Cave News

Terrorized by a seagull

Close up below
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An eagle watches as a squirrel investigates

Photo bombed by a squirrel

Bird-watching soars amid COVID-19 as Americans head outdoors

With coronavirus restrictions dragging on, interest in bird-watching has soared as bored Americans notice a fascinating world just outside their windows. Downloads of popular bird identification apps have spiked, and preliminary numbers show sales of bird feeders, nesting boxes and birdseed have jumped even as demand for other nonessential goods plummets.

The trend coincides with peak migration for hundreds of species and nesting season, giving newfound birders a front-row seat to some of nature’s biggest shows. Birds are their most active — and noisy — now, and like Brown, many Americans no longer in an office or classroom all day are taking notice.

Full report here.

The world's smallest chameleon found in Madagascar

The Brookesia micra chameleon has been discovered in Africa's Madagascar. It can grow up to 29 mm.

He is cute but I wouldn’t buy car insurance from him either.

Finally, a humane way to quell the out-of-control population of invasive brown tree snakes in Guam - use Tylenol!

The non-poisonous brown tree snake is not native to Guam. Sometime between the end of World War II and 1952, the brown tree snake was accidentally transported from its native range in the South Pacific to Guam, probably as a stowaway in ship cargo or by crawling into the landing gear of Guam-bound aircraft.

The invasive brown tree snakes are devastating Guam's local birds and damaging electrical infrastructure on the island.

The United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Wildlife Service bombarded targeted areas owned by the U.S. Government with dead mice, each armed with 80 milligrams of acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol.

The idea was that the snakes would eat the mice and die. It worked killing the snakes humanly using the active ingredient in Tylenol.

Link

Getting acquainted

Real-life Lion King photo

A photographer was lucky enough to capture a real-life version of the Lion King on camera — as he spotted this Mufasa look-alike snoozing on a familiar-looking rock.

Will Burrard-Lucas was photographing wildlife in the Kidepo Valley National Park, a remote reserve in the north of Uganda, when he stumbled across the scene.

Burrard-Lucas had been trying to photograph a well-known dominant male lion, known by rangers as Spartacus, and when he managed to capture Spartacus, he wasn’t disappointed.

Link

Flying ant swarms in Britain are so large they can be seen from space

Every year, England is invaded by swarms of flying ants. It happens, and people just deal with it.

But this year some of the swarms were so large that they were seen from space and mistaken for rain storms.

The ants are not harmful to humans, “but they do have a strange effect on seagulls who can appear drunk after eating a few due to formic acid they expel.”

CNN reported that the large swarms were not out of the ordinary, as they “merely signaled the annual arrival of what has come to be known as Flying Ant Day.”

Mobs of the insects descend on locations around Britain on one day every summer. The creatures sweep in and take up residence on streets, green land and in the skies before disappearing hours later.

Link

Cheeky thief

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