Tag: Tim Melling

Tim writes: Rufous Hummingbirds are a western North American bird and breed further north than any other species of Hummingbird.  This one is a male showing off his iridescent throat which is created by interference colours not pigment (like rainbows or oil in a puddle).  I photographed him very early morning in a dark forest…

Tim writes:  Iceland is the only breeding site for Barrow’s Goldeneye outside of North America.  I photographed this flying male in Alaska where it was common.  It was named in honour of Sir John Barrow from the Admiralty who sponsored many Arctic expeditions during the nineteenth century.    Barrow’s Goldeneye differs from Common Goldeneye by the…

Ethiopian Wolves (Canis simensis) are the rarest Canid on the planet with a population of around just five hundred individuals.  Most of these are found in the Bale Mountains but a second population occurs further north in the Simien Mountains.  Interbreeding with feral dogs  is one problem, but they have also caught rabies and distemper…

Tim writes: Apart from being the sole European representative of a tropical family of butterflies, Duke of Burgundy has another unusual attribute.  Males and females have a different number of legs.  Everyone knows that all insects have six legs, but sometimes they are reduced to become vestigial appendages, hardly visible at all.  This is exactly…

Tim writes: Also known as the Bearded Vulture, the Lammergeier is the only animal on the planet known to feed almost exclusively on bones.  It has an extremely acidic stomach (with a pH of around 1) that can dissolve bones and the high fat content marrow inside.  Even the young nestlings are fed on small…