Sunday 29 June 2014

What is an endangered species?

280 million years ago, there was a vast supercontinent called Pangaea. The landmass was so large, clouds disappeared before reaching its center, creating a desert three times as large as the Sahara. Finbacked reptiles, the ancestors of the dinosaurs, lived on this land, and jawless fish and trilobites inhabited the waters.

This land was a little warmer than it is today, and oxygen was more abundant. This age was known as the Carboniferous.

Over the years, Carboniferous turned into Permian. The Finbacks got larger and larger. Trees evolved. When you could be tempted to think that this golden age could go on forever, disaster struck. Major volcanic activity began in what is now Siberia. Carbon dioxide poured into the air from volcanoes, causing global warming in an already overheated planet. Soon the clouds of noxious gas blocked out the sun, causing global cooling. The activity released clouds of methane. The temperature soared.

Most of the species could not handle this climate change. Nineteen out of every twenty species were wiped out. Pretty much only the reptiles survived. With no competition, they evolved into the Dinosaurs.

So, what is an endangered species? Good question. If a species is endangered, this means the species is in danger of becoming extinct unless somebody does something about it. The humpback whale population is rising rapidly, even though it is still on the endangered species list. The humpback whale should be taken off the endangered species list, even though it should still be protected carefully.

Before about 1950, people did not care a species was endangered or not. The Thylacine went extinct almost unnoticed in 1936. People are caring more about endangered species in the present, but there is still a danger of an extinction unless people put more effort into the conservation of species.

What defines a mass extinction? A mass extinction is when over 40% of all the known species on earth go extinct. The first mass extinction was in the Ordovician when the first plants appeared. The plants sucked up much of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This caused global cooling.

There is a low chance that we will cause a mass extinction, but humans have already endangered many species. If we sit in our homes doing nothing, the koala, panda, lion, sea turtle, and many, many other species will become extinct. The good thing is, you only have to make a small donation. If every person in a developed country donated ten cents for pandas, the panda might be taken off the endangered species list within fifty years! However, we have a long way to go, and this is only the beginning ...

The Battle In The Hills part 5


     "Koo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-kaa-kaa-kaa-kaa-kaa-ha-haaa"
     Two families of kookaburras were battling. A kookaburra perhaps too young to fight flew into conflict.
     They were making a huge sound close to a house.
     A window opened. A hand reached out and threw a rolled-up newspaper at the kookaburras. They scattered.
     The kookaburras were softly chattering:
     "Did you get hit by it?"
     "Are you hurt?"
     "I knew it. We should have invaded the territory of the Dumeni family. They might be better at fighting, but they have more food, and they don't live close to humans."
     "Irind. Where's Irind?"
     No one had been hit by the newspaper. All of the kookaburras had flown away just in time. This had put an end to the fight, but all of the kookaburras were either bruised or their feathers had been pulled and ruffled up.
     The Jineik family inspected their injuries. Oitar, a mother of four eggs, noticed that one of the elders had a cut over the brown stripe across her head that made the top part of his beak not blue, but a velvet shade of purple. The father of Oitar's eggs had a cut in the same place, but it was not dripping over his beak. The bottom part of his beak stayed bone white.
     Another kookaburra had been pecked in his eye and couldn't see, his tears so thick that no one could see the familiar brown of his eyes. He also had a cut in his left wing, and blood was flowing down the white and dark brown of his wings and the blue specks of his wings. All of the rest were less injured. Ohyr, one of the elders, had feathers so messed up that the bars of brown on his tail were impossible to see. 
    Both families flew back to their hunting grounds. Oitar went to hunt for snakes on a stretch of flat rocks that was so windy flying took too much energy, and she just hunted close to the forest.
     After a lot of time passed and she couldn't find anything, she was about to ask Oarn, the youngest son of Ohyr, to help her hunt. But then she noticed something:
     Oarn...was missing.

