A rare yellow and white bird has been discovered among king penguins in the Atlantic....
BITS ‘N’ PIECES
A rare yellow and white bird has been discovered among king penguins in the Atlantic.
A Belgian nature photographer has described the moment he won "nature’s lottery", when he spotted the pale yellow-feathered king penguin among thousands of animals on a beach on the South Georgia islands.
This phenomenon was attributed to the colour mutation to being albino. Only later, did the ecologists consider that the condition could be more complex, and that the penguin could be an ‘ino-bird’ or a ‘similar mutation’.
The unique plumage of the yellow penguin does have its drawbacks, when trying to find food. While dark penguins camouflage in the water when looking for fish to catch, the pale penguin will be easier to spot by its prey, and its hunting success rates are likely to be much smaller.
Ships suspended in mid-air isn't something you usually spot during a stroll along the English coastline.
But David Morris recently had to do a double take, when he noticed a giant tanker evidently floating above the water as he looked out to sea from a hamlet near Falmouth in Cornwall.
The extraordinary sight, which he captured on camera, is an example of an optical illusion known as a superior mirage.
Such illusions are reasonably common in the Arctic but can also happen in UK winters when the atmospheric conditions are right, though they are very rare.
The effect is caused by a meteorological phenomenon called a temperature inversion, when warm air sits on top of a band of colder air and plays havoc with our visual perception. The inversion in Cornwall was caused by chilly air lying over the relatively cold sea with warmer air above.
According to a meteorologist, since cold air is denser than warm air, it bends light towards the eyes of someone standing on the ground or on the coast, changing how a distant object appears.
