User talk:Giles Laurent

Chillon Castle is an island castle located on Lake Geneva to the south of Veytaux in Vaud, Switzerland. It is situated at the eastern end of the lake, on the narrow shore between Montreux and Villeneuve, and close to the Fort de Chillon, which is embedded in the neighbouring hillside. The oldest parts of the castle have not been dated definitively, but the first written record of the castle was in 1005. It was built to control the road from Burgundy to the Great St Bernard Pass, on the site of an earlier Roman outpost. From the mid 12th century, the castle became the summer home of the Counts of Savoy, who kept a fleet of ships on Lake Geneva. It was greatly expanded during the 13th century. The castle became a prison in the 16th century, housing among others the Genvois monk François Bonivard, before reverting to being a residence and then again becoming a prison in 1733. Since the end of the 18th century, the castle has been a tourist attraction.

Photograph credit: Giles Laurent

The great blue turaco (Corythaeola cristata) is a bird species in the turaco family, Musophagidae, which is widespread throughout the African tropical rainforest. It has a typical length of around 75 cm (30 in) with a mass of around 1 kg (2 lb). The adult great blue turaco has predominantly gray-blue upperparts with an upright blue-black crest. Its bill is yellow and the two sexes have similar plumage. This great blue turaco was photographed in Kibale National Park, Uganda.

Photograph credit: Giles Laurent

A ghillie suit is a type of camouflage clothing designed to resemble the background environment, such as foliage. Typically, it is a net or cloth garment covered in loose strips of burlap (hessian), cloth, twine, or jute sometimes made to look like leaves and twigs, and optionally augmented with foliage from the area. Military personnel, police, hunters, and nature photographers may wear a ghillie suit to blend into their surroundings and to conceal themselves from enemies or targets. The suit gives the wearer's outline a three-dimensional breakup, rather than a linear one. When manufactured correctly, the suit will move in the wind in the same way as surrounding foliage. Some ghillie suits are made with light and breathable material that allows a person to wear a shirt underneath. This photograph of a wildlife photographer in a ghillie suit, standing and holding a camera, was taken in a forest in the Jura Mountains near Marchissy, Switzerland.

Photograph credit: Giles Laurent

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  Male
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  Female

The Alpine ibex (Capra ibex), also known as the steinbock, is a species of goat that lives in the Alps of Europe. Its closest living relative is the Iberian ibex. Alpine ibex have brownish-grey coats and sharp hooves adapted to steep, rough terrain. Found at elevations as high as 3,300 metres (10,800 feet), they are active throughout the year, primarily feeding on grass in open alpine meadows. Adult males, which are larger than females, segregate from them for most of the year, coming together only during the breeding season, when they fight for access to the females using their long horns. The Alpine ibex has been successfully reintroduced to parts of its historical range, but all individuals living today descend from a population bottleneck of fewer than 100 individuals from Gran Paradiso National Park in Italy. The species has few predators and is not threatened, but it has very low genetic diversity. These Alpine ibex, a male in winter and a female in summer, were photographed at Creux du Van in Switzerland.

Photograph credit: Giles Laurent

The Alpine marmot (Marmota marmota) is a large ground-dwelling squirrel, from the genus of marmots. It is found in high numbers in mountainous areas of central and southern Europe, at heights between 800 and 3,200 metres (2,600 and 10,500 feet) in the Alps, the Carpathians, the Tatras, and the northern Apennines. In 1948, the species was reintroduced with success in the Pyrenees, where it had disappeared at the end of the Pleistocene epoch. This Alpine marmot was photographed in the Grand Muveran federal game reserve, in the Swiss canton of Vaud.

Photograph credit: Giles Laurent

The red-chested cuckoo (Cuculus solitarius) is a species of cuckoo. It is a medium-sized bird, about 31 cm (12.2 in) in length, found in Sub-Saharan Africa. The male has slate-grey upper parts, pale grey throat and sides of head and dark grey tail tipped with white. The breast is rufous or cinnamon, often with barring, and the belly is creamy-white or pale buff. The female is similar but the colour of the breast is duller and with variable amounts of barring. It is usually solitary and highly vocal and lives on forests and plantations. It eats insects including caterpillars, spiders, centipedes, millipedes, slugs, snails, small vertebrates and berries. This red-chested cuckoo was photographed in Kibale National Park, Kenya.

