Crane

Crane

Cranes are the tallest flying bird recorded in the world. The smallest measure to about 3 feet, while the largest can get over 5 feet. The heaviest crane known can get to over 20 pounds. Cranes are long legged and long necked, and while cranes do not typically differ in appearance, a male is mostly a little bigger than a female.

The way a crane behaves is determined by what time of season it is. If it is mating season, cranes are very territorial and stay on territory at almost all times, protecting breeding ground. However, as soon as mating season is over, they are very social birds that hang around in large flocks, almost always with each other.

A special and little known fact about the crane is that it is one of the five animals of Kenpo karate. It represents grace and balance, as it is graceful and balanced in real life. There is a form named after it, and it involves lots of balance. There are two types of karate cranes: Graceful Cranes ( Like myself, fluent, graceful, and rarely stumbling,) and Wrecking Cranes ( Much like my Dad, who has a blown out knee and can barely stand on one leg).

Cranes eat a large variety of food, much depending on whats available to them at the time. For the cranes that are on land, there is a large variety of bugs, small rodents, berries, plants, and fruit. For water dwelling cranes, their main food is fish, small amphibians, and marsh plants.

Blue Jay

Blue Jay

The blue jay can be found across the world, in various different ranges. It is seldom found in dense woods, as it prefers mixed trees, especially beeches and oaks. The blue jay's unique color, like other blue tinted birds, is due to the alignment of the feathers and light. If a feather was somehow crushed, it would no longer be blue.

Blue jays commonly look for shelled food, as it is easier to carry in their beaks and store for later. After collecting a nice store, a blue jay will peck at the shell of usually a nut or acorn until it cracks. Mating season take place from March to July, and usually a large tree or bush is the place for the nest. The nest consists of twigs, mosses, grasses, and bits of trash collected, usually clumped together with mud.

Baby blue jays are sometimes called fledglings. The family of blue jays will stick close by each other until the next winter comes, and then they will separate so as not to  fight over the hard to find winter food. A blue jay makes a large variety of sounds. Some blue jays, if around humans enough, learn to mimic human sounds.

The blue jays is the mascot of many colleges and schools, and even a sports team called the Toronto Bluejays. It is also the provincial bird of Prince Edward Island.

Bat

Bat

Bats take up 20% of all classified mammals in the world. The smallest bat on record is barely an inch long, while the largest bat on record can get up to over 1 foot. They are commonly mistaken as flying rodents, but are in fact mammals. Most bats are plant and bug eaters, while the only carnivorous one is the vampire bat.

Bats, while not blind, have very poor sight, and use sound waves to move. They have very thin wings, much lighter than those of birds, allowing them to move more fluently and more accurately than birds. ( Hence the reason that birds are more commonly known to crash into cars, yet you rarely hear of a tale where the bat has a crash landing.)

Many hawks and falcons hunt bats, and many are killed. In winter months, bats retreat to caves and hibernate for six months. They are also seldom known to fly in the rain, as it disrupts the sound waves and pushes them down due to their light wings.

While the female bats can have up to 3-4 litters a season, the bat population rate grows slowly due to slow advancement. Megabats leave their parents and become independent at the age of four months, while regular bats are independent at the age of 6 weeks.

The Gliding Frog

The gliding frog, much like the flying squirrel, can glide using it's flappy body as a parachute. Mother Nature gave these creature almost suction cups on the end of each of their toes, allowing them to climb up to the top of trees and glide from heights of about 5 feet. Not much to you and me, but to a small amphibian, quite a distance!

Gliding Frog

The gliding frog is a picky chooser when it comes to trying to find a good tree for a nest of eggs. It usually chooses one overhanging a swamp or marsh, where the babies can fall into the water and begin their life after hatching. The way of a gliding frog's egg hatching is very strange. The mother, after laying her egg, mashes it up with her feet till it looks like beaten egg whites, and the babies are born from that case of gel.

A different species of gliding frog can be found in Southeast Asia, but the true gliding frog is only found in the forests of Java, were it can feast on grasshoppers and other small insects.

Lammergeier ( Accipitridae )

The lammergier hunts in the high mountains of Europe, Africa, and Tibet, and is sometimes called the bearded eagle because of its short black beak. It is accused of things it doesn't do, such as flying away with babies, attacking people, and stealing cattle. What it does do is drop bones down on rocks, not for fun, but to get its food. It eats the bone marrow from inside cracked bones. The lammergier is not a killer; it seeks out bones that other animals have left behind.

The bird is scarce. In Paris there are only a few pairs left. The female only lays one egg, so population chances are decreasing. These may be the next thing to die out! If the female does happen to lay 2 eggs, she usually eats the second, as she lays them in winter. She knows that there will barely be enough food for the first baby, which will not be able to leave the nest for 3 months. The second egg will be eaten to give her nourishment.

Among other legends about the lammergier, excusing the lies about the child-killing, there is another faous legend: A Greek playwright by the name of Aeschylus was said to have been killed by a large turtle falling from the sky after an eagle mistook Aeschylus' head for a stone to crack the turtle shell on. If this event did take place, it is likely that the lammergier was the "eagle".

Badger ( Mustelidae )

The perfect example of the stinky clean- the badger. It digs its burrow, much like the other species in its family. But unlike the other species, the badger becomes the neat freak. It drags mosses, leaves, sticks, etc. into its burrow and transforms them into a cozy nest. It gets its waste cleaned out once a day, as well as changing its bed.

The smelly part of the badger comes from the musk gland, which all members of its family have. The badger is a nocturnal creature, that spends the day in its burrow with its family, or even families, only venturing out at night.  It is omnivorous, and eats roots, grasses, berries, small rodents, and even an occasional snake or two.

These creatures can be found all over the world, most commonly in Europe and Asia. The American and Chinese badgers differ in weight. The American badger typically stays at about 20-24 pounds, while the Chinese badger weighs in at about 40 pounds.

The Flying Squirrel ( Scuiridae )

The amazing animal hoax- the flying squirrel! This squirrel hardly "flies". What the "flying" squirrel does is leap from treetops, and as it falls, opens itself up like a parachute, slowing its fall and allowing it to land safely. Its tail acts as the controller and emergency brake for the squirrel, which has been known to fall from over 165 foot high trees. Kids, don't try this at home!

The flying squirrel eats mostly nuts, fruits, and small insects. It builds its nest inside dried out coconut shells. There is usually 2-4 young in one litter, and the lifespan is usually 11-13 years, unless they are caught by a bird or animal of prey. The mating season for these squirrels is from February to March. When the babies are born, they have no fur except whiskers, and the internal organs are visible through the skin. This makes their sex easy to determine.