Scavenging birds play a vital role in our ecosystems, they clean up carcasses before they have time to rot. Without scavengers, rotting carcasses would become hubs for harmful pathogens. Vultures specialise in eating carrion and are highly efficient at cleaning up a carcass. But many other birds, like crows and eagles, will also scavenge if […]
Tag: Black Kite
Black-eared/Black Kites – Tabuk
Whilst birding the pivot irrigation fields near Tabuk in early October we found hundreds of Black Kites. Many birds will be on passage at this time of year but many more will saty throughout the winter. Some birds looked like typical Black Kites and others like the very similar subspecies Black-eared Kite. The Black Kite […]
The Levante winds of Spring – Spain 2017
I lead a tour group from the the US Audubon Naturalist Society in April to southern Spain. We had a great time apart from the awful windy weather. The famous Levante wind just would not stop for almost the whole eight days. We did however have a great time, saw lots of birds and other […]
My local Patch – Germany
Species photographed on my local patch in Germany included: Red Kite, Black Kite, Black-necked Grebe, Greylag Geese, Long-tailed Tits nest building, two Long-tailed Tits completing their new nest, Coal Tit, Marsh Harrier, Peregrine Falcon and Goshawk. Black-necked Grebes
Thermals and more…
Migration: Black Kites are the first raptor to migrate and cross The Strait of Gibraltar. The skies will continue to be filled with them slowly moving down towards Tarifa and if the wind is too strong for them to cross to Morocco there will be a huge build up as more and more arrive in […]
Beaches without people
Australia’s Top End beaches are off limits for swimming. And for a good reason. If a Saltwater crocodile won’t get you, a Box jellyfish probably will. As a result, in contrast to the rest of Australian coastline, Northern Territory beaches are often virtually empty. And what happens if you take people away from the beach? […]
La Janda News
Good news that aerial crop spraying is now limited to only a few specific controls for health and agriculture. Natural sprays are used against mosquito control in La Janda although to be honest the problem with such insects is the same in the pine forests. Most of the fertiliser spraying that takes place is showering […]
Rain of Birds at last…
This spring has been very strange. After such a rainy winter with 4-6 floods in the southern Arava, we all expected that the desert will be filled with migrants. Then came March and by the end of it we were still looking hard to find birds in the Arava. Nevertheless there were many quality species […]
