This time of year is exceptionally thrilling for me; while the wintering species are still dominating, there are many “firsts” for the season that appear daily in different corners of the Arava and some of our breeding species already have brood-patches. During the last few days numbers of both Lesser and Common Whitethroats,  Chiffchafs and Sedge Warblers have risen both in […]
Fool for the City
Why is Homo sapiens becoming an increasingly urban species? For the same simple reasons as raccoons (Procyonis lotor), it seems—more housing options and better restaurants (easy access to French fries and Dunkin Donuts, in particular). The more difficult question to answer is this: As we convert forests and pastures into prefabs and flower shops, are […]
Feisty Firecrests of the Forest
The Firecrests (Regulus ignicapillus) is one of the most amazing little birds we have. Packed full of energy and living their lives at such an amazingly fast pace. Firecrests breed in most of temperate Europe and in the western side of North Africa. Growing up in Scotland, we never saw them so far north and […]
Birds of Peru around Manu National Park
Part 05/11 of Glenn Bartley’s 3-month trip around Peru – At this point I had reached the end of the road…literally. All travel deeper in to the park would require a boat. I managed to join a tour group to move on down the river – WAY down the river. We took the boat several […]
Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge Continues to Please
So far into the new year Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge has continued to be VERY active. There has been a good population of roseate spoonbills, america avocets, eagles, and all sorts of ducks. Let me see if I can list some of the ducks in good numbers, american widgeons, northern shovelers, pintails, hooded mergansers, ring-necked, […]
Wonderful Uganda – December 2011
A belated blog of my week long trip to Uganda in December. All started with my Emirates flight to Entebbe via Addis Ababa in Ethiopia which involved an hour on the Tarmac there. Arrived on time in Entebbe around 3pm in the afternoon, skys a little grey but no rain. I was met by my […]
PhotoShare: Inquisitive Buffalo
I thought I’d share another image from our trip last year to the northern Kruger National Park. This buffalo was one of a herd that was blocking out way late one afternoon. I liked the inquisitive starehere. Note the ISO setting of 6400. Cheers! Morkel Erasmus
Those guys from the coast
I’ve still got some stragglers from recent trips to Anahuac NWR. And whywhywhy do I not have anything clever to say anymore? Maybe one day I’ll be back to the old Johnny Nutcase. So, that Seaside Sparrow, as mentioned in another post, was a bit of a weirdo. He and a bud were all hanging […]