First the bad news, currently the weather is very unsettled with plenty of rain and very cold for June. This recent bad weather brought disaster to the local nesting great crested grebes. They had constructed their nest and were incubating three eggs as previously reported. A subsequent visit found no sign of nest or eggs. […]
Tag: roe deer
On the trail of wolves in Belarus
Dawn in the Naliboki forest: mist over the marshes and bats skittering in birch trees. Above the clearing, stars are fading into a pale sky. We’re in deepest God-knows-where in one of Europe’s largest wild forests. Zoologist Vadim Sidorovich crouches in the half-light studying the track; I’m barely breathing, so intense is the silence. A […]
Out Of Action
It is a month now since my last posting. I am presently recovering from hip surgery and it may be many weeks before I am able to get out and about again with the camera. To keep the blog alive I am therefore publishing a few images taken before I went into hospital Apart from […]
Ghost towns of Chernobyl becoming wonderland for wolves
Not only are gray wolves thriving in the exclusion zone, they are starting to wander out into the rest of the world as well. After the 1986 fire and explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant released 400 times more radioactive fallout than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, most everyone left the area. Authorities […]
Review of the Canon EOS 70D camera body
With temperatures around freezing point, blue skies and frost on the ground, I got down to the Rhine Delta in Austria just as the sun was rising this morning. A perfect opportunity to try out my new Canon EOS 70D camera body. All of the above shots were taken hand-held using a Canon EF 400mm […]
Why the lynx effect would send Scotland wild
As Edinburgh Zoo’s panda freakshow continues to captivate the witless and the infantile, a real Scottish animal has been allowed to die. Under the noses of Scottish Natural Heritage, which likes to be known as the nation’s leading conservation body, the Scottish wildcat has all but been extinguished from the Highlands. The importance of this […]
European Roe Deer: spring moult!
Capreolus capreolus – Cervidae – Capreolinae – as all mammals deers moult twice a year, in spring and in autumn; from darkish brown the hair will turn a bright orangey colour in a few weeks from now: Comme beaucoup de mammifères, nos chien inclus, les chevreuils muent 2 fois par an, au printemps et à […]
Roe (and other deer) Hazards
People, cars, and deer—put them together and you’ve got trouble. A rapidly urbanizing planet is transforming wild lands into habitat for humanity, and the non-human species living in these previously undeveloped areas must either adapt to the new landscape, find someplace else to live (not an easy task), or be erased from the biological census. […]