Showing posts with label wildlife. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wildlife. Show all posts

Monday, September 06, 2010

Cheeky

This guy was chasing a black squirrel down the street, then ran across my yard and clambered up onto my fence, at which point he noticed me and I pulled out my new iPhone 4 and snapped a couple of snapshots. The squirrels do that to run along the fence to the back yard, at which point they grab apples from the apple tree that sprawls across three different yards (it's in my next door neighbor's yard but sprawls into my yard and into the yard behind us) and run back home high in the pine trees across the street.

-- Badtux the Squirrel-feeding Penguin
Well, involuntarily, but my apples are still feeding the furry bastards!

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Is this a marmot?

This guy posed for me on a rock at Yosemite. Is he a marmot?

-- Badtux the Wildlife Penguin

aaaaand... his OTHER side:

PS: I was zoomed all the way in with a 12x telephoto lense. So I wasn't as close to him as it looks!

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Magic talisman fail

I've repeatedly stated that guns are not a magic talisman and are no substitute for common sense and awareness of your surroundings. So here's a scenario for you. You are asleep at night in your tent in a campground, and you wake up to hear a bear rummaging through your ice chest. Do you:

  • a) roll over and go back to sleep, knowing that you moved all the food from the ice chest into a bear-proof canister before going to bed and thus the bear is going to go away in a bit,
  • b) grab a couple of pots and pans, unzip your tent, stand up to look tall, and start clanging and shouting in an attempt to scare the bear away, or
  • c) grab your .45 ACP and a flashlight, and charge at the bear yelling at him "Go away or I'll shoot you!"?
If you chose c), congratulations, you're a dumbass and the bear's gonna tear ya a new asshole and shove that .45 up your bunghole. If you're going to haul a gun, use it. Don't wave it around like a magic talisman. The dumbass managed to pull the trigger as the bear yanked it out of his hand, and the noise did scare the bear away before the bear finished ramming the thing up his ass, but what this goes to show is that if you add stupidity (not putting your food into a bear-proof canister before going to bed) to guns, what you get is... uhm... stupidity with guns. Doh!

So anyhow, this dumbass managed to get a bear killed due to his stupidity. I hope he feels proud of himself, 23 stitches and all.

-- Badtux the Bearly Penguin

Friday, December 12, 2008

Friday Guest Cat Prey Blogging

Somehow I suspect that The Mighty Fang and Mencken would not bother stalking this guy... he looks like he might be mean.

-- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin

Sunday, December 07, 2008

My day

I went hiking today, sort of. I spent four hours hiking the dikes at the SF Bay wildlife refuge, trying out my new camera and GPS. Oh yeah, the GPS. Delorme PN-40 GPS, which allows downloading color (or black-and-white) aerial photos plus 1:24000 scale USGS topo maps and layering them on the display. It's like having Google Earth in your palm. Works damned brilliant. This is basically their PN-20 grown up, with better speed and more reliable hardware and software. Their PN-20 was brilliant but the technology didn't exist back then to do it right. The PN-40 solves that problem and worked brilliantly for hiking those dikes, which don't show up on any maps but show up just fine on the color aerial photography.

Hmm.... oh yeah, the photographs... I took lots of photos of aquatic waterfowl. But this photo of a groundhog (?) is one of the most interesting I took because of the clarity of the photo and the interesting colors. Shows what the new camera is capable of doing...

Nice.

After that, I ordered a pizza, and re-read Carol O'Connell's novel Crime School. Just as brilliant the second time around. I'm a sucker for O'Connell's New York Gothic and her sociopathic detective with the blond hair and bright green eyes, and can admire O'Connell's techniques too when I'm not cribbing them, e.g. the way she never tells all of the story and always leaves something hanging to drive you mad and make you want to buy the next novel in the series. Real life is like that, full of mysteries you never know the answers to. The Mallory novels are not "real life" by any means -- maybe Kathy really could fly (the swingset video and the exploding video seem to point that way, as unlikely as it seems to all the characters in the story) -- but O'Connell pulls it off anyhow. And now you know who I crib from for trying to make my own unlikely heroines work, heh.

