Japanese Macaque

The Japanese macaque, also known as the snow monkey, is native to Japan. It actually lives in areas that are covered in snow for significant portions of each year. Other than humans, it lives in a colder climate than any other primate. They have brown, pink or yellowish hair, short stump tails and bare pinkish faces and posteriors. As it gets colder, the thickness of their coats increases. They are found on Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, three of the four main islands of Japan. It is estimated that there are about 114,000 of them in the wild. 

I love the expressive faces of the Japanese macaques. The faces vary widely.

This old guy looks like he's been around the block a few times. 

In 1977 we visited Iwatayama Monkey Park, a commercial park located on Mt. Arashiyama in Kyoto, Japan. It has a troop of about 170 wild Japanese macaque monkeys. After a hike up the mountain, you find the monkeys roaming around, along with a hut with wire fencing on the windows that keeps the monkeys out. Inside the hut you can purchase food for yourself or to feed to the monkeys. As a young boy I remember going to Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City and spending time looking at "Louie" the Japanese macaque. We would yell, "get mad, Louie, get mad." And he would jump on the fence and shake it back and forth, screaming in his monkey voice. So it was a thrill to get up close to Louie's cousins. 

They normally walk on all fours. Also note the small tail.

A youngster in a tree.

A youngster eating.

Northern Pig-Tailed Macaque

The northern pig-tailed macaque, also known as the Burmese pig-tailed macaque, is found in Thailand, Myanmar, southern Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, China (Yunnan), eastern Bangladesh and India. It has a short, pig-like tail, that it carries in an erect backward arch over the back, with the tip partially resting on the rump. The tip of the tail has a tuft of hair. It has a uniformly golden-brown coat with a brown triangular crown, buff-colored cheek whiskers and a red streak extending from the outer corner of each eye. When we visited Thailand in 2007, we visited a little monkey facility near Chiang Mai which had several of these monkeys on leash entertaining patrons. 

I love this picture of Judy with a macaque.

Having bugs picked out of my hair - I was worried that I was getting begs by having it perched on my shoulder.

The younger macaque has a shorter tail than the adults.

Red streaks are barely visible from the corner of each eye. I've seen pictures where this is significantly more pronounced, perhaps becoming more pronounced with age. Also note the brown crown. 

An even younger macaque.

Barbary Macaque

Before Andrew graduated from high school, we visited Spain. As part of the visit we went to Gibraltar, which is a British Overseas Territory, at the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. It is dominated by the 1,398 foot high Rock of Gibraltar. The top tourist attraction in Gibraltar is the Barbary macaque, the only population in Europe. Between 230 and 300 of them (I've seen both numbers) live freely on the Rock of Gibraltar. As they are tailless, they are often called Barbary apes, despite the fact they are monkeys. DNA evidence has proven that they are descended from Algerian and Moroccan populations of Barbary macaques. They have been present since before the British captured Gibraltar in 1704. It is believed they were introduced by the Moors, who occupied the area from 711 to 1492, and who kept them as pets. 

The Barbary macaques, especially the young ones, are quite inquisitive.

This view shows that this macaque is tailless.

The Barbary macaque was traditionally found in the Atlas Mountains of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia (they are now extinct in Tunisia). They have declined rapidly in recent years and it is estimated that there are only 12,000 to 21,000 left in Morocco and Algeria. They were declared an endangered species in 2009. The macaques on Gibraltar, however, are thriving. This macaque gets its name from the Barbary Coast of Northern Africa. Their diet is primarily plants and insects. 

Laughing Gull

Laughing gulls are slaty gray above and white below, the head is mostly white with gray streaking on the crown and back of head, the bill is black with a slight reddish tinge, the eyes have white arcs around them, and the legs are reddish black to black. In the summer, breeding adults develop a black hood and a reddish bill and look quite extraordinary. It is quite a transformation, from winter to summer. I saw these laughing gulls in January 2014 at Canaveral Seashore in Florida. I would love to see them in their breeding plumage. 

The reddish black legs, white arcs around the eyes and slaty gray back standout on this laughing gull.

This laughing gull has a more reddish bill and less reddish legs than the one above.

Ring-Billed Gull

The ring-billed gull is most distinctive for its name-sake yellow/green bill with a dark ring around it.

Ring-billed gull in St. Augustine, Florida.

It has a white head, neck and underparts and silver/gray wings and back. 

