Coming up in the next few weeks

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be bringing you some special footage shot on expeditions over the past few months.

You’ll be seeing hippos, a leopard tortoise, a marsh-helmeted terrapin and violet-backed starlings from the Blyde Canyon in South Africa, bats, insects, tarantulas and rhesus macaques from Thailand, Zambezi sharks, schools of game fish, moray eels and rays from the Mozambique coastline, and coyote, bison, black bear, pronghorn and elk from a wintery Yellowstone National Park in north-western USA.

We’ll be serving new expedition footage throughout the holiday period – look out for it on the large main tile at the top left of your screen. This tile rotates, showing the latest expedition footage published. You can flip through the stories yourself by clicking the arrow toggles on the right- and left-hand sides of the tile.

Most-viewed stories in November

The most popular story with Earth-Touch users in November was Encounter with a big fish. Whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) attain lengths of 10 to 12m (33 to 39ft) and are the biggest fish on the planet, but are nevertheless difficult to find. They are plankton feeders and also eat small fish, sometimes while swimming vertically with their heads upwards.

Earth-Touch cameraman Graeme Duane found that keeping up with a migrating whale shark is hard work (his heavy breathing in the audio clip is testimony to it) – but his effort was well worth his while.

Whale sharks’ markings are ornate: white blotches cover the dorsal surface in intricate patterns, decorating the big flat head and the ridges on the back. These blotches offer superb camouflage if you’re trying to look for the sharks from the surface. The first thing the human eye sees is what looks like a shoal of small fish. This image then morphs into one singular form as the outline of the big wide head becomes apparent.

The other four top stories for November all came from the Okavango Delta, Botswana, where cameramen Brad Bestelink and Graham Springer have been filming.

In Hyenas dog leopard, two spotted hyenas follow a sleek female leopard through the bush, while squirrels call in alarm and francolins cluck in the trees.

Wild dogs rest and play showcases a pack of nine endangered African wild dogs, satiated after an impala kill. The Latin name of these beautiful predators, Lycaon pictus, means “painted wolf”, an apt description for the unique mottled markings of each individual.

In New pride of lions we meet individuals we hadn’t seen before: five cubs from two different generations, three adult females and one big male, which drink and rest in the shade, watched closely by some agitated impala.

While the troop of chacma baboons looks for food in the forest in Baboons feed on fruit, one youngster hangs back, sitting up in a tree and watching us intently. He lounges around, contorting himself into all manner of strange, yoga-like positions.

Field crew profile – Darryl Sweetland

Darryl Sweetland, who has been filming footage for Earth-Touch of snakes, macaques, bats and spiders, amongst other species, in the Thung Salaeng Luang National Park in Thailand, spent most of his childhood wandering the fields of Devon and the rubber plantations of Singapore (where he was born) looking for snakes and lizards. He graduated with a degree in biology from Nottingham University and worked in the genetics department there for two years. He spent the next 12 years variously in horticulture, landscape construction and photography – mainly horticultural subjects – and travelled extensively in Indonesia.

In 1996 he went to Thailand to teach English and science, spending his spare time exploring the forests and building up a collection of Thai wildlife photos and an intimate knowledge of Asian wildlife, particularly snakes. He moved into video only two years ago and has enjoyed being able to tell stories in ways that he couldn’t with stills photography.

There are lots of snakes where Darryl lives and he is the guy who gets called out when somebody has one in their house or garden.

He is pictured here with his son and 8-year-old assistant, Jamie.

Footage from Yellowstone National Park, USA

When the first Europeans journeyed west in North America, there were tens of millions of bison on the continent. But by 1900, after widespread hunting for meat, skins and sport, only 1 000 or so remained. Today, mainly due to conservation efforts, those numbers have climbed again to about 60 000.

One of the best places to see wild bison is the Yellowstone National Park, which falls mostly in the north-western state of Wyoming, USA.

Earth-Touch has served several stories relating to bison:

Bison in wintery setting

Bison and pronghorn in shadow of Tetons

Clouds gather over the peaks

We’ve also served footage of a coyote hunting rodents in the park, mule deer and elk, as well as several clips focusing on the spectacular scenery of the Rocky Mountains in north-western Wyoming and surrounding areas.

Visit the Earth-Touch blog

The subjects we have covered in our blogs include threads from our crews in the field, Did you knows? about animal behaviour and adaptation and additional snippets about some of our favourite clips in the On the site thread.

In November, subjects covered in Wildlife news from around the world, another popular thread, included an Australian researcher’s discovery that in the state of New South Wales birds are learning how to eat highly toxic and invasive cane toads (Bufo marinus) and the return to the wild of a group of four gorillas captured as infants in Cameroon.

We love to hear our users’ views – please drop us a comment on the blog, vote in one of our polls, or contact us if you’d like to submit a guest blog, by emailing blogs@earth-touch.com. We’d like to hear your stories of your favourite wild places, animals you’ve seen, reflections on content we’ve served, or just about anything Earth-Touch inspires you to write.

We would love to hear from you,
The Earth-Touch team