Plastic of Umina

    Many times, plastic gets littered onto the streets and along paths. In my hometown, a town/city called Umina, I see 2 to 5 pieces of trash along only a small circuit. This littering has to be stopped!
    What happens to a plastic bottle that is thrown on the ground in my local park? If the wind is strong enough, it could well go onto the side of the street. Then, the next time it rains, the bottle could get stuck in the gutter.
    I have crawled around one of these gutters before. Right below it the water enters a stone pipe. the pipe slants downward at a slight angle to guide the water. Even when it is dry outside, there is a trickle of water through it, and I can imagine that with all of the roofs in a street connected to a single pipe, the gutters have a gushing current of water whenever it rains.
    If there is a plastic bottle in the gutter, the bottle is swept wherever the water goes. And where is that? In the river, with Umina's victim being Kahibah wetland.
    Kahibah wetland contains many plants and swamp hens. Ducks swim there. I have even seen an Eastern Rosella there and my dog, Lyra, likes to romp around and swim there(Rebelliously). Is this really the place where all of the littering of Umina ends up?
    Kahibah wetland eventually turns into a creek and flows through some more wetlands before reaching the beach. Then plastic can flow down the beach along the river and go into the open ocean.
    Have you heard of the great pacific garbage patch? This is a place in the pacific ocean where the currents circle around and around, trapping pieces of plastic in a swirling garbage dump. This plastic gets broken down by the sun into flecks so small that a fish could easily mistake them for plankton. This is not the only animal that ends up getting plastic in its body. Turtles can mistake a plastic bag for a jellyfish. Birds can be attracted by the bright colours and feed plastic to its chicks. Rubbish on beaches is not a good thing.
    One day, after a shower of rain and a gale warning, lots of trash that blew into Kahibah creek ended up... At the beach. Me and my brothers noticed the trash and cleaned it up with a littered grocery bag and a long stick. Boy, there was a lot. Even my dog and my parents helped.
    So thanks to everyone who mindfully picks up plastic and deposits it in the trash where it belongs.

Thursday 26 June 2014

The Battle in the hills part 4

    "Where did that kookaburra go?"
    "Who cares? Kookaburras never hurt us."
    Thie, Brea, and Hurd were three Indian mynas sitting on a tree branch where a kookaburra had sat before flying away to the call of another one rather recently.
    The three birds sat on the branch in silence for a while, before another bird flew onto their branch.
    This bird was different than Thie, Brea, and Hurd. The other bird was the same small size and had the same yellow coloring behind its eyes but Thie, for example, was white and light gray while the other bird was black and dark brown. They recognised it as a noisy miner. 
    "Hello. What have you been doing lately?" 
    "Nothing. Just sitting here." chirped Thie.
    "For how long?" 
Hurd felt offended."Who have you been flying around with who's so energetic?"
    "I have seen a crowd of rainbow lorikeets. They were fast." The noisy miner replied.
     Then all four birds heard distant chattering. After a while, a cloud of rainbow lorikeets flew into the scene.
     "Where's the place?"
     "When will we get there, Gri?"
     "What did the tawny frogmouth look like?"
     The rainbow lorikeets crowded onto every little place in a tree. Gri, Eri, Foi, Hiera, and Karr had rejoined the flock and, being only one sixth of the group, they thought they would receive little attention, but the rest wanted to know every single detail about that hungry night. They were heading to a place where they would get plenty of food.
     The crowd of rainbow lorikeets flew away, leaving the other four birds sitting on the branch alone.