Photograph credit: Giles Laurent

The bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus) is a very large bird of prey in the monotypic genus Gypaetus. It is vernacularly known as the Homa, a bird in Iranian mythology. The bearded vulture is the only known vertebrate whose diet consists of 70 to 90 per cent bone. It lives and breeds on crags in high mountains in Iran, southern Europe, East Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Tibet, and the Caucasus. The bearded vulture population is thought to be in decline; since 2014, it has been classified as near threatened on the IUCN Red List. Bearded vultures are 94 to 125 centimetres (37 to 49 inches) long, with a wingspan of 2.31 to 2.83 metres (7.6 to 9.3 feet). This bearded vulture was photographed carrying a piece of carrion in the Alps in Switzerland, where the species was reintroduced in the late 20th century after having become locally extinct in the early 20th century.

Photograph credit: Giles Laurent

The grey-headed kingfisher (Halcyon leucocephala) is a species of bird in the kingfisher family, Alcedinidae. It is found across large parts of Africa and southern Arabia – from Mauritania through Senegal and the Gambia, east to Ethiopia, Somalia, Yemen, Oman and Saudia Arabia, and south through to South Africa. It is also found in islands off the African coast such as the Cape Verde islands and Zanzibar. The grey-headed kingfisher is around 21 centimetres (8.3 inches) in length, with the two sexes being similar in size and appearance. The adult of the nominate subspecies H. l. leucocephala has a pale grey head, black mantle and back, bright blue rump, wings and tail, and chestnut underparts. The beak is long, red and sharp. Its song features a succession of notes, ascending, descending and then ascending again, becoming increasingly strident, while the warning call is a series of sharp notes. The bird's habitat consists of scrub and woodland and it moves either solitary or in pairs, often near water; however, unlike most kingfishers it is not aquatic. It nests in holes in steep riverbanks and is aggressively protective of its nest by repeated dive-bombing of foraging monitor lizards. This grey-headed kingfisher perching on a twig was photographed in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda.

Photograph credit: Giles Laurent

An effusive eruption is a type of volcanic eruption in which lava steadily flows out of a volcano onto the ground. It is one of two major groupings of eruptions, the other being explosive. Effusive eruptions form lava flows and lava domes, each of which vary in shape, length, and width. Deep in the crust, gases are dissolved into the magma because of high pressures but, upon ascent and eruption, pressure drops rapidly, and these gases begin to exsolve out of the melt. A volcanic eruption is effusive when the erupting magma is volatile-poor, which suppresses fragmentation, creating oozing magma that spills out of the volcanic vent and out into the surrounding area. Effusive eruptions are most common in basaltic magma, but they also occur in intermediate and felsic magma, and occasionally in silicic magma as well. This video shows lava agitating and bubbling in an effusive eruption of Litli-Hrútur, near the volcano Fagradalsfjall in Iceland, in 2023.

Video credit: Giles Laurent

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  Male plum-headed parakeet
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  Female plum-headed parakeet

The plum-headed parakeet (Psittacula cyanocephala) is a species of parakeet in the family Psittacidae. It is endemic to the Indian subcontinent, from the foothills of the Himalayas to southern India and Sri Lanka, and inhabits forests, open woodland, and sometimes city gardens. It is a predominantly green bird, with a length of 33 to 37 centimetres (13 to 14+1⁄2 in) and a weight of 55 to 85 grams (2 to 3 oz). The male has a red head which shades to purplish-blue on the back of the crown, nape and cheeks, while the female has a bluish-gray head. The plum-headed parakeet is a gregarious and noisy species with swift twisting flight and a range of raucous calls. It feeds on grains, fruits, flower petals, sometimes also raiding agricultural fields and orchards. It nests in holes, chiselled out by the pair, in tree trunks, and courtship includes bill rubbing and courtship feeding. These male and female plum-headed parakeets were photographed in Jim Corbett National Park, in the Indian state of Uttarakhand.