It has black wingtips spotted with white and the underside of the wings is white. 

It has yellow/green legs and yellow eyes with red rims. It normally has some gray splotches on its head when it is not breeding and the red around the eyes is difficult to see. When breeding, the head turns all white, the red around the eyes becomes very pronounced and portions of the bill and legs get reddish. This particular gull was found in St. Augustine, Florida in January of 2013.  

In February 2017 in Puerto Penasco, Mexico, we saw the following ring-billed gull standing on the head of a statue.

Hybrid Greylag or Domestic Goose

In Europe, the domesticated geese came from the greylag goose. Geese were domesticated over 4,000 years ago in Egypt. Domesticated geese are more than twice the weight of wild geese as they have been bred for meat and they also produce substantially more meat than their wild brethren. For example, wild geese have a slim rear end and domestic geese have fat rear ends and a more upright posture. Domestic geese will lay 50 eggs a year and the wild geese will lay 5 to 12 eggs. Many domestic geese are white as they have been selected over the years to lose the dark brown tones. White geese look better plucked as their down feathers are less conspicuous. Geese hybridise readily in the feral and wild bird populations.

These hybrid greylag geese swim with some greylag geese. Note the large rear end on the second goose from the left and the splotches of dark color.

Another mixture. Particularly note the middle goose which is largely gray with black patches.

These particular geese were seen at Kinderdijk, Netherlands.

Atlantic Canada Goose

The Canada goose has a black head, neck and bill with a white chinstrap, brown back and wings, white under the tail on the rump and a black tail and legs. Sometimes there is a white ring around the base of the neck. The female looks the same, but is about 10% smaller. There are seven subspecies of Canada goose and a goose that used to be considered a Canada goose but is now considered its own distinct species, the cackling goose, which is smaller and itself has four subspecies. It appears that two subspecies of Canada goose are found in Europe. One is the Atlantic Canada goose (canadensis). It is one of the larger subspecies, light colored, with white at the base of the neck which is relatively clear, extending to the back and forming a sharp line with the black neck. The other subspecies is the lesser Canada goose (parvipes), the smallest of the seven subspecies of Canada goose. The lesser Canada goose is of medium size, which helps differentiate it from the smaller cackling goose, which can be as small as a mallard and also has a shorter proportional neck and bill.  The lesser is widely variable in color, with breasts of dark to light gray, and sometimes even brown.

These Canada geese, all in Rudesheim, Germany on the Rhine River, appear to be the Atlantic subspecies. They appear to be a uniform relatively light color and quite large, although I don't have any other geese to compare them against. 

This view shows that the white chinstrap does not connect at the back of the head.

I was a little surprised to find Canada geese in Europe. 

Mallard

The male mallard is one of the most beautiful ducks, exotic looking but common, and the mallard is ancestor to most of the breeds of domestic ducks. The male has a glossy bottle-green head, a white collar, a purple-tinged brown breast, gray/brown wings, pale gray belly, black rear and black tail tinged with white borders, coral red feet and legs and a yellow/green bill. The central black tail feather, or drake feather, is curled (but not so in females). The female is mottled with individual feathers showing significant contrast from light to dark brown, buff cheeks, throat and neck, with a darker crown and eye stripe, orange legs and feet and an orange bill splotched with brown. Both males and females have iridescent purple/blue speculum feathers (back, down-side, closer to the body) edged with black and white.

Two mallard males at the edge of Lake Bled in Slovenia. Note the coral red feet and legs which stand out against the green and brown.

Along Lake Bled. Note the black tail with white border, the iridescent purple/blue wing feathers bordered by black and white and the yellowish/green bill.

This mallard male, in Rudesheim, Germany, reveals its curly black drake feather and a side view of the purplish/blue wing feathers. 

The glossy green head, white collar, brown breast, coral feet and legs and curly drake feather.

This mallard female in Rudesheim shows great blending in ability. The orange on the bill is almost totally dominated by the brown and the variation in the mottled feathers is beautiful.

More orange shows on the bill from the side and the brown eye line is readily visible. 

Mallard in Leyden, Netherlands. Note that the purplish/blue wing feathers are not showing as they also do not show on the females in the pictures above.

Looking a little daffy with its mouth open.

It is widely distributed, over most of North America, Europe and Central Asia and down into North Africa, and southern Australia.