You are browsing the archives of 2005 January.

Kuwait is a relatively small State (17,818 square kilometers (6,880 square miles), including the Kuwaiti share of the Neutral Zone (2,590 sq km)) at the top of the Arabian Gulf, and is almost entirely flat desert.

Kuwait was attacked and overrun by Iraq on 2 August 1990. Following several weeks of aerial bombardment, a UN coalition […]

It’s been known for some time that birds are descended from dinosaurs, with Archaeopteryx representing one strong link between avians and antiquity. However, researchers from North Carolina State University have discovered definitive proof that birds existed alongside dinosaurs more than 65 million years ago. Their newly released  research even established this prehistoric bird as a […]

We recently received a interesting question from Alice of 10,000 Monkeys and a Camera. After buttering us up with compliments, she posed this query:
I am not aware of any magpie that can be found on the Atlantic coast of North America, but my friend says that her (ninety-something-year-old) grandmother speaks of the magpies she remembers […]

Hong Kong, Shing Mun Nature Park: 22 January 2005.
 
From the entrance to Shing Mun Nature Park a country trail leads through mixed secondary forest along the edge of the Shing Mun Reservoir and into the beautiful Shing Mun Valley. The park covers a total of 1400 hectares. It extends from Lead Mine Pass in the […]

 
‘Wimpey Pits’, Dubai, UAE16 January 2005.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a constitutional federation of seven emirates; Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm al-Qaiwain, Ras al-Khaimah and Fujairah. The federation was formally established on 2 December 1971.

The UAE occupies an area of 83,000 sq km along the south-eastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Qatar […]

This winter, we’ve been blessed with an abundance of owls. In 2003, a veritable horde of Common Redpoll invaded the U.S. It seems that, every year, another bird species floods our forests and feeders, carried on the wings of an irruption. But what kind of bizarre volcano spits out birds?
Our birding word of the […]

Pallid Swifts Apus pallidus pallidus
Dubai, Wimpey Gravel Pits, 16 January 2005
 

 
All photographs © Charlie Moores.
 

Red Kites Milvus milvus
Tregaron, Wales. 12 January 2005
 
The magnificent Red Kite was once widespread throughout much of Britain, but after decades of persecution by gamekeepers and harrassment by egg-collectors (even as late as the early 1990’s up to 10 nests a year - 20% of the total nests in Wales at the time - were […]

Whooper Swans Cygnus cygnus
Martin Mere WWT Centre, Lancashire, England, 13 January 2005
 

 
All photographs © Charlie Moores.
 

The people of Auburn, NY have long felt besieged by American Crows. Small wonder, considering that this city of roughly 29,000 (where, coincidentally, Core Team family Seth and Christine got married) has to contend with, at last count, over 63,000 crows. In February 2003, they initiated a population control effort, less euphemistically termed a good, […]