A picture that took nine years to obtain and was
almost deleted at the last minute has won the Shell Wildlife
Photographer of the Year award.
Goran Ehlme's shot of a walrus feeding on clams
on the sea floor is a whirl of grey; the animal's face is seen
poking through a cloud of disturbed sediment.
He caught the magic moment on a digital camera
and deleted many unwanted shots.
"My finger was poised to delete this one too, and
then I noticed something special," he told the BBC News website.
The competition has become one of the most
prestigious in world photography.
It is organised by BBC Wildlife Magazine and
London's Natural History Museum. This year brought more than 18,000
entries from 55 countries.
May 11, 2006—On an isolated ice floe far from the jostling
herd, a mother walrus shelters her newborn calf. Scientists don't
know for sure why female walruses prefer to give birth alone. But
human moms might agree that the marine mammals' protective—and
seemingly snuggly—behavior toward their young is no mystery.
The smallrus is tiniest of the seal family, not much larger
(and rather similiar in shape) to the garden slug. They prefer damp
areas with large amounts of water, like well-watered gardens with
fish ponds, and can often be seen sporting in puddles and bird
baths, making their typical call (a sort of squeaky bellow.*) Any
gardener is generally delighted to see the smallrus appear, as the
occasional nibble of a leaf is more than made up for by their
ability to keep down the number of mosquito larvae and other small
aquatic nuisances.
This is so James's fault.
He was wandering around singing "I am the smallrus!"
"How big is a smallrus?" I asked.
"Very, very tiny."
"Awww."
"They're bred as sock warmers. You can put your socks on the
smallri to keep warm."
"AWWWWW!"
"They purr."
"AWWWWWWWWWWW!"
And just when I was thinking that I had misjudged this man for ten
whole years, that he was capable of great depths of adorableness,
that his capacity for cuteness was far beyond anything I'd guessed,
and he'd merely been hiding it behind a facade of mild pervesion
and non-sequitor--
"And they're great with honey-mustard sauce!"
*sigh*
As my friend Kathy said, "He is capable of great flights of whimsy,
you just can't listen all the way to the end."
*Inhale a good lungful of helium and yell "GRONK!" and you've about
got it.