Tag: animals

Categories
in azores

dolphins and whales

all the while we were in azores, we kept watching the sea with our binoculars, hoping to spot something moving in the distance… but it wasn’t until we booked a tour with a local company that we actually saw dolphins and whales for the first time — specifically, sperm whales and four types of dolphins (stripped, common, bottlenose and risso). it was amazing!! some groups of dolphins are curious and will come right up to the boat, jumping around playfully. the whales you need to see from far away so that they’re not disturbed, but they are just these huge masses floating nearby, their breath periodically flagging their location. they really make you feel tiny and piny.

i only had my phone camera around so all my pictures are crappy, but the tour company took these:

it was magical, and i highly recommend it! it’s definitely one of those things you do once and remember forever. :)

Categories
algarving photography

little owl

since we seem to be on an animal streak (see the grasshopper and the chameleon), here’s another one that paulo spotted in our backyard last week:

little owl

you can barely see it in this crappy super-zoomed-in photo from my phone, but that silhouette is so different from any other bird out there that it really stands out. while we were squinting at it, friends with good lenses arrived and took these amazing photos instead:

little owl

what a beauty it is, even as it bestows its disapproving frown at our antics! :D the little owl (mocho galego, in portuguese) is a nocturnal owl that is usually found in farm or woodlands in the south of europe. it nests in holes, where the female takes care of the baby owls, while the male protects the territory and hunts for insects, worms and small vertebrate like mice.

little owl

we’ve seen it a couple of times since, hanging around our backyard, doing its surveillance and hunting gig, and it’s always exciting to spot it in the distance. such cool neighbors we have!

Categories
just life

the grasshopper

lately i’ve been making a lot of posts about the garden… sometimes it feels like the only thing interesting going on around here, since we still don’t go out all that much. so here’s another green tidbit: we have a grasshopper! it’s actually the second generation of grasshoppers we have in this particular mint vase, which they seem to be very fond of. they’re super camouflaged and i only noticed it by chance, when suspicious droppings started to appear all around the vase…

i looked up and whoa! there it was, the color just as green as the mint it had been eating!

at this stage they’re called nymphs and have not yet developed wings. they eat a lot though, and mostly stay around the plant where they were born. one day, they’ll molt, shedding their skin.

they do this a few times, becoming bigger with each molt, and finally spreading those wings! it might not be the cutest pet out there, but it’s still interesting to see it grow and change…

…even if it means we have to share the mint! :|

Categories
in portugal just life

garden visitors

we found this little guy on our garden last week, and i was squealing so much that i think i probably scared him away…

but… IT’S A CHAMELEON! (insert 1000 heart eyes emojis) such a treat! the whole ria formosa park is supposed to be a safe haven for them, but with increased construction in the area, places for chameleons to thrive have been fragmented and keep shrinking. these days, it’s almost impossible to find them outside of specific conservation areas, so we were thrilled that this little guy has deemed our little garden worthy of a visit — i hope he’ll come around again, and bring the family!

praying mantis

little pale praying mantis, watch out! there’s a new predator in town!

Categories
in canada

jumbo!

you see the name jumbo everywhere — from planes to supermarket chains… but do you know where the name comes from and how it came to signify something huge?

as the logo of brands sometimes hint, jumbo was a big elephant claimed to be around 4 meters tall and marketed as “the biggest in the world” at the time. he was born in sudan in 1860, taken to a zoo in paris, then transferred to another zoo in london and from there bought by an american showman in 1882 to join his circus. the toured the US by train, earning a lot of money to the circus company.

sadly, he died just 3 years later, in the town of st. thomas, ontario, after being hit by a passing train one night. one hundred years passed and the name stuck around, so the town made a life-sized statue of jumbo to commemorate the centenary of his death. it’s still there, a roadside attraction that helps us remember this giant and his sad story.