the galapagos albatross (phoebastria irrorata), as the name suggests, is a species endemic to an island in the galapagos archipelago. partners stick together for their entire life, which can be up to 45 years.
when they first meet, and every year they reunite, they go through a cute little courtship ritual.
in order to describe it, i’d like to borrow a snippet from english wikipedia:

The courtship of the Waved Albatross is a very elusive and spectacular sight to see, it includes: rapid bill circling and bowing, beak clacking, and an upraised bill to make a whoo hoo sound.

one of telekom austria’s managers answers an international investor’s question.
this is part of this year’s “capital market day”, an annual public TA conference held in vienna.

there was a live webstream available online. obviously, it was removed from the presentation that you can watch there now.

this flashmob was done a year ago at trafalgar square, london.
just noticed i’ve never blogged it.

vienna teng is one of my favourite singer/songwriters.
if i’m not mistaken, this is her first official music video, and it was published on youtube yesterday.

her fourth album, titled inland territory will be released on february 6th in europe.

even better news for her european fans:
according to her tour calendar and agents, she will be performing in the netherlands, germany, austria (including innsbruck!) and italy this march.

the superb lyrebird (menura novaehollandiae) is one of two australian bird species with an incredible ability: they can mimic sounds so well that it’s hard to tell the difference from the original.
see for yourself:

the most fascinating part starts around 02:00.

this year, my brothers tom & anton and i¹ did something special to spread the christmas joy:

for the higher quality version (recommended!), click here and then “watch in high quality”.

update #1: i’ve added the making-of video.

update #2: mom took some photos during our performance for the family. they’re online now.

update #3: there’s another clip of our christmas caroling on december 24th.

[view photos: spreading the christmas joy with nose recorders]

we wish you all a merry christmas, and some calm and peaceful holidays.

just in time for christmas, here’s our christmas tree from last year.
actually, the video shows my mom decorating it, fast forward.

the ornament stars you can see in the video are home-crocheted, as are the golden balls.

if you’d rather download a file to your computer, there you go: [more...]