Friday 20 June 2014

the battle in the hills part 3


     The kookaburra sat on a branch near a house with a wide white roof. The sun suddenly came out from behind the clouds and reflected off the metal roof and into the kookaburra's eyes. She turned away from the dazzling sunlight, watching an eastern rosella flying far away.
     "Aah-hoo-hoo-hoo...kaa-koo-koo"
Irind turned her head toward her mother. They were far away from each other.
     "O-o-hah-ah-aaa-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-ooo"
     "Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooo"
     "Haa-hoo-hoohoohoohoohooh"
     "Hooo" Irind admitted, flying to her mother.
     "Why did you sit close to that house?"
     "I was hoping I could steal some food."
     Irind was a member of the Bulumat family. This family lived near a town and often fought with the other families, Dumeni and Jineik.
     "Don't think of doing that. The last kookaburra who stole a piece of meat got hit with a-"
     "Don't remind me."
     But 'think of doing that' they will. The Bulumat family stole from humans at every chance they could get. These kookaburras got wounded and bruised many times, but with a reward, and during the dry hungry summer months that was all they thought about.
     "khoo-khoo-khoo..."
     Suddenly, Irind's mother snapped her head around and stood up straight. The call came from somewhere among the trees.
     The call sounded out again. "Khoo-khoo-khoo..." the other kookaburra said, sounding as if he was not sure what to do next.
     "Invaders!" Irind's mother said quickly. Before Irind could respond, her mother, Ires, chuckled "come on!" and they both flew into the trees.
     While they were flying, they heard more:
     "khoo-khoo-khoo..."
     "kaa..."
     "khoo...khoo..."
     "khoo-khoo-khoo-kaa-kaa-kaa-kaa-kaa-"
     Another joined in, making a louder sound than the first one, "kooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"
     Two more joined in, making the resulting sound "koohookhookaahaahaa..."
    When Irind and Ires got there, they saw the whole Bulumat family together, joining in loud laughter. The two kookaburras alighted on a tree branch and started doing the same.
     They were trying to ward off invaders, but they had no luck. The two kookaburras from the Jineik family would not move closer, but did not fly away into their territory. The laughing continued, but the two unfamiliar kookaburras didn't budge. Slowly the laughing ceased.
      Uar, the strongest of the Bulumat family, flew onto a branch closer to the Jineik family kookaburras and looked at the eldest kookaburra, Urask. Everyone knew what Uar was going to do and intently watched.
     Urask raised his head and cackled, "oo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo...ha".
     Uar flew at full speed into one of the enemy kookaburras and battered him all around. The whole Bulumat family started laughing, cheering Uar on on his winning battle.
     Everyone expected the two Jineik kookaburras to fly back into their territory, but instead the whole Jineik family flew out of the trees and both families, Jineik and Bulumat, were caught up in a full fledged battle, the loud calling of two families ringing through the entire forest.
     The kookaburras fought over something they needed; not territory, but food. If the Bulumat family got hungry, they could just steal food from humans. If the Dumeni family got hungry, they would have to fight another family, but they were rarely hungry. If the Jineik family got hungry, they would fight for a chance to get some food. This is why the Jineik family was attacking the Bulumat family.
     Irind looked closely at the attackers. She had to find one that was her size...there! She saw another kookaburra who was a juvenile like her and had probably just learned to fly.
     "Don't start fighting. You're too young." said Ires, close beside her.
     Irind didn't listen. She had to fight. If the Bulumat family lost they would have to let the Jineik family hunt in their territory for a while. Irind did not want that. she launched herself into the mass of battling kookaburras that were flying back and forth.
     "Irind!"

Tuesday 17 June 2014

the battle in the hills part 2


     Karr, Gri, Eri, Hiera, and Foi were together eating the budding flowers of a bush. The tough buds that they could hardly eat were the only morsels of food they could find in a sad part of the forest where chemicals from a nearby polluted lake contaminated the plants.
     "These are the worst. Is there anything around here that tastes good?" said Gri.
     "We've flown around here all day. I'm afraid that if we want more food we will have to sleep now and search tomorrow. None of the grass trees around here are even budding right. And all of the seeds around here are sour." said Hiera, who seemed to be the leader of the group.
     "My wings are tired. Let's go to sleep." said Karr.
     One by one the rainbow lorikeets went to sleep. The only one who couldn't go to sleep was Foi, who hadn't had a full stomach in two days. He was feeling it was going to be a long night when he heard a faint sound 'Oom...oom...oom...'
     "Owl?" Foi wondered aloud. He thought it was a boobook owl, which he heard little about.
     "Zzzzzt"
     Foi jumped. It was probably a bee or a snake. He woke the other rainbow lorikeets up.
     While the others were waking up, Foi saw the fuzzy outline of an owl perching on a branch close to him.
     "Are you an owl?" Eri chirped.
     "No" said the bird. "Call me Arcoi."
     "Are you a tawny frogmouth?" the more-curious-than-before Eri said.
     "Just call me Arcoi. Why are you not asleep?"
     "We had a restless night. We can't find any food." said Foi.
     "I once flew over a place with lots of seeds. So many grass trees and seeding bushes you won't eat all of it even by the time the now waning moon is full."
     Gri suddenly said "That's great! Where is that place?"
     "Over there." Arcoi said, pointing with his beak."Close to a tangle of rotting trees."
     The five rainbow lorikeets eventually went to sleep, knowing that they wouldn't have to eat sour seeds and tough, bitter buds anymore.

