The Sanibel Lighthouse Hawk Watch with Vince McGrath has been an anticipated event for a number of years prior to leaving the state of Florida for what you might not believe a move of mine to the great white north. The Osprey above (image 1) was photographed at the Sanibel Island […]
Tag: Kestrel
Beitostølen and Valdresflya
Our stay in Beitostølen with visits to Valdresflya continues to produce some interesting birds. On Valdresflya I have seen the Long-tailed Skuas again but they have been too distant for pictures. The two male Long-tailed Ducks seem to have their own areas on a lake and may well have a female on a nest nearby. […]
Past The Old Tobacco Fields In Search Of Birds
I took a walk on Easter morning and passed by some old agricultural fields where I earned my first paycheck picking tobacco leaves in the late 70’s. All that remains of those days are the ghostly remains of old tobacco sheds and distant memories of tar-covered clothes. These days the fields are used for planting […]
Much more at Rakhyut
There was much more to Rakhyut than owling (see yesterday’s blog). On the mountain top before we (Saeed Shanfari, Hedi Khecharem and I) descended into Rakhyut the action started. There were four eagles. Three were steppe eagle which soon disappeared. Eastern imperial eagle 1 One eagle stayed behind and give good views. It was […]
Video: Harvesting Cuckoo Shrike Eggs for Captive Breeding
The Mauritian Wildlife Foundation (MWF) is a non-governmental, non-profit conservation agency working in Mauritius to save threatened endemic local flora and fauna. The Mauritian Wildlife Appeal Fund was established in 1984 under the initiative of naturalist Gerald Durrell and the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust principally to raise funds for the conservation of endemic Mauritius wildlife. […]
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald – review
The arcane world of falconry is infamous for a snobbery that dates back to the medieval period, when different raptors were pegged to a hierarchical list of feudal stations. So the noble peregrine was for princes, the dainty merlin was milady’s bird, and – as we know from Barry Hines’s novel – it was just […]
Malta – Massacre on Migration (Episode 4)
Chris Packham and the BirdLife Malta Team were busy yesterday delivering illegally shot birds from all over Malta to a veterinary practice for examination and treatment. The videoclip covers a non-migrating Kestrel, a locally-breeding Shearwater and a migrating Montagu’s Harrier. The Harrier had bird shot lodged in the wing and body and with little chance […]
Why Are Birds of the Arctic in Decline?
With some species of Arctic birds experiencing steep drops in population and their prey also undergoing marked shifts, scientists are working to understand what role climate change is playing in these unfolding ecological transformations. On Coats Island, in northern Hudson Bay, thick-billed murres — members of the auk family — have been under assault on […]