Pace
Best Large | Polar Bears | Edinburgh Zoo
This was taken when the lovely Mercedes was still at Edinburgh Zoo. I miss her! She's having a blast at the Highland Wildlife Park though. :-)
Why not adopt a polar bear for as little as £3 a month.
The polar bear is the largest carnivore that lives on land, being twice as big as the Siberian Tiger. It shares the title of largest predator with the Kodiak bear, an omnivore brown bear living in Alaska.
Polar bears are superbly insulated by their 10 cm (3.9 in) of blubber, their hide and their fur; they overheat at temperatures above 10 °C (50 °F), and are nearly invisible under infrared photography. Polar bear fur consists of a layer of dense underfur and an outer layer of guard hairs, which appear white to tan but are actually transparent.
Unlike grizzly bears, polar bears are not territorial. Although stereotyped as being voraciously aggressive, they are normally cautious in confrontations, and often choose to escape rather than fight. Fat polar bears rarely attack humans unless severely provoked, whereas hungry polar bears are extremely unpredictable and are known to kill and sometimes eat humans. Polar bears are stealth hunters, and the victim is often unaware of the bear's presence until the attack is underway. Whereas brown bears often maul a person and then leave, polar bear attacks are more likely to be predatory and are almost always fatal.
In general, adult polar bears live solitary lives. Yet, they have often been seen playing together for hours at a time and even sleeping in an embrace, and polar bear zoologist Nikita Ovsianikov has described adult males as having "well-developed friendships." Cubs are especially playful as well. Among young males in particular, play-fighting may be a means of practicing for serious competition during mating seasons later in life.
In 1992, a photographer near Churchill took a now widely circulated set of photographs of a polar bear playing with a Canadian Eskimo Dog a tenth of its size. The pair wrestled harmlessly together each afternoon for ten days in a row for no apparent reason, although the bear may have been trying to demonstrate its friendliness in the hope of sharing the kennel's food. This kind of social interaction is uncommon; it is far more typical for polar bears to behave aggressively towards dogs.
Warnings about the future of the polar bear are often contrasted with the fact that worldwide population estimates have increased over the past 50 years and are relatively stable today. Some estimates of the global population are around 5,000–10,000 in the early 1970s; other estimates were 20,000–40,000 during the 1980s. Current estimates put the global population at between 20,000 and 25,000
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Uploaded on Dec 22, 2009
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Blue-Faced Honey Eater
I've wanted to get a shot of this lovely birdy for ages and finally here it is. Raaah! It's very elusive, unlike the Rainbow Lorikeets in the same area that are only too happy to jump on you, peck at your lens and swoop mere millimeters from your head. Oh, and they've been known to poop on you as well. The Honey Eater, by comparison, has impecable manners, keeping itself to itself. I'm not sure if it's a naturally shy bird or just feels overwhelmed by its rowdy but lovable neighbours.
Anyway, this took several frustrated attempts. I had vowed that I was not leaving Rainbow Landings until I got a shot I was happy with but said shot did not come easily. Several were discarded because the bird does not exactly pose obligingly. It would only stick around for 1-2 shots at a time, and most of those suffered from camera shake. Grrr. The joys.
In the end, I got a satisfactory shot, even if it's a bit noisy, and now I can tick the Honey Eater off my neverending list.
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Uploaded on Dec 22, 2009
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