Wildlife

Fox behind Leeds footwear theft crimewave

A fox is stealing dozens of shoes in a Leeds suburb and dumping them outside a woman’s house.

The problem has become so bad that Elaine Hewitt has been forced to put a shoe rack outside her home in Horsforth so neighbours can reclaim their missing footwear.

Ms Hewitt said the vulpine crimewave began a few months ago when she found a single shoe in her back garden.

The fox is now leaving a shoe a day, ranging from sandals to work boots.

Ms Hewitt, who has seen the fox carrying shoes, said the animal favoured leather footwear and the shoes are not chewed or damaged.

She believed it was stealing gardening shoes left outside people’s homes — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Craft, Entertainment, Wildlife

Cadence and Shining Armour / morisato54

Faith in your spouse is a crucial element in a lasting, loving relationship. But when the doom of an entire kingdom rests on a single death defying act of ultimate heroism, having lots of practice definitely helps too. With their display of top form and precision I can only guess Princess Cadence and Shining Armour must have belonged to a cheer-leading team in their younger days. Either that or they participate in possibly the strangest version of Caber Toss.

Both figures and stand are carved out of Philippine mahogany while the gears and Cadence’s tiara are made of narra hardwood. They’re hand painted in enamel and with a protective flat lacquer top coat. The pair stand at 10″ from Shining Armour’s hoof to the tip of Cadence’s horn while the entire piece measures 13″ high, 7 1/2″ long and 3 1/2″ wide. It took 148 1/2 hours to complete — via Youtube

Craft, Wildlife

Octopodes Pattern / Jennifer Raymond

Octopodes, originally uploaded by Jennifer Raymond

Octopodes are a pair socks with stranded colour work on the foot, and helix knitting to stripe the ankle. All throughout, a pair of stripes shoot up the sides of the socks from toe to top, creating a strong visual line — via Ravelry

Wildlife

Takin Calf / Mesker Park Zoo

Mesker Park Zoo & Botanic Garden in Indiana has welcomed its first-ever Takin calf, a female named Ching Lan, which means beautiful orchid in Chinese. In the wild, this little calf would be following her mother on steep mountain paths at three days-old. It looks like she’s practising those motor skills by sneaking up on mum — via ZooBorns

Art, Wildlife

Emerge / Brad Buckmaster

This little fox kit is no bigger than a house cat and is just as curious. It took a few minutes but her(?) curiosity compelled her to emerge from the shadows and see what all the clicking was about… — via Buckmaster Images