-- Badtux the Nature Penguin

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

A penguin's guide to Bay Area wildlife, Part III

Identification:

This particular wildlife generally is found on Silicon Valley freeways, especially near the "Golden Triangle" in northern Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, and San Jose. You can recognize it by the dashing dark-colored suit and dress shirt and power tie plumage, the Rolex watch, short dark hair, light-brown skin coloration, and, now, both hands wildly waving in the air (prior to the recent hands-free law, only one hand was waving in the air -- the other one had a Treo or Crackberry glued to the ear) as this species of wildlife negotiates deals at high speed in its favorite habitat, an upscale European automobile making its way at high speed down the highways. Yes, I'm talking about the Successful Indian Businessman.

This species of wildlife is an exotic import that believes it owns not only the majority of businesses in the Valley, but the freeways themselves. Having learned to drive in the crowded streets of Hyderabad, Bangalore, or Mumbai, this exotic believes the proper way to proceed down a highway is to simply choose a general direction and expect everybody else to get out of the way. The wonder is that rarely, if ever, is the Successful Indian Businessman ever involved in an accident. Apparently its serious-colored plumage and choice of steed is sufficient to warn all other creatures using those same highways that it is time to make way.

Habitat: This species is typically found in two places: 1) The executive offices of most high-tech businesses in the SF Bay Area, and 2) in an upscale European automobile making its way down Valley freeways. It is presumed that this species has a place where it perches at night-time, but has never been observed in that habitat.

Breeding habits: Occasionally the S.I.B. can be spotted in upscale shopping malls with the O.I.W. (Overweight Indian Wife) and O.I.S. (Overindulged Indian Spawn), thus it is clear that this species does reproduce. However, given that it appears to spend twenty hours a day in its favorite habitats (the executive suite or the expensive European automobile), it is unclear where or how it finds time to perform reproductive activities, and the nature of its sexual activities are completely unrecorded by any human eye. I may point out that, unlike more colorful species that don bright plumage in order to attract mates, this species appears to don rather dull and drab plumage (other than its shiny black dress shoes), though its access to gigantic quantities of lettuce (moolah, dough, cash) perhaps polishes its attractiveness to mates.

Danger to observer: If observed in its European automobile habitat, *extreme danger*. Do not approach. You risk being injured or even killed by its abrupt high speed maneuvers as its hands wave wildely around in the air and the automobile veers all over the highway. If observed in the executive suite, approach with caution and be sure to say "Yes boss, no boss, thank you boss" when interacting with it, because otherwise you will learn the meaning of the words "unemployment line".

-- Badtux the Wildlife Penguin

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

My Sunday hike

Attack of the giant sunflowers! The garden is looking a bit ragged in late summer, but a few sunflowers are still standing tall... at least eight feet tall, that is. This isn't a cat in the Wilder Ranch paddock... Wilder Ranch gets its water by pumping it out of the creek up here. Thus the signs down at the ranch-house saying don't drink the water. Though I suspect it's just fine, it's untreated so you know they gotta say it... Here another bit of wildlife -- a mountain biker who ran into a tree, got knocked out, and now is being attended to by the park rangers and paramedics in an ambulance. Sorry I didn't get a better photo, but it was up another fork of the road and I didn't want to be in the way when the ambulance pulled back out, these are very narrow one-lane fire roads that I'm on at the moment. The wildlife is very friendly at Wilder Ranch. This is a cat that I came across in the middle of a path: Or maybe he wasn't a cat. Hmm. Okay, so maybe this is a cat: Nope? Well, anyhow, I eventually descended from the Santa Cruz Mountain foothills back to the ocean, where I found this wildlife: I think this next guy is a sea otter, because he was pounding open a clam against a rock on his chest. He was going ratatatatatat just a'pounding that sucker. Sorry I couldn't get a better picture of him, I'm way up on a cliff and my telephoto lens isn't *that* good. There were also other critters of this species frolicking just beyond the rocks but I couldn't catch a good picture of them, they were appearing and disappearing above and below water too quickly. And of course I saw lots of sea birds as I walked along the shore... And that was pretty much my 12 mile walk around the park. Other than the part about my knee deciding it didn't like me. But it's better now...

