You are browsing the archives of 2005 October.

Prospect Park/Wheat Ridge City Greenbelt, Denver, 25 October 2005

This was my first visit to Denver, the “Mile High” City (which lies at a lung-tugging average of about 5200′/1585m above sea-level), but to be honest all I wanted to do was stay indoors and recover from the exertions of the trip I’d just done to Bangkok [...]

Back in January and February 2005 I was fortunate enough to be shown around the Middle-eastern state of Kuwait by George Gregory, a British birder who’d been working in Kuwait for fourteen years, was a key member of the Kuwaiti Bird Monitoring and Protection Team, and who probably knew more about its avifauna than anyone [...]

1st winter Grey(/Red) Phalarope Phalaropus fulicarius
Devizes, Wiltshire October 2005
 
Storm-blown birds often appear inland on large reservoirs, but they don’t often appear on duck-ponds in the middle of a small town in Wiltshire. Look what was found swimming around the Canada Geese and ducks in Devizes two days ago…

I normally see these birds bobbing around on [...]

Royal National Park, Sydney, Australia
14 October 2005
 

Bridge over the Hacking River, Royal National Park, near Sydney

 
The wonderful Royal National Park, an expansive area of rainforest and heath covering some 15000ha, is just off the Prince’s Highway and only 15 miles (22km) from Sydney International Airport. Dedicated in 1879, it’s Australia’s oldest NP (and the second [...]

Grey-backed Shrike Lanius tephronotus
Khao Yai National Park, Thailand. 12 October 2005
 
When I originally photographed this bird in Khao Yai NP I was unsure whether it was a Grey-backed Shrike Lanius tephronotus (which I suspected) or a Brown Shrike Lanius cristatus. Thai birding legend Dr Phil Round kindly cleared up any confusion with an email saying, [...]

Khao Yai National Park
12 October 2005

Bangkok - hmmm…

Apologies in advance to any Thai reading this, but I remember the first time I went to Bangkok - in early 1990 and just six months into my new airline job - sitting on the crew coach from the airport to the crew hotel and being incredibly [...]

Cape White-eye Zosterops capensis capensis
Suikerbosrand National Park, Gauteng, South Africa. October 2004
 
The Cape White-eye Zosterops capensis is endemic to southern Africa, and was split fairly recently from the more western Orange River White-eye.

The Cape White-eye is a common and familiar bird which is present in a variety of habitats including gardens, parks, forest, woodland, [...]

Orange-headed Thrush Zoothera citrina citrina
Dhaka Botoanical Gardens, October 2005
 
The Orange-headed Thrush Zoothera citrina is a generally shy species that is said to be crepuscular and “a bird of deep shade” (Birds of South Asia. Volume 2. Rasmussen et al). There are between three and five subspecies (depending on which author you read): the birds in [...]

Dhaka Botanical Gardens
04 October 2005

Dhaka (the romanized spelling of the Bengali name was changed from Dacca in 1982) is the capital and largest city of Bangladesh. Founded during the 10th century it is located in the geographic center of the country in the great deltaic region of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers. The city [...]

Orange-throated (Cape) Longclaw Macronyx capensis
Marievale, Gauteng, South Africa (October).
 
The beautiful Orange-throated (or Cape) Longclaw is a southern African endemic, occurring in Zimbabwe and southern and eastern South Africa. The species is common in coastal and mountain grassland. Usually found in pairs throughout the year, stalking the ground for insects and some seeds. Unobtrusive rather than [...]