I met Dr. Eduardo Corona at a recent University of Texas Urban Bird Project presentation in San Antonio, Texas. Corona shared his work on “Birds and their biocultural role in Mesoamerica.” Dr. Corona is an archeologist and researcher at the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia (INAH) in Mexico and a distinguished member of Mexico’s […]
Tag: Swallows
Two days too late
I arrived for a short family visit in Israel yesterday afternoon. This morning, completely knackered after yesterday exhausting day of travel, I did the obvious thing – I went in the early morning to Ma’agan Michael to see the putative Asian House Martin – potentially the first for WP. Since it was found by Barak, […]
Tree Swallows
Tree swallows spend most of their day flying in pursuit of small aerial insects, gliding swiftly through the air and twisting and turning artistically as their blue feathers flash in the sunlight. This haiku written in 1818 by Issa, one of Japan‘s foremost poets, recognizes the aerial exploits of swallow-kind: Gliding through the cloudburst so […]
Mega’s, Vagrants and Rarities in Kuwait
It has been quite some time since my last post. Following a low depression in Arabia in late November that brought more than above average rainfall at this time of the year to the Region, some great birds were recorded in Kuwait. The one species was a vagrant and a 1st for Kuwait that has […]
Action at the Lake
Late this afternoon I stopped in at what is reputedly the smallest and newest lake in Japan, Lake Shirachi in Shimabara. Actually more of a large pond than a lake, it is surrounded by streets but usually has herons and egrets as well as a few resident “soup” ducks. However it is also a good […]
Rain Sun Rain
Our newly arrived Red-Rumped Swallows start the task of nest building, feeding as the go. Black-eared Wheatears have been arriving with the lovely male photographed on the 15th. With a backdrop of the Grazalema mountain range Greater Flamingoes create a pink hue across the landscape as they move into feed at Venta La Palma on […]