WILD CYPRUS (By George Konstantinou)
The rich and rare biodiversity in Cyprus. The Cyprus biodiversity includes 1950 plants, 650 seashells, 250 fishes, more than 7.000 insects, 410 birds including migratory, 31 mammals, 8 snakes, 11 lizards,three amphibians,120 land snails,fungi estimated 5-8 thousandand and three turtles . These numbers continually increase as a result of research.
Marsh Harrier eating fish - Kouklia dam 28/9/2019 - Cyprus
The western marsh harrier (Circus aeruginosus) is a large harrier, a bird of prey from temperate and subtropical western Eurasia and adjacent Africa. It is also known as the Eurasian marsh harrier.
Formerly, a number of relatives were included in C. aeruginosus, which was then known as marsh harrier. The related taxa are now generally considered to be separate species: the eastern marsh harrier (C. spilonotus) and the possibly distinct Papuan harrier (C. (s.) spilothorax) of eastern Asia and the Wallacea, the swamp harrier (C. approximans) of Australasia and the Madagascar marsh harrier (C. maillardi) of the western Indian Ocean islands.
The western marsh harrier is often divided into two subspecies, the widely migratory C. a. aeruginosus which is found across most of its range, and C. a. harterti which is resident all-year in north-west Africa.
This species has a wide breeding range from Europe and northwestern Africa to Central Asia and the northern parts of the Middle East. It breeds in almost every country of Europe but is absent from mountainous regions and subarctic Scandinavia. It is rare but increasing in Great Britain where it has spread as far as eastern Scotland. In the Middle East there are populations inTurkey, Iraq, and Iran, while in Central Asia the range extends eastwards as far as north-west China, Mongolia, and the Lake Baikal region of Siberia.
Most populations of the western marsh harrier are migratory or dispersive. Some birds winter in milder regions of southern and western Europe, while others migrate to the Sahel, Nile basin and Great Lakes region in Africa, or to Arabia, the Indian subcontinent, and Myanmar. The all-year resident subspecies harterti inhabits Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia.
Vagrants have reached Iceland, the Azores, Malaysia, and Sumatra. The first documented (but unconfirmed) record for the Americas was one bird reportedly photographed on 4 December 1994 at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge in Accomack County, Virginia. Subsequently, there were confirmed records from Guadeloupe (winter of 2002/2003) and fromLaguna Cartagena National Wildlife Refuge in Puerto Rico (early 2004 and January/February 2006)
Like the other marsh harriers, it is strongly associated with wetland areas, especially those rich incommon reed (Phragmites australis). It can also be met with in a variety of other open habitats, such as farmland and grassland, particularly where these border marshland. It is a territorial bird in the breeding season, and even in winter it seems less social than other harriers, which often gather in large flocks. But this is probably simply due to habitat preferences, as the marsh harriers are completely allopatric while several of C. aeruginosus grassland and steppe relatives winter in the same regions and assemble at food sources such as locust outbreaks. Still, in Keoladeo National Park of Rajasthan (India) around 100 Eurasian marsh harriers are observed to roost together each November/December; they assemble in tall grassland dominated by Desmostachya bipinnata and vetiver (Chrysopogon zizanioides), but where this is too disturbed by human activity they will use floating carpets of common water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) instead – the choice of such roost sites may be to give early warning of predators, which will conspicuously rustle through the plants if they try to sneak upon the resting birds
It hunts in typical harrier fashion, gliding low over flat open ground on its search for prey, with its wings held in a shallow V-shape and often with dangling legs.
It feeds on small mammals, small birds, insects, reptiles, and frogs.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alligators! Big Cyprus National Park
try to clean nile crocodiles glass by yiannis angeli
yiannis angeli,nile crocodiles,chc,cobra show,snakes
CORMORANTS : ONE OF THE GREATEST GATHERING OF CORMORANTS IN THE WORLD..!!!!
CORMORANTS
The rare video showing the greatest gathering of cormorants anywhere on earth. The birds are expert in fishing, and gather in mixed flocks comprising of other birds and 3 species of cormorants.
[cormorant details - Wikipedia]
INDIAN CORMORANT
The Indian cormorant or Indian shag (Phalacrocorax fuscicollis) is a member of the cormorant family. It is found mainly along the inland waters of the Indian Subcontinent but extending west to Sind and east to Thailand and Cambodia. It is a gregarious species that can be easily distinguished from the similar sized little cormorant by its blue eye, small head with a sloping forehead and a long narrow bill ending in a hooked tip.
This medium-sized bronze brown cormorant is scalloped in black on the upper plumage, lacks a crest and has a small and slightly peaked head with a long narrow bill that ends in a hooked tip. The eye is blue and bare yellow facial skin during the non-breeding season. Breeding birds have a short white ear tuft. In some plumages it has a white throat but the white is restricted below the gape unlike in the much larger great cormorant. Sexes are similar, but non-breeding adults and juveniles are browner.
Habitat and distribution
This cormorant fishes gregariously in inland rivers or large wetlands of peninsular India and northern part of Sri Lanka. It also occurs in estuaries and mangroves but not on the open coast. They breed very locally in mixed species breeding colonies.They extend north-east to Assam and eastward into Thailand, Burma and Cambodia.
GREAT CORMORANT
The great cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo), known as the great black cormorant across the Northern Hemisphere, the black cormorant in Australia, the large cormorant in India and the black shag further south in New Zealand, is a widespread member of the cormorant family of seabirds.The genus name is Latinised Ancient Greek, from φαλακρός (phalakros, bald) and κόραξ (korax, raven), and carbo is Latin for charcoal.
It breeds in much of the Old World and the Atlantic coast of North America.
Distribution
This is a very common and widespread bird species. It feeds on the sea, in estuaries, and on freshwater lakes and rivers. Northern birds migrate south and winter along any coast that is well-supplied with fish.
The type subspecies, P. c. carbo, is found mainly in Atlantic waters and nearby inland areas: on western European coasts and south to North Africa, the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland; and on the eastern seaboard of North America, though in America it breeds only in the north of its range, in the Canadian maritime provinces.
LITTLE CORMORANT
The little cormorant (Microcarbo niger) is a member of the cormorant family of seabirds. Slightly smaller than the Indian cormorant it lacks a peaked head and has a shorter beak. It is widely distributed across the Indian Subcontinent and extends east to Java, where it is sometimes called the Javanese cormorant. It forages singly or sometimes in loose groups in lowland freshwater bodies, including small ponds, large lakes, streams and sometimes coastal estuaries. Like other cormorants, it is often found perched on a waterside rock with its wings spread out after coming out of the water. The entire body is black in the breeding season but the plumage is brownish, and the throat has a small whitish patch in the non-breeding season. These birds breed gregariously in trees, often joining other waterbirds at heronries.
Distribution
The little cormorant is found across India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and lowland Nepal. It is also found in parts of Burma, Thailand, Laos, Indonesia. It is not found in the Himalayas, but vagrants have been seen in Ladakh. It inhabits wetlands, ranging from small village ponds to large lakes, and sometimes tidal estuaries.
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Merlin Falcon Under Tree At D.N.P (Rajasthan) @ Jay Solanki