You are browsing the archives of 2008 May.

When I was upstate this past weekend my Aunt Bonnie mentioned that she had come across a couple Jack in the Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) in the woods near her house. I was intrigued as it had been years since I had seen one and they are such cool-looking plants, named for their likeness to [...]

How about this odd story for a change from the doom and gloom: a lost African Grey has been re-united with its cage owner after telling a vet its home address! The full report is on Yahoo News

Greater Striped Swallow Cecropis/Hirundo cucullata
Suikerbosrand, South Africa. May 2008
 
The Greater Striped Swallow Cecropis/Hirundo cucullata is a large swallow breeding in South Africa, Namibia and southern Zimbabwe. It is migratory wintering further north in Angola, Tanzania and southern Zaire. A bird of dry open country (such as the highveld grassland at Suikerbosrand where these photos were [...]

After a few hours birding on the morning of May 15th at the excellent Marievale Bird Sanctuary I headed over to one of my favourite places anywhere - the Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve. Just a thirty minute drive from Marievale, Suikerbosrand NR protects a superb area of the highveld sandwiched between farmland and townships, an undulating, [...]

You may not have realized it but Corey is on a birding rampage, terrorizing the parks and waterways of the New York Metro area like Godzilla with expensive optics. His monomaniacal pursuit of migrants dovetailed nicely with my desire to actualize some pre-business birding so I offered to introduce him to the allure of Inwood [...]

I don’t know what is wrong with me. After a wonderful day last Saturday doing a Big Day in Queens I decided to do another Big Day upstate this past Saturday with Will from The Nightjar. The last two years when Will and I have done the Hudson-Mohawk Bird Club’s Century Run we [...]

During my second trip upstate in the last three weeks (and after my second Big Day in as many weekends) I was up for some relaxation Sunday, and got it with my family. Of course, for me, relaxation includes watching birds, so the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds coming to my parents’ feeders featured prominently in my [...]

Which carnivore? Us. 75% of deforestation in the Amazon is to create cattle pasture, as Brazil becomes the world’s leading beef exporter. The next time you eat a steak you may just have contributed to the lack of migrants in your neighbourhood…check out the BBC News website before you prepare your counter-arguments.

A member of the Qatari Royal Family has donated $1 million to establish a BirdLife fund to conserve birds and biodiversity, and to promote sustainable use of natural resources through site protection and management across the Middle East. The whole story is on the BirdLife Website.

Right. Hands up all those of you fed-up with Mike and Corey’s posts on tens of thousands of wood-warblers migrating through various parks and forests in New York. Anyone? Do I see a hand, any hand…just one would do…how about you sir, over in the corner? No? There must be someone…? I guess not - [...]