-- Badtux the Wanderin' Penguin

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

A penguin's guide to Bay Area wildlife, Part II

Today we are going to talk about yet another form of Bay Area wildlife. This one is deceptively pleasant looking, and while harmless to most people, is absolutely deadly to its chosen prey. Consider it the Hello Kitty assault rifle of Bay Area wildlife.

That last should be seen as a Clue(tm). For the wildlife I am talking about is... the Chunky Japanese Manga Girl.

Identifying characteristics: Japanese features. Short straight black hair in a "pixie" cut with black spikes at the front and sides. Proportions of a pre-adolescent girl if blown up to twice the size (including twice the diameter of all limbs), but with large breasts. "Cute" boots that come to mid-calf to accentuate her large and solid calves. Mini-skirt that cuts off high to show off her large and solid thighs, perhaps as part of a jumper/"school girl" uniform combined with a white short-sleeve shirt. These aren't defining characteristics however, the Chunky Japanese Manga Girl has developed a wide range of colorations to lure in its prey, from "big socks" to mini-skirt'ed sailor suits. If all else fails, the Chunky Japanese Manga Girl is often accessorised with Hello Kitty or Sailor Moon accessories that can be used to identify this species.

Habitat: Manga and anime conventions, upscale downtown shopping areas near comics stores, attached to its prey in tourist areas of San Francisco or upscale shopping areas.

Danger to observer: Utterly harmless to most observers. Completely deadly to its chosen prey, the gaijan otaku -- the white American aficionado of Japanese anime and manga. Infatuation is swiftly followed by a long courtship which extracts all resources of the otaku while completely cutting off the otaku from his family and friends. The otaku is sucked in to the Chunky Japanese Manga Girl's orbit and can be observed clinging to her and catering to her every whim and buying her everything she ever wanted. At the end of this courtship the dried-up husk of the otaku, drained of all life and money, is discarded like an old banana peel, and a new otaku is located to repeat the process.

Mating habits: she mates only with white American otaku. If you have no idea what Hello Kitty or Sailor Moon are or the difference between manga and anime, she has no interest at all in you and will move to find new prey. Reproduction of this species is rumored but has never been observed in the wild, it is presumed that, prior to discarding her otaku, she allows sexual activity one and only one time and then if it results in pregnancy further extracts child support payments from the dried-up husk of her otaku to further the raising of a new Chunky Japanese Manga Girl offspring.

Suggestions for observer: If you have no interest in Japanese anime or manga, feel free to observe this species in complete safety. Do not approach too closely if she has her prey attached to her, however, for her otaku may misinterpret your approach as a clumsy pass and attack you. If you are a fan of Japanese anime or manga, on the other hand, exercise extreme caution and treat this species much the same way you'd treat a shark while swimming -- i.e., as something to get away from ASAP. The horror, oh the horror!

-- Badtux the Naturalist Penguin

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

A penguin's guide to Bay Area wildlife

It is little known that the San Francisco Bay area is home to some of the most exotic wildlife on the planet. Now, I hear you scoffing. "It's all paved!" you say. "It's all covered with horrible glass block office complexes and strip malls and cookie-cutter homes!" But that doesn't matter. Indeed, it makes the wildlife even more exotic.

Today's wildlife is... The Sulky Americanized Asian Daughter

Habitat: Typically, Vietnamese restaurants, though other Asian restaurants may also hold the occasional example of this wildlife.

Identifying marks: Skin-tight hip-hugger jeans, skin-tight t-shirt emphasizing her small pert breasts, long silky black hair, perpetual look of being put-upon due to being forced to work in the family restaurant.

Danger to observer: Moderate. She will slam hot bowls of soup onto your table as if personally insulted by your very existence. There have been rumors that she will spit in the soup "just because" if she thinks she can get away with it. However, unlike other forms of wildlife spotted here in the Valley there is no long-term harm from this species, due to its specialized mating habits.

Mating habits: she mates only with the Sulky Americanized Asian Son (of a different Asian family). Attempts to obtain a date with this species will result only in a sneer of disdain. You are not worthy and you will never understand.

Suggestions for observer: Do not look directly at this species unless you like hot soup in your lap, especially if your look could be interpreted as staring at her breasts. Interact with this species as little as possible and do not approach. While the danger is moderate, the danger is real.

-- Badtux the Wildlife Penguin