinating stuff . And I always wondered just what creatures these sea-monkeys were. Even to young kid me, papa monkey and mama monkey sounded a bit unlikely. Yet like a pet I could actually keep in our tiny Bombay house. Equivalent to the caterpillars I kept that became pupae and always ecclosed to butterflies when I was at school.

The first time I saw a sea monkey, ultimately was earlier this year in Mono lake. What they are these things, brine shrimp. And Mono has plenty of them. They feed on microscopic plankton which is so plentiful, it turns the lake green. Another plentiful creature in the Mono lake ecology is the alakine fly, which also feeds on plankton. All of this plenty at the small size scale, converts to high productivity at the higher size scale and millions of water birds visit the lake. We saw the fag-end of the migration. But we did get to see all the little stuff and the big stuff chasing it, successfully or not.

The cool thing about the flies is that they carpet the shore and when you disturb them, the disturbance travels through the carpet and you get these waves of flies, flying off and landing again behind you. Imagine being the exact opposite of magnetic as you walk through nail filings.


C is usually not that repellant to insects.

It take little to set the flies off and even dainty bird steps will do it.

But there really are a lot of the little blighters. Its a blizzard in fact.

This gave some birds some bright ideas. This California gull thought it was enough to simply run through the swarm with his mouth open. The worst thing is, I suspect it worked. Natural selection isn't what it used to be.

Or at least that's what these guys seem to be thinking

While we didn't get to see the mass congregations of a few million birds, it's not hard to imagine them there. I suppose I could do worse than go back some day to catch that moment. And perhaps a few more gulls having an easy meal.

Copyright © Natasha Mhatre If you're reading this without attribution to me anywhere other than at my blog Talking Pictures, its probably being plagiarized.

Mono lake, Lee Vining, California

The best thing about Mono lake is not that is surrounded by the Sierra's. It is not that it is utterly gorgeous. And not that its a salty terminal lake with spectacular tufa formations. Or with a salt content rivalled only by th dead sea. It is it's ecology. (Next installment)

Monday, October 01, 2012

Distance

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Foraging and Sleeping

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Squiggles

PS: How cool, you cannot make these up! Just today a day after I posted this, I got an email that this book which uses one of my older squirrel images is now out in print! PPS: I get nothing out of this, it's not an ad, just a squiggly coincidence!

Chipmunk: but which one?

California ground squirrel

Western grey squirrel

Greased lightening: Golden mantled ground squirrel

Yellow bellied marmot

I travel, you get a beast list.

Copyright © Natasha Mhatre If you're reading this without attribution to me anywhere other than at my blog Talking Pictures, its probably being plagiarized.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

At the zoo: San Diego

Someone told me / It's all happening at the zoo.

Sunday, September 09, 2012

Half Dome and San Francisco

Half Dome from Olmstead point

San Francisco from Union Square

Monday, September 03, 2012

Sleeping on the shore

Monday, July 02, 2012

Skylarks

There's a grassland on a hill on the border of this city. It's a golf course really, but it doesn't matter to the skylarks that decide to breed there. To hear them singing as they make these beautiful aerial displays is a thing of beauty. The RSPB website has a snippet of song to tempt you with.

Some of them seem to have brood already. This pair seemed to be bringing food to a nest. But some still made displays, possibly the unlucky ones.