Yesterday was cloudy and warm(ish) but clear skies overnight with a resulting heavy frost were going to cause a big change in bird activity this morning. The fields and marsh areas in Maridalen were covered in ice and there was hardly a thrush to see. With the clear skies any viz mig was so high […]
Results of the Best Photo of the Week Ended 02 Apr 2016
We are delighted to announce the results of our latest photo competition. Alan Jonker wins First Prize for his brilliant capture “African Wood Owl”. Dave Waddell wins Second Prize for his outstanding composition “Motion Study: Dancing the Fox Trot”. Third Prize goes to Morkel Erasmus for his excellent photo entitled “Lion Man Love”. See […]
Can Texas Protect Its Creepy, Tiny, Blind, Rare Wildlife?
San Antonio, Texas – A ritual of nature is happening in the woody hills around Austin and San Antonio. The first golden-cheeked warblers, with brilliant yellow faces streaked with black, have arrived from Mexico and Central America to raise their young. The Texas Hill Country is the only place on Earth where this little songbird, […]
Saw-whet Owl!
One of the only things I love more than the Chicago Cubs is the Black-capped Chickadee, and Saturday, the Cubs and chickadees conspired to bring me some magical Karma when I led a bird walk for Hawk Ridge Observatory along Duluth’s Western Waterfront Trail. It was warm for early March—it didn’t freeze the night before, […]
Small copper butterfly in ‘inexorable decline
A tiny but unmistakably dazzling butterfly, the small copper, suffered its worst ever year last summer according to the annual scientific survey of Britain’s butterflies. The bright ginger butterfly joins a growing band of once-common butterflies in apparently inexorable decline despite no discernible habitat loss in recent years and conservationists are warning that climate change […]
Israel at last
I am so glad to be back in Israel. Came here with my family for a two-week visit. First day was devoted to friends and family but I was so happy to see all the birds around. Just casual stuff but lots of things – Long-eared and Scops Owls, Great Spotted Cuckoos, Pallid Harrier, Lesser […]
POLL: Should Norway’s whaling program be stopped?
So few people in Norway want to eat whale meat that it’s ending up in the feed manufactured for animals on fur farms, according to a new document released by the Environmental Investigation Agency, a London-based nonprofit, and the U.S.-based Animal Welfare Institute. The document shows that more than 113 metric tons of minke whale […]
African elephants ‘killed faster than they are being born’
More African elephants are being killed for ivory than are being born, despite poaching levels falling for the fourth year in a row in 2015. The new data, released on UN world wildlife day on Thursday, shows about 60% of elephant deaths are at the hands of poachers, meaning the overall population is most likely […]