A relentless attack waged on the Richard family by a Thanksgiving party crasher in Whitmore Lake.

"He kept pounding and pounding and pounding."

It started right after dinner when Mike Richard took his dog Murphy for a walk.

"I took a look off to my right and the ram was over here," Mike said.

A ram broke free from a neighbor's land and wanted very badly to be a part of the Richard's holiday gathering.

"It looked at us and I could see the aggression in its eyes," Mike said. "And started charging after us."

"I slammed the door in its face and that's when all hell broke loose," Paula said.

"He wanted in this house," Mike said.

A Limpopo man has died following an attack by a hippo, the provincial health department said on Tuesday.

"The man was fishing on Friday afternoon when the hippo attacked him," spokesperson Macks Lesufi said.

"When he was rescued, he was badly injured."

Dashi Makhuvele fought tooth and nail with the large animal when it attacked him at Makuleke dam while fishing.

Following his ordeal, the 34-year-old man survived to tell the tale but due to the nature of his injuries he died in hospital on Sunday.

A rare fish species with an odd mating habit and a light dangling from an antenna on its head to attract prey has washed up from the depths at Mooloolaba Beach.

Thirteen-year-old Mia Cornwall discovered the Angler Fish, also known as a Black Sea Devil or a Melanocetus, during a morning walk.

Mia's grandfather Peter Beinssen, who shares her love of all things in nature, arranged for the specimen to be dropped at SeaLife from where it is destined for the Queensland Museum.

Mr Beinssen said the Angler Fish normally lives at depths of around 1600m.

Winds above 74 miles per hour in hills above 2500 feet, and 80 miles per hour in the mountains are forecast for Thursday in what could be the storm of the decade according to Bay Area meteorologists.

The computer models are able to break down the exact time of highest danger. By mid-morning Thursday, models indicate winds peaking at 74 miles per hour sustained, not gusts, above 2500 feet. Above 5,000 feet the forecast is for 80 miles per hour. Along the coast, 60 mile per hour winds are forecasts, with higher gusts. The flatter areas around the bay will have widespread gusts from 40 to 50 miles per hour.

KPIX 5 chief meteorologist Paul Deanno said, "Given the long-term drought and short-term saturated ground, many trees will lose the battle with the wind on Thursday."

Deanno compares this week's storms to other significant events saying, "For those of us who have lived here for a while, the potential of this storm is comparable to the ones in January 2008 and February 1998, both of which caused widespread wind & flooding damage. As always, the forecast can change."

The National Weather Service has issued a whopping 15 separate warnings and advisories for the system including a Flash Flood Watch, Gale Warning, Hazardous Seas Advisory, and High Wind Watch.

Rainfall amounts above eight inches are forecast for the coastal ranges, triggering the Flash Flood Watch, an official notice to be looking for potential flooding. During the storm, these alerts will change from watches to warnings as actual floods begin occurring.

A hurricane, though only used to refer to tropical storms, is declared when sustained winds reach 74 miles per hour, and that level of wind is predicted for Thursday, along with rainfal amounts of over half an inch per hour, and if the storm slows, it could reach one inch per hour, causing serious flooding in the Bay Area.

A major storm will impact the Northeast through Thursday, complete with gusty winds, substantial snow, heavy rain, a wintry mix and flooding.

A strengthening storm along the mid-Atlantic coast will push northward on Tuesday, then inland Tuesday night through Thursday.

According to AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Elliot Abrams, "This will be a snowstorm for some areas well inland, while impacts similar to a tropical storm will occur along the coast, including much of Interstate-95."

Heavy Interior Snow

The heaviest snow, a general 6 to 12 inches is forecast to fall on the Endless, Catskill and Adirondack mountains. Locally higher amounts can occur.

While the snow will be welcome by those with skiing interests, travel will become extremely treacherous and AccuWeather.com Meteorologist Ben Noll stated that the "wet-clinging nature of the snow could lead to downed trees and power outages."

If you were a bird, you may want to consider flying south in October and not returning to our area until next May. Many human snowbirds do just that. Many birds migrate south to warmer climates for winter, then return in the spring, but some seed-eating birds tough out the winter with us.

There is a family of birds called flycatchers that survives by hawking flying insects out of the air in mid-flight. There are not many insects flying around in winter, so a flycatcher that tried to overwinter instead of migrate would have little chance of survival.

Flycatchers mainly eat insects and other invertebrates, but also fruit.

One of the largest and most common species of flycatcher that nests in our area in summer is the great-crested flycatcher. It is a member of the Myiarchus genus and the second-largest flycatcher in our area, slightly smaller than the eastern kingbird. Great-crested flycatchers leave our area in late summer and early fall to fly south to southern Central America or northern South America. There are few records of this species staying around in late fall or winter in our area.

A rare bird caused twitchers to flock to Wakefield today (Monday).

A Blyth's Pipit was spotted late morning by birder Jonathan Holliday close to the Calder Wetlands site, which is across from Pugneys Country Park.

The bird, which breeds in Mongolia, is believed to be the first county record for Yorkshire.

Birders from across the region rushed to Denby Dale Road to see the "archetypal little brown job" after the news broke on social media and pagers. More twitchers are expected tomorrow.

The death toll from Typhoon Hagupit, the latest natural disaster to hit the Philippines, has risen to 27; around 2,500 homes have been totally or partially destroyed by the storm, which is losing its destructive force and weakening into a tropical storm.

According to Reuters, 27 people have been killed and around 2,500 homes have been totally or partially destroyed by Typhoon Hagupit in the Philippines.

"We now have a total of 27 dead, most of them in Borongan, in Eastern Samar," the news agency quotes Richard Gordon, chairman of the Philippine Red Cross as saying, adding that most of the dead drowned in floodwaters.

A magnitude-6.6 earthquake struck off the coast of Panama on Monday, the second strong quake to rock the country in three days. The tremor was centered 20 kilometers (12 miles) south-southeast of the Punta de Burica peninsula, near the border with Costa Rica, and hit just before 4:00 a.m. local time, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Despite the earthquake's magnitude and widespread shaking, the director of Panama's National Civil Defense Service, José Donderis, indicated via Twitter that there were no reports of damage. The epicenter of the quake, which occurred at a depth of 20 kilometers, was about 58 kilometers south-southwest of the city of David, Panama's third-largest city with a population of about 145,000 people. Any aftershocks are expected to be less intense, however, they could be strong enough to cause damage to infrastructure possibly weakened by the main earthquake.

A pod of six sperm whales washed up dead Monday in a rare mass stranding on the South Australia coast, with animal welfare officials struggling over the logistics of handling the huge carcasses.

The whales, which can weigh up to 50 tonnes, were found at low tide by residents on Parara beach, about 93 miles northwest of Adelaide.

"We're not sure why they beached," a Department of Environment official told AFP.

"A theory is that one was ill and moved to shallow waters and then called out to fellow pod members who followed it in."

A local fisherman suggested they could have been chasing a school of salmon.