Jessica Crabtree

Yes, another swan. Thanks to Alex Saberi on NatGeo’s Visions of Earth.

It’s not just for folks in the UK. The BBC’s Nature & Wildlife department has a big website comparable to National Geographic’s – it’s chock full with oodles of photos, videos, and fact files (and of course news) making it a nature lover’s paradise.

Some of the video content may not be available to visitors outside the UK, but there’s still enough great material to make it worth the visit. I could spend hours merely looking through the gorgeous photography. Professor Iain Stewart, whom I have blogged about before, is one of the main contributors for the science section. Browse by region, species, and topic – it’s superbly well-organized, and a particularly useful research tool for students.

Put this site in your Bookmarks!

More screenshots:

From Flickr (h.koppdelaney‘s photostream).

“Perhaps it was the eyes of the wolf, measured, calm, knowing. Perhaps … the intense sense of family … individual personality… their ridiculous sense of fun … For the native people who lived with the wolves … there was much to learn from them. Is it any wonder that the myths of many tribes characterize the wolves not as killers but as teachers?”

Perhaps the American Indian was much more knowledgeable and perceptive in their understanding, acceptance, and treatment of wildlife – especially of the wolf – than we allow ourselves to be. They were not threatened by wolves; rather, they respected, admired, and learned from them.

Read the rest of the article on Wildlife Extra

Photo Credit: US Fish & Wildlife Service (public domain)

Light-mantled sooty albatross, Wikimedia Commons.

Light-mantled albatrosses are a threatened species of the circumpolar Southern hemisphere. Albatross pair bonds last for decades and individuals are known to live as much as forty years.

Anybody up for some more outstanding nature photos?

That question is redundant, I know. If you’re like me you can never get enough. So here is yet another batch of excellent snapshots – some carefully staked out and others captured more serendipitously – from the 2010 BWPA’s.

Above: “Dark-Eyed Deer,” by Damian Waters.

From National Geographic’s Weekly Wrapper.

March 7, 1802: Birth of English nature artist Sir Edwin Henry Landseer

Landseer’s life

Landseer was born in London to a family who encouraged their children’s early artistic talents and cultivated a deep appreciation for nature. Edwin was the youngest of seven surviving children, all of whom became artists. His prodigious abilities won him praise very early on and marked him for a career in painting and illustration, earning him a place in the Royal Academy.

As a young man, he contradicted the popular image of the artist as a troubled, taciturn individual; he was an engaging, charming socialite with a gracious manner and an eager mind.

Most of all he was beloved for the careful and sensitive portrayals of domestic animals and wildlife that established him as the Victorian era’s pre-eminent animal painter. He was intimately acquainted with the anatomies of the animals he painted and with their natural surroundings; from specialty dog breeds favored by the nobility, to the majestic wildlife of the Scottish Highlands, to lowly livestock – all of his subjects received equal treatment.
Landseer, Self-Portrait (c.1840)

All this won him the admiration of the public, his fellow artists, and even royalty – he was a frequent guest & tutor in the home of Queen Victoria (who knighted him in 1850).

Ironically, Landseer’s best-known works are not paintings at all; the four giant bronze lions at the base of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square in London were one of his final great accomplishments, and evidence of his equal talents as a sculptor.

Sadly, as his health gradually declined later in adulthood, increasing substance abuse caused irreparable damage both to his career and to his mind. His death in 1873 marked the passing of a national icon; he was mourned throughout the country and buried with honors in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Above: “Monarch of the Glen” (1851);
Below: “Heads of Sheep and Cattle”

“Sleeping Bloodhound” (1835)

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