After travelling to the Middle East, our work required us to spend one more week in Algeciras, Spain. This time, I had the benefit of a lighter schedule — that, and another benefit we had already had there, on our previous stay. Our friends/hosts, you see, live in an unattached house (a rarity in Spain, where most people live in apartments); and that house is only a few minutes’ walk from the delta of the Palmones River. I, of course, love a good river delta. I couldn’t take much advantage of it on our first, two-week stay. But this time, I could. Now, it is much easier for me to achieve first ..read more

The Siberian Rubythroat passes through Shanghai on its autumn migration, mainly in October and November. Its Latin name, Calliope calliope, is derived from Calliope, the chief of the Greek muses. Apparently, she was both the wisest and the most assertive of the muses. She also must have had something of a mean streak – after defeating the daughters of the king of Thessaly in a singing contest, she punished them by turning them into magpies. eBird seems to be a fan of the species, calling it a perky, long-legged songbird” with a “variable melodic song consist[ing] of beautiful warbling and occ ..read more

Several seasonal specialties have been arriving in the last remaining patches of wetland at the southwest end of the cigar-shaped island of Tobago here in the southern Caribbean. Being based on this island for the better part of this year has afforded me the opportunity (for the first time) to bear witness to the movement of bodies through these quarters – and it continues to be exhilarating. Fall migration is always exciting, but experiencing it in a different location is a whole new kind of feeling. On one hand, there is an expectation of what is possible because I know what is supposed to b ..read more

We are very lucky that here in Broome we have Tawny Frogmouths right in town. There are a pair at the local supermarket and also Cygnet Park and no doubt others nearby. At the shopping centre the pair of Tawny Frogmouths often perch under the eaves at the entrance to the shops during the day. At Cygnet Park we had noticed the absence of one of the Tawny Frogmouths in recent weeks and we wondered if there was a nest in a nearby tree that we hadn’t found. If the nest was in a tree that was not sparse like the one we found recently on the Crab Creek Road then it would be hard to find. This week w ..read more

My wife and I had the privilege of visiting Mexican friends in Jordan in early October. These friends do work similar to that which we do in Mexico, but in much more delicate circumstances. So I won’t go into any of their personal details. As it turns out, birding can also be slightly delicate in this country. Upon our arrival in Amman’s airport, I was detained in the customs area for around a quarter hour. This was due, oddly enough, to my binoculars. Now, I’m a mediocre enough photographer that I need a 600 mm lens to get photos that are good enough, say, for this website. And I have lots of ..read more

After a heavy pre-dawn rain, the morning was all misty and mysterious. I was greeted by omnipresent Grey-headed Chachalacas running with such a focused determination, resembling those small, green procompsognathus dinosaurs (“Compys”) in Jurassic Park and making me think that the CGI experts must have been sitting at this same veranda studying Chachalacas’ moves. Blue flanks, black chest, yellow head… I am in the birders’ heaven called Rancho Naturalista Lodge in Costa Rica and am observing my first Golden-hooded Tanager of the trip. Located within its private premontane forest reserve at 300 ..read more

The definition of a borrow pit is rather odd, because you are not actually borrowing anything. Gravel, clay or sand is removed for highway construction and it is not “borrowed” as such, because it doesn’t go back! This actually benefits our local wildlife, because the rainwater then gets trapped in the borrow pit and in some instances it will sustain the wildlife right through our dry months when there is no rainfall at all. From roughly April to December we are lucky to have any rain and so the remaining water in these borrow pits is always worth visiting. This particular borrow pit is right ..read more

White-tailed Kite in action- a classic airport species in Costa Rica. Odd habitats attract odd birds. Or rather, I should say that out of place habitats attract lost birds. The good old sewage ponds bring in waders and wandering waterbirds that have nowhere else to go. Turf farms in wooded regions are wide open oases for grasspipers and other species adapted to natural lawns. The same can be said of wooded parks in urban areas and other bits of precious habitat surrounded by areas less hospitable to various types of the avian kind. Although Costa Rica is noted for tropical forests and their su ..read more

Somebody highly knowledgeable in the area of SEO (search engine optimization) strongly recommended that I should write more posts including Japanese Tits. I don’t think I will stoop that low. The consultant also suggested increasing readership by catering to highly specific niche interest groups. So, here is something for foot fetishists. According to Wikipedia, “A lowlife is a term for a person who is considered morally unacceptable by their community”. The local Nanhui shrikes are well aware that the word “lowlife” has an owl hidden inside, and mark the appearance of owls in their ter ..read more

In my last post I alluded to several goings-on that warranted separate posts. Although much has happened from then to now, the memory of a bird we observed on that day has remained with me. I had been tracking a Yellow-billed Cuckoo as it fed in the canopy when Joanne (my life and birding partner) drew my attention to an exceptionally dark heron hunting in a small waterway. I drifted closer, and sure enough, there at the water’s edge, was a small heron – almost black with blazing, fiery yellow eyes – fixated on some movement beneath the surface. We watched this bird for quite some time. Undoub ..read more