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A World of Herons: #1
I've just noticed that I haven't offered a post focussing on birds since last September, so it's probably time to rectify that. Herons form a single family of some 64-72 species, depending on your...
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A World of Herons: #2
Here I am again to complete last week's post on herons, a significant component of wetlands and waterways throughout most of the world. Having offered an overview last time, I want to introduce the...
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Boodjamulla (Lawn Hill) National Park; a remote and superb oasis
Boodjamulla is remote, over 200km from the nearest small town, Burketown, with the latter half of that journey on sometimes trying corrugated dirt roads. It is tucked away in the arid far north-west...
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Mulga; face of the inland
This is another in an irregular series on (mostly Australian) trees. It's been a while since I posted one of these, but you can find some past ones here, here, and here. It is a remarkable fact that...
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Perito Moreno; a rare growing glacier
Perito Moreno Glacier is one of the chief attractions for visitors to Argentinian Patagonia, and quite justifiably so. It lies in the eastern fall of the Andes, some 60km west (in a straight line) of...
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Ratites; the ancients of the bird world. #1 Who are they?
Across the southern lands are (and in some cases were) scattered a series of mostly giant, flightless birds, whose significance we often overlook. We call them the ratites, from Latin for a raft, a...
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Ratites; the ancients of the bird world. #2 The case of the flying moas
In introducing the wonderful and venerable ratites last time I made mention of another group of relatively little-known birds, the tinamous, long described as a 'sister group' of the ratites. There are...
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Bunya Mountains National Park; splendid isolation
Actually the Bunyas, in the hinterland of south-east Queensland, aren't really so isolated in terms of visiting them, but ecologically they represent a remnant of ancient Australia, rainforests left...
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Fabulous Feathers
I've talked on many occasions before about feather colours - look on the right of this page under Labels, then Colours in Nature for some links - but I haven't actually looked at the feathers...
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Gomantong Caves; full of life
Malaysian Borneo contains some massive limestone cave systems, the best known of which are probably Mulu in Sarawak, and Gomantong in far north-east Sabah. Gomantong is only an hour or so's drive south...
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Palms; old and successful. Part 1.
Here is another in my irregular series on favourite trees (you can find the most recent one here, and work back from there). I've travelled a bit in some of the warmer parts of the world and I've found...
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Palms; old and successful. Part 2
This posting forms the conclusion of last week's post on palms; today I'm simply going to introduce some species from both Australia and elsewhere. Alexandra Palms Archontophoenix alexandrae forming a...
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Litchfield National Park; sandstone and waterfalls
It's often said, perhaps especially in the backpacking tourism industry, both that Litchfield is "a poor person's Kakadu" and "better value than Kakadu" (Kakadu is of course the extraordinary and vast...
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New Australian Bird Guide review
This is a 'special', ie out of sequence, posting to bring to your attention the publication of a new and very high quality Australian bird field guide, a fairly momentous occasion. The publisher is the...
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The Wonderful World of Cockies
Firstly, to deal with 'disambiguation' as a certain information web site insists on saying, we're talking about these cockies today.Sulphur-crested Cockatoo Cacatua galerita, Canberra.I mention this...
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Bwindi Impenetrable National Park
Is there a more alluringly-named park in the world? I can't readily imagine it. Moreover it's one that fully lives up to its implied promise - not least, and most famously, for these!Eastern Mountain...
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Pitcher Plants: "the most wonderful plant in the world"
OK, Charles Darwin actually said that about another carnivorous plant, the unrelated North American Venus Fly Trap Dionaea muscipula, but I'm sure he'd have held the same high opinion of pitcher...
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I have just been given the heads-up on an amazing new twist to the recent pitcher plant posting (thanks Peter!), and it is too good a tale not to add to the existing post; if you've already read it,...
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Cairns Esplanade
I confess to having a love-hate relationship with Cairns, a busy tourist magnet of 150,000 people in tropical north Queensland, facing the Coral Sea. It is blatantly commercial, especially along the...
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Tree Frogs; hopping higher
There are several families of frogs throughout the world known as 'tree frogs', which have quite independently evolved to very similar forms to enable a largely arboreal lifestyle. Most conspicuous...
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