IN THE NEWS
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Reared hobby chick heads south
On the 7th October, this rare bird of prey had its freedom, and headed south for Africa. This hobby chick was found nearly 2 months ago on a street in Conventry and passers by took it back to a near by wildlife sanctuary and nursed it back to health. It was thought to be a kestrel first because it had so few feathers, but after fattening up they realised that it was a hobby. Nuneaton and Warwickshire Wildlife sanctuary’s Geoff Grewcock saw it take of.
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Whole wooly mammoth tusks found in USA
Giant tusks of a woolly mammoth thought to have been there 15,ooo years were pulled up from someones field in Texas. Farmer James Bristle found them buried in his soya bean field and mistook them for a broken down fence post, but when scientists dug it out they found it was a woolly mammoth’s tusks.
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New discovery – a walking fish
A walking fish, a monkey that sneezes in the rain and a new bird are only 211 new species found in the Himalayas. The vibrant blue walking snakehead fish is a species that breathes air and can wriggle a quarter of a mile over wet ground. The finds in the eastern Himalayas include 133 plants, 26 fish, 10 amphibians and 1 bird, the spotted wren babbler, and the WWF says that 1 mammal has been discovered aswell.
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Kingfisher dive!
For a small fish like a stickelback, a speeding flash of blue, red and white diving into the water is the last thing you’d want to see. Wildlife photographer Paul Sawer captured these dramatic images of a small blue kingfisher diving into the water. It eventually came up with a small fish in its bill. Then it flew back to its perch and whacked the fish on it. This is the usual behaviour of kingfishers, and they do this so the spines off the fish so it can swallow it whole.
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Ingham’s World Friday 2nd October-Nuthacth needs help!
There seems to be lots of animals and bird species named after famous celebreties. There’s an Amazonian tree frog that have batlike calls named after Ozzy Osbourne, a Charlie Chaplin fly and Psephophorus Terrypratchetti, an extinct turtle named after the disc world author. There are fictional heroes too, like the soul sucking Dementors from Harry Potter that get a mention with Ampulex dement or, a wasp which can zomify and suck the life out of cockroaches. Japan thinks they’re being very clever defying a global ban on whaling, but fortunately any people seen with whale meat will have to pay a very heavy price. A dashing bird with a…
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All those dolphins and sea lions at once!
A father and son grabbed a riding seat at a show of nature right at its best. Herman de Vries and his eight year old son Adriaan were kayaking when they suddenly found themselves surounded by a school of five hundred dolphins. They were also joined by some playful fur seals. They were spotted of Cape Town, Africa.
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Ingham’s World Friday 25th September-Harvest mouse has help
Feasting on a feeder in John Ingham’s garden this morning on the 25th October was a goldfinch. In 30 years the number of this colourful garden bird has soared since 1995. And also bird lovers have had a much more profound impact on the population of blackcaps. These robin sized warblers come to breed in this country every spring in gardens, woodlands and reed beds. And in autumn they fly to Spain and sometimes as far down as north Africa. But since the 1950’s blackcaps from Austria have started shunning the Mediterranean and wintering hear. In 30 years their range has increased by 77 percent and some have overwintered as…
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Sighting of a rare black fox
Looking straight down at the lens of a camera, this is the moment a black fox was caught on photo. This is only the fifth sighting in Britain, so artist and wildlife photographer Robert Fuller was shocked when his friend Robert Burns told him he’d spotted one in his flat. This is the rarest mammal in Britain, as well as being very rarely spotted. They both had a mission of photographing this rare canine, and after they’d put some bait out it came at 11pm.
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Ingham’s World Friday 18th September 2015-90 year old orca
Granny the killer whale is now at least 90 years old and has kept her family in check for at least 9 decades. A new book says that orcas are not just the oceans top killers, but these massive black and white dolphins(orcas are the biggest dolphins in the world. Some of the largest dolphins are called whales.) are also very clever too. They have their own cultures and dialects, and, like dolphins, they have the ability to work as a team to hunt down their prey. Orcas don’t seem to be that clever, writes David Neiwert, and only have around 40 different phrases, enough to say “food” and “I’m…
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Ingham’s World Friday 11th September-Reds squirrel has money!
Last month in August, John Ingham found a bedraggled young blue tit in his kitchen sink. It just blinked at him when he lifted it up and clung on precariously with its claws and when he scattered some sunflower seed around, it realised it had better things to do than be his friend! Carin Bondar’s new book, The nature of sex, explains that blue tits are among the least faithful of birds. While albatrosses and swifts are models of long flight, 90 percent of blue tit broods have more than one father. This reveals that they are more flirty! Meerkats may look cute, females with no kits will kill any other young…