In this Sunday, April 27, 2014 handout photo provided by Busch Gardens Tampa, mother armadillo Zowie, left, welcomes her newborn Southern three-banded armadillo baby at the Animal Ambassador Team, in Tampa, Fla. The baby was able to walk and roll into a ball within moments of its birth. Southern three-banded armadillos are the only species of armadillo that can fully roll up into a ball. (Photo by AP Photo/Busch Gardens Tampa)

A wounded member of the Afghan police reaction force waits for treatment in Alingar, Laghman province, on April 30, 2012. A bomb exploded next to opium poppy fields during a poppy eradication campaign in, wounding two Afghan policemen, police officials said. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

“Cassowaries are large, flightless birds related to emus and (more distantly) to ostriches, rheas, and kiwis”, writes Olivia Judson in the September issue of National Geographic magazine. How large? People-size: Adult males stand well over five foot five and top 110 pounds. Females are even taller, and can weigh more than 160 pounds. Dangerous when roused, they’re shy and peaceable when left alone. But even birds this big and tough are prey to habitat loss. The dense New Guinea and Australia rain forests where they live have dwindled. Today cassowaries might number 1,500 to 2,000. And because they help shape those same forests – by moving seeds from one place to another – “if they vanish”, Judson writes, “the structure of the forest would gradually change” too. (Photo by Christian Ziegler/National Geographic)

A commuter gestures to Boris Johnson as he rides across Vauxhall Bridge in London, England on November 19, 2015. The London mayor was opening a cycle superhighway. (Photo by John Stillwell/PA Wire)

Health workers screen residents for COVID-19 symptoms at Dharavi, one of Asia's biggest slums, in Mumbai, India, Monday, August 3, 2020. India is the third hardest-hit country by the pandemic in the world after the United States and Brazil. (Photo by Rafiq Maqbool/AP Photo)

Tourist Amy Powers is approached by “Walker” Matthew Tomlin during The Walking Dead Tour of a Season 3 location of the AMC production in Haralson, Georgia, U.S. on June 15, 2019. (Photo by Chris Aluka Berry/Reuters)

A mannequin with boots is stuffed upside down in the snow in front of a home in Nisswa, Minnesota, on March 18, 2013. (Photo by Steve Kohls/The Brainerd Daily Dispatch)

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In a simpler time all a child or an adult needed to enjoy the outdoors was a ball and a stick. Or maybe an old tire tied to a high branch to fashion a swing. And the only instruction given to children was to “be home before dark”. Now there are iPads and computers and television screens and shrinking safe public spaces. But despite the distractions and limitations of space, these images show the charm of kicking a ball or skipping rope endures. Sometimes with modifications as a nod to changing times. Here: in this Saturday, June 20, 2015 photo, a boy runs while playing with a motorcycle wheel in Samugari, Ayacucho, Peru. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)