It’s time for another awesome visit to the Department of Unexpected Interspecies Friendship. Back in April 2011 a Canada goose decided to nest in an urn at the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, NY. Canada geese are monogamous animals who usually mate for life, but somehow this goose had lost her gander. Fortunately she wasn’t without protection.

A young male whitetail deer appeared and took up the role of guardian. Canada goose eggs incubate for an average of 24-28 days and the young buck remained close by the entire time. Whenever anyone tried to approach the goose, the deer rose to stand between them and the nesting bird. He also chased off an aggressive group of crows, who are known to predate on baby birds, the day before the eggs began to hatch. It wasn’t until the goslings hatched that the deer gradually began to wander from his self-appointed post.

Photos by Doug Benz and Craig Cygan respectively.

[via The New York Times Lens Blog and the Mother Nature Network]

As people with an abiding interest in awesome animal masks, we were fascinated to learn about a man who has been wearing a latex deer mask every single day for the last 5 years.

Luo Dan is a 32-year-old painter and designer from Chonqing, China. He’s been wearing his deer mask since 2009 because he says it helps him find inner peace and “release the deer within.” Luo Dan wears the mask while working and in his spare time.

“The deer is a tame animal,” he explained. “Wearing its mask, I could find a long-missing inner peace. When I wear the mask, I feel I am a deer from within.” The fake animal head has also influenced his art, taking a center role in most of his works. Dan doesn’t know exactly how long he’ll keep wearing the deer head, but considering the therapeutic powers he attributes to the mask it’s unlikely he will be taking it off anytime soon.

[via Oddity Central]

How would you react if your walked into the produce section of your local market and encountered a deer or a rabbit eyeing the veg? Indonesia-based photographer Agan Harahap has created a wonderfully whimsical, yet also poignant, series of photos entitled Garden Fresh, depicting wild animals in grocery stores, perhaps browsing the aisles for their favourites foods just as you would. 

Agan Harahap describes his work:

“It is like a fable about a journey undertaken by the animals when they venture into our daily lives. The animals are confronted by a new reality that is in conflict with their natural habits and habitats… The animals are stripped of their own identities and are used as empty vessels to be filled with the human drama of parody, satire and allegory. We cannot help but see animals from a human vantage point, and therefore in some sense all the works in the present exhibition are actually about us.”

Check out more of  Agan Harahap’s awesome photography on Behance and Flickr.

[via My Modern Metropolis]

Artist Jodi Harvey-Brown transforms books into elaborate sculptures depicting characters and scenes from the stories printed on their pages. It’s as though the stories are literally emerging from the books. 

“Every scene is handmade and Harvey-Brown protects the final product with a UV finish. Her pieces feature every kind of story imaginable, including the Millennium Falcon ready to soar out of the pages of Star Wars Heir to the Empire; Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn sailing along the surface of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; and Harry Potter, Hermione, and Ron standing, wands posed, atop The Deathly Hollows.”

Jodi Harvey-Brown recently created a series of Christmas tree book sculptures available via her Etsy shop.

[via My Modern Metropolis]

We love Chinese artist Liu Di’s Animal Regulation series of paintings each featuring awesomely huge animals that find themselves situated in otherwise normal urban settings. We previously featured Animal Regulation No.4. Here you see Animal Regulation No.6 and Animal Regulation No.8. 

[via Le Journal De La Photographie]

We love these awesome electricity pylon concepts, created by DesignDepot, a design studio located in Moscow, Russia.

[via Design You Trust]