Innovative ways in which animals keep warm
Category Archives: Photo Galleries
Animals showing their nurturing side
Some animals display no nurturing actions at all such as turtles. As soon as they have laid their eggs, they abandon them. At the other extreme are bonobo monkeys who nurse their infants for four years while other species fall between these two extremes. In the case of many such as the leopard, it is the arrival of new mating season when the mother abandons their young. Lion cubs have a different set of considerations. If a new male takes over the pride, the incoming male will kill all the cubs as they are not his offspring.
Interspecies nurturing is uncommon in the wild but instances have been noted. With domesticated animals on the other hand, it is more prevalent.
How did they do it?
Sometimes one has to wonder how people get themselves into a predicament. Some photos illustrate the result whereas others show some of the circumstances giving rise to those predicaments.
Vintage Photographs
None of these photographs represent earth shattering events. Rather they are old photographs that provide a view on the minutiae of an older age. That age cannot be accorded the epithet of gracious, rather it should be have the appellation of a bygone age.
All of them are part of the National Geographic Found series
Main picture: A British airman gives a signal to another friendly aircraft, 1918
Warthogs have Feelings Too!
Of all of my friends, Ashley Wood was the only one who truly loved this creature, the unattractive and unlovely Warthog. Not that they are hideous like the much maligned snake or repellent like a macabre bat, but they certainly lack the cuteness factor of a lion cub or the majesty of a tiger. That was why Ashley loved them because nobody else did. Even though they will never grip the imagination like the furry cuddly animals, somebody had to befriend them, so Ashley accepted that role.
As always, Ashley might have been the eccentric iconoclast but warthogs have feelings too. As such they deserve our protection.
Main picture: A sounder of warthogs absorbing the heat from a bushveld fire
Photographs of Berlin in 1945 and Today
Hitler’s decision to fight until the last man and boy had been killed resulted in Hitler retreating from the Wolf’s Lair in Eastern Prussia and ensconcing himself in the so-called underground Fuhrerbunker near the Reich’s Chancellery in Berlin. Large swaths of Berlin had already been laid to ruin due to the continual bombing sorties by the British and American Air Forces. Now it was the turn of the Russian Army to complete its destruction.
Main picture: These photographs, taken by the Boston Globe, show the same location in 1945 and in 2015.
Cloistered within the fetid and otherworldly atmosphere were Adolf Hitler and his mistress Eva Braun together with the Goebbel’s family – Joseph, Magda and their six children. In spite of the German Wehrmacht being woefully inadequate to prevent the demise of Deutschland, Hitler and his closest aids still lived in a dream world. Accompanied by Albert Speer, Hitler even took a tour of the Reich’s Chancellery in order to view a model of the future Berlin; such was Hitler’s unwavering belief in Germany’s invincibility in spite of the deteriorating military situation.
Signs that prove that South Africa is different
The ubiquitous sign in bold lettering PENIS ENLARGEMENT is plastered on almost every stop sign, wall and bus shelter especially in the decrepit ramshackle areas. What image does this conjure up in the minds of foreigners about South African males? In less bold lettering beneath the prominent words will be a whole plethora of ailments and desires which this magic potion or muti, in the local Zulu parlance, can remedy.
The list will include items such as finding a job, retrieving a lover from the arms of another man to finding another wife. Of course the whities or mulungus sneer and roll their eyes at such quackery but in certain segments of black society, these concoctions clearly have credence and an allure otherwise these flyers would not be as prolific.
Main picture: Perhaps in the case the muti will be effective because all it is “designed” to do is to enlarge and not to find a girlfriend
Only in Israel
After doing a number of blogs on Only in South Africa and one on Only in Australia, it must be time for another country. I have a whole bunch of new photographs on South Africa which epitomises the cultural divide in here which I might even use tomorrow night but first let us have something different.
Main picture: Your date brings het M-16 along with her
Creative Graffiti
Normally I find graffiti offensive. It despoils and defiles all manner of items from walls, electricity boxes to bus shelters. As these pictures illustrate, perhaps I should not be so rigid in my approach and thinking. I will make one admission albeit sotto voce. They are stunning but amongst the quantum of graffiti that I have ever seen, they must represent far less than a fraction of a percent of the images that I have seen.
Pawel Kuczynski: The Master of Illustration Satire
At first sight these illustrations are akin to a cartoon of the unhumourous variety. Upon reflection they highlight not only social, cultural & political realities in a thought provoking manner but they also subtly convey his viewpoint on these ills through his unflattering illustrations of their consequences.
Born in Szczecin, Poland in 1976, Pawel graduated from the Fine Arts Academy in Poznan with specialisation in graphics.
Main picture: One of my favourites as it is probably as evocative as George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” in that it underlines the nature of mindlessly replacing one form of tyranny with another.