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Talk about heartwarming! There is a whole set of photos of Anjara, the chimp who has been mothering a series of abandoned felines, as reported in the UK's The Sun. Click the photo or link below to see them all, along with the story.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1793356.ece
 

Here's new one to catch. Heartwarming photos from the Daily Mail in the UK, telling the tale of an abandoned kid adopted by a dog at an animal shelter. Mama goat rejected the young one to care for the two stronger kids. Sometimes survival of the fittest is hard to take, no?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-521777/Paternal-dog-Billy-takes-unusual-kid.html

And one more! This one is about a very smart kitten
and what she does with sneakers.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7184817739112624074
 

Dolphin Rings -- a real wow!
Text and Link Courtesy Ralph Waters

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMCf7SNUb-Q

This is quite amazing.  These dolphins are clearly smarter than many humans I've met.

The attached video is of dolphins playing with silver colored 'air-rings' which they have the ability to make under water to play with. It isn't known how they learn this, or if it's an inbred ability.

As if by magic the dolphin does a quick flip of its head and a silver ring appears in front of its pointed beak. The ring is a solid, donut shaped bubble about 2-ft across, yet it doesn't rise to the surface of the water! It stands upright in the water like a magic doorway to an unseen dimension. The dolphin then pulls a small silver donut from the larger one. Looking at the twisting ring for one last time a bite is taken from it, causing the small ring to collapse into a thousands of tiny bubbles which head upward towards the water's surface. After a few moments the dolphin creates another ring to play with. There also seems to be a separate mechanism for producing small rings, which a dolphin can accomplish by a quick flip of its head.

An explanation of how dolphins make these silver rings is that they are "air-core vortex rings."  Invisible, spinning vortices in the water are generated from the tip of a dolphin's dorsal fin when it is moving rapidly and turning. When dolphins break the line, the ends are drawn together into a closed ring. The higher velocity fluid around the core of the vortex is at a lower pressure than the fluid circulating farther away. Air is injected into the rings via bubbles released from the dolphin's blow hole. The energy of the water vortex is enough to keep the bubbles from rising for a reasonably few seconds of play time.

NOTE: If you haven't seen this one, we urge you to check it out. It's truly fun and almost other-worldly.
 

THE BEARS AND I

Black bears typically have two cubs, rarely one or three. In 2007, in northern New Hampshire, a black bear sow gave birth to five healthy young. There were two or three reports of sows with as many as four cubs but five was, and is, extraordinary. I learned of them shortly after they emerged from their den and set myself a goal of photographing all five cubs with their mom, no matter how much time and effort was involved. I knew the trail they followed on a fairly regular basis, usually shortly before dark. After spending nearly four hours a day, seven days a week, for six weeks I had that once in a lifetime opportunity and photographed them in the shadows and dull lighting of the evening. Due to these conditions the photograph is a bit noisy as I had to use the equivalent of a very fast film speed on my digital camera. The print is properly focused and well exposed with all six bears posing as if they were in a studio for a family portrait.   (Read on….)
 

I stayed in touch with other people who saw the bears during the summer and into the fall hunting season. All six bears continued to thrive. As time for hibernation approached, I found still more folks who had seen them and everything remained OK. I stayed away from the bears as I was concerned that they might become habituated to me, or to people in general, as approachable friends.  This could be dangerous for both man and animal. After Halloween I received no further reports and could only hope the bears survived until they hibernated.

This spring, before the snow disappeared, all six bears came out of their den and wandered the same familiar territory they trekked in the spring of 2007. I saw them before mid April and dreamed nightly of taking another family portrait, an improbable second once in a lifetime photograph. On April 25, 2008 I achieved my dream.  (Read on …)

When something as magical as this happens between man and animal Native Americans say, “We have walked together in the shadow of a rainbow.”

And so it is with humility and great pleasure that I share these photos with you.

Sincerely, Tom Sears

Story and photos © by Tom Sears, published in http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/, Travis Barrett, in http://surreyphotographyclub.ca
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQhPMwMlm_w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kKnNyJvRAY
 

http://v.blog.sohu.com/u/vw/1437596