Click on the images to view them at full size. Just uttering the words Kruger National Park can set the pulse racing and the synapses jangling. As the wheels of the 30-passenger jet kissed the tarmac at Skukuza, the excitement was palpable. We descended the steps at this tiny air strip, in the heart of the park, and were struck by a wall of heat and the ever-present caroo-ing of Mourning and African Turtle Doves. Hire car loaded, we exited the security gate. The speed limit is 50kph on tarmacked roads, 40kph on gravel. If you want to spot wildlife 25kph, or less, works better. We had an intern ..read more

Click on the images to view at full size. Just a two-hour drive north of Cape Town, there is a kingdom of flowers and birds. The West Coast National Park abuts the Eastern Atlantic and sits barely an ostriches-stride south of the coastal town of Langabaan. Our second base, on the very southern edge of the town, had a small, high-walled, garden, that nevertheless attracted plenty of interesting birds, including Acacia Pied Barbet and Red-faced Mousebird, partly because it was the last house before an undeveloped, fynbos covered, promontory viewpoint overlooking Shark Bay. Red-faced Mousebird ..read more

Alaska Click on images to view at full size. Leviathan A dark presence looms in the water below our hull, while two radiating shafts of white swirl and twist, attached but seemingly independent of the whole. A barnacle encrusted fluke lifts clear and appears to be dripping salty tears. Its trajectory surely destined to slice into the side of our, suddenly tiny, craft, but the whale understands its proportions and the tail sinks back into the drink, leaving eddying whirlpools at the surface to mark the point of departure. The faces of the humans carried on this vessel are universally contorted ..read more

All images are authentic to the tour and copyright ©Jeff Clarke unless otherwise stated. Click on images to view at full size. I’d just returned from a dramatically foreshortened cruise, where a five-week tour had been truncated to one-week due to Covid-19 complications, so you’d imagine I’d be sceptical about accepting an offer to join Viking Jupiter in Chile, with just two weeks’ notice to embarkation. As someone who is generally one of life’s optimists, I perceived the logistical hurdles as surmountable and the pull of possibilities as irresistible. So it was that Laura and I boa ..read more

All images in this blog are copyright © Jeff Clarke 2021 Click on the image to view at full size.  After a sixteen-month hiatus courtesy of COVID-19, I finally got back out on the ocean. I had the good fortune to be selected as a guest speaker on Fred Olsen’s new ship ‘Borealis’, on one of her first outings. Our original itinerary to Shetland and Orkney had been scuppered when a certain person in Holyrood decreed that folk from Greater Manchester were ‘unclean’. And so it was that we found ourselves setting out from Liverpool on a southerly trajectory instead. It was a lovely calm evenin ..read more

Click on images to view at full size. In my previous blog I discussed my fascination with albatrosses, but alongside that I also have a deep affinity for cetaceans, and I’ve spent the best part of the past two decades in pursuit of encounters with these aquatic mammals. As someone with a tendency to gravitate toward rocky headlands on the extremities of this sceptred isle I have enjoyed numerous encounters, albeit mostly distant, with many a cetacean over the years. Despite my best efforts my species list remained remarkably small, just three species, consisting of Harbour Porpoise, Common Bo ..read more

Anyone who has ever met me knows that I am generally an enthusiastic person and I get very passionate about things. Sometimes these passions are short-lived – let’s never again mention my, thankfully brief, interlude as a teenage plane-spotter – and some sustain over the longer term. I’ve been mad keen on nature my whole life and this is where most of my passions are rooted. Like most naturalists, my initial introduction to nature was through birds and butterflies, and my fascination with birds has never wavered over five decades. I am not immune to the desire to see new species, but some of ..read more

All the images in this blog were taken during the trip. Click on an image to display at full size. After a frantic ecology survey season, combined with the stresses of Covid-19, I was more than ready for a short break and a chance for some wildlife photography. We decided that the West Coast of Scotland would be the destination, and in particular, the dominion of the Eagle, the Isle of Mull, followed by the wild landscapes of the north-west coast around Gairloch, Wester Ross. I had three photographic targets in mind – Eagles (White-Tailed and Golden), Otters and hopefully, Minke Whale. We arr ..read more

Sky Full of Egrets All the images in this blog were taken during the trip. Click on an image to display at full size. In the early hours of the 10th January I stepped aboard MV Boudicca, one of my favourite ships, in the Queensland city of Cairns. It would be the start of an adventure to explore a part of the world with a special appeal. The ship would be making 3 stops in one of the remotest parts of the planet, Papua New Guinea, it would also call in at the equally magical island of Komodo on route to Bali. As usual I was able to bring a companion along for the ride and on thi ..read more

All images are orignal images from the trip. Click on image to view at full size. We began in Buenos Aires on the 14th Feb. I was accompanied by my fellow Wildlife Speaker and buddy Anthony (Anno) Brandreth. We would join Cunard’s Queen Victoria on the 15th to begin a journey around the southern half of South America, taking in the iconic locations of Peninsula Valdes, Cape Horn and the Beagle Channel along the way.   Jeff Clarke (Left) & Anthony Brandreth at Costanera Sur, Buenos Aires © Jeff Clarke 2020 Limited time and the extra-ordinary complexity of getting hold of A ..read more