Squirrel watching in the local park is probably something I do frequently enough to legitimately describe it as a hobby – but if it’s not that it’s certainly a holiday tradition; there’s nothing nicer than wandering over to St Anne’s Well Gardens at lunchtime on Boxing Day and mooching around spying on wildlife. Accordingly – the latest dispatch from the animal kingdom:
Show off
action shot
This is really quite amazing; no matter how long I look at this picture, I find it hard to come to terms with the fact that what I am looking at is one cat, not two. There’s one brain. One personality. Two working eyes, one working mouth (although two working noses). But this glorious, strange, janus-cat is still alive at 12, spectacularly defying his life expectancy.
Diprosopus (Greek διπρόσωπος, “two-faced”, from δι-, di-, “two” and πρόσωπον, prósopon [neuter], “face”, “person”; with Latin ending), also known as craniofacial duplication (cranio- from Greek κρανίον, “skull”, the other parts Latin), is an extremely rare congenital disorder whereby part or all of the face is duplicated on the head.
And a wonderful comment below the line.
This is just fantastic – a two-and-half-year-old male chimpanzee at Thailand’s Samut Prakarn crocodile farm and zoo, 25 miles south east of Bangkok, has been trained to feed tiger cubs out of a bottle.
The chimp, named Dodo, has been feeding the cubs, aged between three weeks to five months, every day for more than a year.
I like his little denim shorts, although someone should point out that the current look is to have the pockets poking out beneath the hemline, not a nappy poking out of the back. That aside, he’s bang on trend.
I spotted this fine fellow on my way to Alec and Vic’s on Xmas Morning. Resisted the temptation to scoop him up and present him as a festive gift.
I’m rather a fan of computer-based drawing, but I’ve never really had a good program for doing it; not since the days of Claris Draw on my dad’s 1980s Macintosh. Evey now and again I go back to my computer and do some more drawing, then forget about it for a while. Today has been one of those days.
Accordingly, here is a squirrel.
Photo taken at the rather wonderful Brighton Toy and Model Museum.
Between appointments at Bristol University, today, I found myself with a twenty minute window, so I walked round to the Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery, which is next door, and had a quick look at the stuffed animals in the Natural History section, before wandering through to the bookshop.
“What’s occurring?”, I heard someone say, in a soft, friendly West Country accent.
I turned round and saw that a couple of security guards had entered the room and were chatting with the woman behind the counter. I continued browsing idly, before crossing back towards the door. As I passed the counter, a book caught my eye so I lingered for a moment to leaf through it, earwigging on their conversation while I did.
“My daughter, she wants to see a pigeon in a bowler hat”, the woman was saying, shaking her head.
I didn’t turn to see the men’s expressions, but their silence implied they didn’t really know what to say to that.
“I don’t know why”, she continued. “She just thinks it would be the best thing“.
“Oh right”, one of the men said, politely.
“And she wants to see a fight between a pigeon and a squirrel. To see which would win. She keeps telling me this. She’s funny. A morbid girl”.
One of the men laughed. “Ah well. How old’s your little girl, then?”.
“She’s 22″, the woman replied, flapping a hand into the air. “But very immature”.
I’m back at my parents’ house in Cambridgeshire this weekend, where I am normally made to feel unwelcome by their distant, rather jumpy cat, Millie. This time round, however – perhaps spurred by the poor weather, which is keeping her indoors – she seems to be have adopted a tolerant attitude to me; not scampering angrily from the room when I enter, nor leaping a foot into the air when I extend a hand towards her.
And then, finally, a sign that, ten years in, I am finally beginning to win her over.
A gift!
Spotted while out shopping in Kemp Town this weekend; marvellous.
I often link to The Grey Area, but usually neglect to mention that one of the main reasons I read it is because it features, alongside lots of interesting links and hugely acerbic commentary, some extremely beautiful photographs, as often as not focused on the author’s two dogs, Little Mouse and Alfie. They’re normally wonderfully sharp and focused; but I like this less clear shot just as much.
Click here to see the original post.
The seagulls in Brighton are so enormous – it’s always funny when you see them inland and note how small they are in comparison. These were snapped in St. Ives, Cambridgeshire, this weekend. Nice chaps.
Possibly I have too much time on my hands.
I think possibly the two minutes I just spent watching this video were the happiest two minutes of my life.
This is an unbearably lovely story. Jan Griffith and her family – who took the wonderful decision to name their pet dog Sophie Tucker (I’m very much in favour of people giving animals human names, especially if they include a surname) – lost their animal after it fell overboard into choppy waters off Queensland, and were forced to include that their pet had drowned. Now, four months later, they have been reunited with it after it was discovered alive and well, living off its own wits on a pretty much uninhabited island, the equally charmingly named St. Bees Island.
Now back with her family, Sophie Tucker has quickly readjusted to the comforts of home, but her owner has a new-found respect for her, it seems. These last lines of the article just kill me.
“She surprised us all. She was a house dog and look what she’s done, she’s swum over five nautical miles, she’s managed to live off the land all on her own,” Griffiths said.
“We wish she could talk, we truly do.”
Absolutely.
Saw this incredible dog sat in a doorway on Newbury Street – what an amazing animal. People were queuing up to take photographs. He just sat imperiously, surveying the activity on the street. After a while he tired of us, and shuffled back inside.
I love getting nice things through the post. This bundle just arrived from Debbie, who writes the lovely Kept In A Jar blog, and of whose artistic talents I am most envious.
Wonderful! You can buy your own pigeon in Debbie’s shop on Etsy.
High jinks, my flat, Brighton, today.
Richard Attenborough’s ‘Life In Cold Blood’ started on BBC1 last night; exquisitely filmed and presented with extraordinary deftness, it was typically lovely.
Happily, it was Nancy Banks Smith’s turn to do the TV write up in the paper today; her writing was typically lovely too.
“The most touching moment was at the very end when, after half a century in the job, Attenborough saw his first pygmy leaf chameleon. As the young presenter of Zoo Quest, shinning up trees like a schoolboy bird-nesting, he had filmed Madagascan chameleons before – entertainingly in black and white – but the pygmy leaf had always eluded him. Being elusive is the chameleon’s speciality. It has medals for elusiveness (which it never wears as they make it feel conspicuous).”
All is well in the world.
