The first film in the Disneynature series, "earth", narrated by James Earl Jones, tells the remarkable story of three animal families and their amazing journey across the planet we call home. "earth" combines rare action, unimaginable scale and impossible locations by capturing the most intimate moments of our planet's wildest and most elusive creatures. Directors Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield, the acclaimed creative team behind the Emmy Award-winning "Planet Earth", combine forces again to bring this epic adventure to the big screen, beginning Earth Day 2009.
Only a handful have ever been found before. But none like her. Her name is Lyuba. A one-month-old baby mammoth, she walked the tundra about 40,000 years ago and then died mysteriously. Discovered by a reindeer herder, she miraculously re-appeared on a riverbank in northwestern Siberia in 2007. She is the most perfectly preserved woolly mammoth ever discovered. And she has mesmerized the scientific world with her arrival - creating headlines across the globe. Everyone wants to know... how did she die? What can she tell us about life during the ice age and the Earth's changing climate? Will scientists be able to extract her DNA, and what secrets will it uncover?
Airs Sunday 4/26 at 9pm ET/PT on the National Geographic Channel, with repeats through the week.
So for many years I used to spend a month or two or more trapping and banding hawks, and doing migration counts, at sites in Utah and Nevada. Mostly at 9,000 feet on a beautiful mountain in Nevada, backpacking situation, though with beginning-of-the-year helicopter logistical support (water, food, etc).
I'd always bring an old rocking chair to provide a more comfortable alternative to the plain wooden benches in our communal mess/office/equipment repair/hangout tent. An old army surplus command post tent.
Anyway ... one year, we had a skunk hanging out most nights, enjoying the companionship, warmth from the pot-bellied stove (9,000 feet in the Great Basin in September/October often means temps cold enough to freeze your water bottle by morning), and I suppose in hopes of crumbs of food on the dirt floor.
One evening, our cook, exhausted from a day that had started at 6:00 AM cooking breakfast, was relaxing by the pot-bellied stove gently rocking in my rocking chair, half-asleep, as the rest of us talked etc.
The skunk came up ... began rubbing her leg, like a cat ... the rest of us watched intently ... the cook, eyes closed, began petting the skunk, rocking gently ... petting ... skunk rubbing her leg with its body ... petting ... then ... suddenly.
SHRIEK!!!!!!!!
She realized what she was petting.
She leapt out of the chair to the far side of the tent ... the skunk scurried from the tent full-speed ... the rest of us laughed our ass off.
The rabbits are multiplying. For the last several weeks, I frequently see a little one hopping into the shrubbery as I walk by. Must be more than one of them on the apartment grounds; sometimes the one I see is smaller than what I saw previously. (Also sometimes a little larger, but that might be the same one.) Wascally creatures!
Hope they stop getting bigger of course, otherwise it might be Night of the Lepus with Deforest Kelley... Well, maybe not.
My friend's dog Trisha needs your vote! She’s a contestant in a “Dog of the Week” contest to win a fleece cover for her bed. Past winners are usually cute little puppies, but at 13 (equal to 91 in people years) her old bones could use the fleece cover more than a puppy. Click on the link above and look for this cutie to vote. Voting is through Oct 12th. Trisha thanks you for your vote!!