Monday 16 June 2014

Cats

Cats were special to many countries throughout the world ever since they were domesticated. The first civilisation to worship cats was Ancient Egypt, six thousand years ago. Cats have been special to many other cultures since then. (Some people go as far as to claim that cats have psychic powers!) Cats are the second most popular pet in the world and have been bred so long that the domestic cat is now an entirely different species from its ancestors.

What is the history of the domestic cat? I plan to answer that question and more in this post.

History of cats

Cats were first bred from the African Wildcat in Egypt when the cats started catching the mice that were eating the wheat. Later, cats were bred in places like Cyprus and Persia for the same reason. Some of the oldest cat breeds came from Persia.

By 500 years ago people were breeding cats in countries worldwide, but mainly in places like Russia. The number of breeds had increased dramatically. 

After the dog, cats are the oldest household pet as they were first domesticated 6000 years ago. The Persian king almost  always kept at least one. Therefore the cats had a lot of time to breed, and there are thousands of breeds in the world today.

Unique breeds

Of all of the breeds, the strangest of all is the sphinx. Sphinx cats have almost no fur. It is one of the newest breeds and there are about 5000 of them around.

There are several breeds of almost tail less cats around. Why people want cats with no tails, I have not the slightest idea!

Actually, getting a cat with no tail can help if you do not want your cat climbing trees. Cats use their tails to balance themselves. Take away the tail, and it would be very hard to climb trees for the cat.

Some tips

Where do you live?
If you happen to live in Belgium, as long as there are not any big roads in the area, you can let your cat roam free.

If you live in Australia, you have to take precautions.

You see, cats are a problem in Australia as they kill wildlife. Attach a bell to your cat's collar. Keep your cat indoors at all times.

Because of the problems cats pose, Australians usually choose dogs. However, you can still keep a cat if you feel confident...

Saturday 7 June 2014

The Battle In The Hills part 1

This is the beginning of my new story, a sequel to 'Paradise'. I will post the next section when this one gets five views on the Lyra's Letters website:

    Swish, swish, swish...
    Ranid listened to the sound of his wings flapping under a bright sun. He was in the middle of a wide field with his brothers and sisters. Sometime the sun would start sinking below the horizon.
     Ranid was a ground-swallow. He darted along, flying very close to the ground.
     Ranid's eye caught a black cockatoo. He stopped flying and alighted on a dead tree. The black cockatoo was sitting halfway up a tall tree, higher than Ranid had ever gone. From far below Ranid could easily see the striking panels of red on the underside of the cockatoo's tail.
     Ranid couldn't help asking "hello, did you see anything happening lately? You are staring at that hill."
     The black cockatoo said "yes... I just saw three bush turkeys going up the hillside."
     "What's a bush turkey?"
     "Bush turkeys are big birds with small heads that are completely black except a little yellow and red on their necks. I sometimes wonder how they fly. But they rarely do, compared to you ground-swallows."
     "If they don't fly, how can you see them under all those trees?"
     "They went across some rocks with no trees. But they never go along that stretch. I think something is going on."
     "What do you mean?"
     The black cockatoo acted like he hadn't heard Ranid's question, "Ground-swallows are lucky. You are isolated from anything happening in the hills. You are safe. Be thankful."
     Ranid was about to ask another question, but the black cockatoo had already flown away.