Photograph credit: Giles Laurent

The olive-bellied sunbird (Cinnyris chloropygius) is a small bird in the family Nectariniidae, the sunbirds, widespread across the African tropical rainforest. The male has a metallic green head, back and throat, a blue rump, scarlet breast patch, yellow pectoral tufts and an olive belly, while the female has an olive-brown head and upperparts, dark brown wings and tail, and olive underparts washed with yellow. The olive-bellied sunbird resembles the tiny sunbird, but is slightly larger and lacks blue bars in the red breast plumage. It feeds on insects such as caterpillars, beetles and spiders, as well as nectar, flowers and seeds, usually foraging low in the canopy. The species is common, faces no major threats, and is listed as least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. This male olive-bellied sunbird in flight was photographed in Kibale National Park, Uganda.

Photograph credit: Giles Laurent

The olive-bellied sunbird (Cinnyris chloropygius) is a small bird in the sunbird family, Nectariniidae, widespread across the African tropical rainforest. The male has metallic green head, back and throat, a blue rump, scarlet breast patch, yellow pectoral tufts and an olive belly, while the female has an olive-brown head and upperparts, dark brown wings and tail, and olive underparts washed with yellow. The olive-bellied sunbird resembles the tiny sunbird but is slightly larger and lacks blue bars in the red breast plumage. It feeds on insects such as caterpillars, beetles and spiders, as well as nectar, flowers and seeds, usually foraging low in the canopy. The species is common, faces no major threats, and is listed as least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. This olive-bellied sunbird was photographed in Kibale National Park, Uganda.

Photograph credit: Giles Laurent

The Usambiro barbet (Trachyphonus usambiro) is a bird in the family Lybiidae, the African barbets, found in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. Formerly treated as a subspecies of d'Arnaud's barbet, it was recognised as a distinct species by the International Ornithologists' Union in 2021. First described in 1908 by Oscar Neumann from specimens collected in Usambiro, Tanzania, it differs from d'Arnaud's barbet in having a longer wing, a shorter tail and a darker bill. The species inhabits open savanna, grassland, shrubland and pasture habitats, including Maasai Mara in Kenya and the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, at elevations of 1,100 to 2,100 metres (3,600 to 6,900 ft). It likely feeds on seeds, fruit and insects, and is listed as a Least-concern species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The Usambiro barbet has a yellow head with black spots, black wings with white spots, and a yellow breast marked by a dark breast band. Its belly is pale yellow with a reddish vent, and the sexes are similar in appearance. This Usambiro barbet was photographed on a branch in the Serengeti National Park.

Photograph credit: Giles Laurent

The golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) is a bird of prey in the family Accipitridae. Found across much of the Northern Hemisphere, it has dark-brown plumage with a golden-brown crown and nape, broad wings and powerful talons. The species inhabits mainly open and mountainous country across Eurasia, North America and parts of North Africa. It hunts a variety of prey, particularly hares, rabbits, marmots and other small mammals. Pairs of golden eagles usually mate for life, and build large nests on cliffs or other elevated sites. The species has long been used in falconry and remains culturally significant in several parts of its range. This golden eagle in flight was photographed near the Gemmi Pass in Switzerland.

Photograph credit: Giles Laurent

The springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis) is a medium-sized antelope found mainly in the dry areas of southern and southwestern Africa. A slender, long-legged bovid, it reaches 71 to 86 centimetres (28 to 34 in) at the shoulder and weighs between 27 and 42 kilograms (60 and 93 lb). Both sexes have a pair of long black horns that curve backwards, a white face, a dark stripe running from the eyes to the mouth, a light-brown coat with a reddish-brown stripe, and a white rump flap. Primarily browsing at dawn and dusk, it can live without drinking water for years, subsisting on succulent vegetation. Breeding peaks in the rainy season, when food is more abundant. A single calf is weaned at nearly six months of age and leaves its mother a few months later. Springbok herds in the Kalahari Desert and the semi-arid Karoo used to migrate in large numbers across the countryside, and it is one of the few with an expanding population. The springbok is the national animal of South Africa. This juvenile springbok was photographed in Etosha National Park, Namibia.

Photograph credit: Giles Laurent