Crane Style wins.

(photo: Karen L. Myers) click on pictures for larger versions.

A few days ago, my neighbor who does my mowing was cutting in the neglected field above the cabin when he flushed a woodcock, who was obviously a mother woodcock because she landed nearby and began performing the old “I’m-a-poor-injured-woodcock-with-a-broken-wing.-I’m-delicious-and-easy-to-catch.- Come,-follow-me!” routine.

So Bud turned off the mower, looked around, and spotted her four chicks. He then ran down to the house to tell us of his discovery, and Karen went up there with her camera and photographed the brood.

The four young woodcock were admirably camouflaged and Karen reports that they followed mother’s instructions and remained perfectly frozen, with the exception of all the little bright brown eyes which followed Karen’s every movement.

Naturally, mowing operations were suspended and the nosy humans all withdrew to allow Mother Woodcock to retrieve her brood and escort them back into the nearby woods.

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I was quite surprised to learn that woodcock bred on our Central Pennsylvania farm. I can’t recall ever seeing a woodcock outside of hunting season in the Fall. I always thought they bred up in Maritime Canada and only migrated to Pennsylvania.

But the Wikipedia entry says that they breed all the way down to Northern Virginia, and in some cases as far south as Florida and Texas. (!) “Most hens lay four eggs,” the entry reports.

(photo: Karen L. Myers)

GrindTV:

No, Donald Trump doesn’t put his hair on a big leaf when he goes to bed. This crazy, hairpiece-looking clump of yellow fluff is actually a rare caterpillar that only looks like Donald Trump’s hair.

And for that reason, this flannel moth caterpillar photographed in the Amazon has been nicknamed the Donald Trump Caterpillar.

It was spotted and photographed recently by Phil Torres of Posada Amazonas Rainforest Expeditions while leading a photography tour in a Peru rainforest. He posted the photo online and immediately people began commenting about how it looks like Donald Trump’s hair.

“We didn’t see the resemblance when we first saw the caterpillar, but looking at the photo, it’s certainly similar to his hair,” Torres told the UK Daily Mail. “It was pretty funny, people went mad for the photo comparing it to his toupee.”

Interestingly, and coincidentally, approaching the Donald Trump Caterpillar (scientific name: Megalopyge opercularis) can be very dangerous, particularly if you come in contact with the business end of its yellow mane.

“If you touch that thing, it would seriously hurt,” Torres, a field biologist, told the UK Daily Mail. “It has these little hairs that can poke into your skin and release a venom.”

Megalopyge opercularis

The European Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) is known for its hovering flight. They also have the extraordinary ability to keep their head totally still, even in strong winds. This allows them to pinpoint and catch small mammals by sight alone.

Via Ratak Monodosico

A Green Heron (Butorides virescens) demonstrates that it knows how to use bread for fishing.

The current fashionably-left-wing Pope on Sunday conducted a little ceremony in which two children, a little boy and a little girl supervised by the Holy Father himself, released a pair of white “doves of peace” from a window in the Apostolic Palace.

Nature clearly abhors this kind of nonsense, because the Pope’s doves were promptly set upon by a seagull and a jackdaw who chose to look upon them, not as symbols of peace, but rather as a free lunch. There was an obvious lesson for Pope Francis in all of this.

Washington Post story

The Independent story

This male woodcock (Scolopax minor) was filmed (no embed) performing his mating dance.

This baby animal has markings rather like those found on baby wild boars. Can you identify the critter? It actually took me a couple of tries to figure it out.

answer

Mugger crocodile (Crocodylus palustris) equipped with twigs.

Charleston Post and Courier reports on a recent University of Tennessee study which finds saurians in both America and India luring birds to their doom.

American alligators, and their cousin Indian marsh crocodiles, apparently have figured out that if they balance twigs on their snouts, wading birds will try to snatch them for nests. For the quick-snapping gator, that’s free lunch. …

A recently released study – published in Ethology, Ecology and Evolution – is the first to document “lure-baiting” by the species, and one of the few lure-baiting behaviors documented among animals overall.

Nah, you say – just dumb luck? Well, the study documented that alligators in Louisiana use the twig trick only during a relatively brief bird nesting season.

They have thought this thing through.

“For people working with alligators it comes as little surprise because we already know how smart they can be. But for the general public it is apparently a bit unexpected,” said Vladimir Dinets, a University of Tennessee psychology researcher, who is the study’s lead author.

“They are capable of very unique things when it comes to feeding,” said wildlife biologist Phil Wilkinson of Georgetown, who has spent more than 30 years studying the American alligator.

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Also in the Daily Mail.

Hat tip to Sir Terence Clark.