Behold a pale....

.....deer. This is not a white hart as its a doe but still its rather special.

This is one of the herd of white-tailed deer in Venezuela's Hato el Cedral. White deer have long held a role in European mythology. Richard II for example used it in his emblem and as such a white hart appears in the earliest known contemporary portrait of an English king. The white hart also has links to Herne the hunter a famous ghost myth from the Windsor region said to have been gored by one to protect Richard (Herne appears in shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor). More importantly the White Hart is a common pub name in the UK. To this day white-coated red deer are considered special - there has been a lot of discussion recently about one on a shooting estate in Scotland and its fate.

Lest anyone think this is in part a lighting thing the shot below shows the white deer with a normal venezuelan white-tail buck in the background.

I understand this deer wouldn't be much lighter than some north american white tailed deer populations but with the "normal" buck in the background you can really appreciate the difference.

The Byfield Fern (isn't a fern)

Although it may not look like any of the others I’ve featured before; there is a cycad in the picture below. The living cycads are divided into 3 groups. Two of these are widespread and have featured on the blog before; the Cycadaceae which contains only the genus Cycas with its 100-odd species and the Zamiacaea which contains the Zamia, Ceratozamia, Chigua, Encephalartos, Macrozamia and Lepidozamia species as well as the monotypic genus Microcycas. The third family, Stangeriaceae, is the smallest and has yet to feature here. It contains 3 recognised living species in 2 genera, one of which is Bowenia serrulata as shown below.

All 3 members of the Stangeriaceae have underground stems and throw up leaves from below ground. In Bowenia these leaves are bi-pinnate and really rather fern like (in the same greenhouse as this specimen I spent quite a while trying to work out if a fern was the other Bowenia species)

Bowenia serrulata is, due to its fernlike leaves, confusingly known as the Byfield Fern and is found only in Queensland, Australia. It is also one of the few cycads to ever be commercially exploited. Its leaves were harvested for use in floral arrangements and were sufficiently popular for plastic imitations to be made once the harvesting stopped after the plants were protected.

As you’d expect from a cycad without a trunk this one isn’t very big – the leaf stalks can grow up to 4 or 5 feet up and then branch. Due to this structure adult plants only usually produce a few leaves and doesn’t flush rosettes.

Urgh

I'm sick as a dog (possibly due to the psychological trauma of watching the Ashes and being english simultaneously) but happily haven't gone the way of this capybara yet.

Much more interesting posts will follow when I recover (which will hopefully be before the start of the Second Test).

mountain turtle

As a break from underwater photos of turtles I wanted to remind you all that, when by a warm water sea, you don't have to get wet to see them

The photos above and below were both taken from around 300 foot above the turtle in question using the bigma. As you can see they stand out remarkably well in clear tropical waters.

Turtles, like all reptiles (and for that matter all marine mammals), have to surface sooner or later to breathe so if you think you see one keep an eye on the area in question and you may well get another look. Swimming with them is more fun of course but any day I see one of these remarkable creatures is a good day.

Venezuelan Raptor Week 2: Roadside Hawk

So I finally narrowed down the 2 contenders for the last entry into Venerzuelan Raptor Week 2 – the winner, the roadside hawk, is below and the "loser" which lost by virtue of being spectacular enough to deserve a couple of posts will feature sometime down the road. There are a couple of others that will turn up sooner or later too but we have reptiles, passerines, amphibians, herons, mammals, storks, fish and cycads to turn our attention to as well.

So my first thought on seeing this guy was wow that looks totally like a sprawk, gos, coopers or sharp-shin, what a typical Accipter hawk….which shows what I know because apparently this smallish raptor actually fits into the genus Buteo with the European buzzard and red-tailed hawk.

It is a common raptor from Mexico down to north east Argentina and by all accounts plumage varies considerably so some of them will look a lot less sprawkish. Dietwise it likes to mix it up taking prey as large as very small monkeys (common marmoset for example) right down to insects. They will also take birds but not that regularly which surprises me because as this photo illustrates they are pretty deft on the wing.

I don't have a lot more to say about these beyond the fact that, like a lot of raptors, for what is essentially a grey and white bird they are rather beautiful

Venezuelan Raptor Week 2: Great Horned Owl

Just the drive to Hato el Cedral was exciting enough – water buffalo being grazed, the odd capybara or caiman visible from the side of the road and periodically big flocks of ducks and waders in roadside pools (or vultures and caracara on roadkill). The moment I knew we were somewhere truly special was a few minutes after arriving when a big fluffy shape swooped through my peripheral vision. After a couple of seconds of blankly gazing at a row of palms I picked out this.

and then a few seconds later its mate materialized out of the background in the same palm. There is a minor chance these owls are famous because of me. Whilst standing admiring them a lady ran through the garden (having spotted the howler monkeys chillaxing in the mango tree) demanding a camera be brought for her. I thought this was rather demanding but changed my tune when a guy ran past with a huge television camera. After a bit of a chat it turned out to be a National Geographic channel film crew filming a documentary on the Llanos (the consensus among the rest of the guests on the boat the next day was that they seemed to be spending rather a long time filming in the garden but I say go with what works). Anyway since the howlers were resolutely kipping and refusing to play ball I pointed out the owls and some footage was taken (that's how the magic happens folks). As previously shown one of the pair took down a big iguana and I mentioned this to the crew again later so they may have some footage of it tucking into that too.

So if you see a documentary on the Llanos with a particularly fabulous pair of Great Horned Owls therein, remember TH made them what they are today! They, of course, gave me some fabulous memories in return. They were present all 5 days in the palms and another pair elsewhere showed well too.

I'm tremendously envious of those of you who get to see big Bubo owls this regularly full time (people like T. Beth), they really are awe-inspiring and I can't get over those big eyes and huge feet!