Wood Rail

To Venezuela and a couple of years ago now for a bird. Grey-necked wood rail (Aramides cajanea) is a chicken-sized bird of wet dense habitats throughout central and northern south America (and supposedly an introduced species of Florida (groan) - not sure if anyone can confirm this?).

It's a big rail, fast moving on those long legs.  As that epic bill suggests it will eat pretty big prey, crabs are a favourite by all accounts but I'd have thought small reptiles, amphibians, mammals and ground based nestlings are all also gonna be in the line of fire if the opportunity presents itself.

It was a surprised to see a rail be as bold as this one was, not quite as secretive as other species I've seen. That said an easy escape route presented itself off shot in the form of dense aquatic forest.

Chilli review - C. annum "Joe's Long Cayenne"

Joe's Long makes a reasonably tall upright plant pretty quickly. It's main feature is the production of very, very long Cayenne type pods. This is one of my non-potted on leftovers which for some reason did better than those that got looked after.

The long pods make this a pretty ornamental plant and a lot of people have talked about growing it as a novelty/ornamental rather than for flavour. I found the flavour to actually be pretty good - I've dried most of my pods and it has that slightly acrid cayenne heat. As annums go I like it.

 This is a haul for drying off 2 plants with a beer bottle top for scale. It's notable that the pods do tend to curl which takes the edge off their epic length a little. If one was so inclined tying them onto a rigid ruler or something to straighten them would probably produce a super pod. Whilst it may perhaps be less productive than other cayennes in terms on numbers of pods, the scale of each pod means the yield is pretty decent per plant.

I'm planning to keep growing this one, partly because I like it of itself and partly because I think it has some nice genetics for me to use in my own breeding.

Wordless Wednesday - Ray of light

A blue-spotted stingray. As I mentioned when I posted one 5 years ago, I still find this particular species of ray very difficult to spot when it is hidden. I don't know why but there is something about this one.

A little lily video

 A quick video tour of the pond to show you some of my waterlilies.....



I pretty much mangled the pronunciation of Tomocik and incorrectly called "Innerlight" innerglow but the important thing is you can see some pretty flowers.

EDIT: The day after I shot and wrote the above, this happened:

Set your faces to "Awwwww!"....

....because I'm about to throw out a shot of probably the cutest thing in the world. Ready? Sure? OK. Here's a sugar glider....

The sugar glider (Petaurus breviceps) is a small gliding possum. They are marsupials and are native to eastern and northern mainland Australia (and also bits of PNG and the Bismarck archipelago apparently). As the name suggests they can glide using skin flaps stretched between front and back legs (just like the Colugo from the other week). They also like to eat nectar-rich flowers which is where the sugar part of the name comes in and at certain wildlife lodges in australia, tree based feeding stations will draw them in at night. If you thought the above was cute here's its tiny little tongue..

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Check out the big eyes, ideal for nocturnal life, the big ears for the same purpose and the skin flaps. Obviously I've not touched one but the fur looks amazingly soft on these guys too. Just adorable.