Earth Changes
Timmery Clark sent us a photo of an owl landed on her head the week before Christmas. "This was the second time the owl landed on me in the space of 5 minutes outside Hebrews Coffee on Republic Road. It was very gentle--I thought it might hurt me, but both times it very calmly and gently settled on my head (even though I was laughing and screaming). It was pretty surreal, but a funny moment to have caught on film!" says Clark.
Most of the attacks, probably about a dozen in all, have been reported in the neighborhoods south of Republic Road, Ravenwood, Spring Creek and Ravenwood South. The owl or owls seem to like landing on human heads.
- Sarah Brooks from Spalding, Lincolnshire was injured last week
- Elephant's tusk ripped through the back of Ms Brooks' upper thigh
- Their car rolled three times and was flung 40 metres in the attack
- Ms Brooks is in a stable condition in hospital
Sarah Brooks, 30, and her fiance were filming the animal from their car as it drank at a waterhole when it turned and went for them.
It flipped their vehicle and shunted it around 130ft down a track into thick bushland.
Victoria state, where the so-called Black Saturday firestorm flattened entire villages in 2009 and destroyed more than 2,000 homes, was again bracing for extreme fire weather.
"These next four days promise to be amongst the most significant that we have faced in Victoria since Black Saturday," said acting state premier Peter Ryan.
Tens of thousands of firefighters were on standby, and 1,290 brigades were in a "state of high preparedness", he added, with the peak danger day expected on Friday when very strong winds are forecast.
Two separate grass-fires tested crews early at Little River, west of Melbourne, and Kangaroo Ground to the east.
The flames raced out of control and triggered brief emergency alerts before water-bombing aircraft and engine teams managed to bring them under control.
It said the quake, initially reported as a magnitude 6.4, was very shallow, at a depth of 17.7 miles below the seabed. It struck at 12:01 a.m. (0401 GMT), 35 miles north of the town of Hatillo.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the quake could trigger a local tsunami.
"There is the small possibility of a local tsunami that could affect coasts located usually no more than a hundred kilometers (63 miles) from the earthquake epicenter," the tsunami center said in its advisory.
Most of the dead and missing came from floods and landslides that hit Compostella Valley and Davao Oriental provinces, said Maj. Reynaldo Balido, spokesman for the disaster-response agency.
A landslide Monday damaged five houses in Cagdianao municipality in Dinagat Island, off the northeastern coast of the main southern island of Mindanao, killing six residents including two boys aged 2 and 14, said police officer Elbert Ompoc.
Another man drowned in Agusan del Sur province's Prosperidad township, on Mindanao, and seven others were missing, according to the civil defense regional bureau.
The flooding, triggered by rains from a low pressure area, has affected 132,000 people from 10 provinces.
Environment officials are urging people not to approach the volcano crater and abide by the instructions issued by the General Department of Civil Protection.
MARN explained that the vibration levels and emission have shown changes but remain.
The dog owner says that he has never seen such a phenomenon. NRK claims that the herrings were chased by predators into the bay when the deadly freezing happened. Aril Slotte - the head of pelagic fish department at Norway's Institute of Marine Research - says it is not uncommon for herring to get very near the shore when chased by predators, sometimes getting trapped by the low tide in areas like this bay.
The Department of Conservation (DOC) says the whales are stranded near the base of Farewell Spit at the top of the South Island.
It says the rest of the pod of about 50 whales is just offshore and there is a risk some of those whales may also become stranded.
DOC says it was alerted to the stranding this morning.
Marine mammal charity Project Jonah is in the process of contacting rescue volunteers in the area.
Volunteers will work to keep the whales alive until they can attempt to refloat them at the next high tide tonight.
Vesa Kaloinen lives on the shore of Suolijärvi Lake in southern Finland. He was working on the waterfront when he saw the floating white stuff on January 8. So he grabbed his mobile phone, jumped in a rowboat and set sail.
Making his way toward the floating strands, he snapped a few photos with his phone. But since he was still curious what the soggy white matter was, he dipped his hand into the water and grabbed a handful.
The white strings looked to be tens of meters long. His hand cut through a few, as he dug out what appeared to be slush. He crushed some together to make a snowball and threw it.
Darren Jacobs of Queensland Wildlife Solutions said he has attended four jobs involving snakes in toilets in suburban Briusbane since shortly before Christmas.
He usually gets ten in an entire year.
"There's definitely been an increase and I believe its down to the stormy weather," he said.
"They are chasing rats and mice who are forced out of their hiding places due to the wet.
"The snakes go into the sewer after them and if they see a hole, they'll go up it, unfortunately some of those holes lead to people's toilets."
His comments follow the ordeal of a Carina couple who had a 1.5m carpet python take up residence in their bowl on Monday night.
Mr Jacobs said he removed a 9ft Carpet Python form a Tarragindi residence in similar circumstances last week.














