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Living on Fish
A while ago I offered a post on some of the huge number of bird species that live by eating insects; the numbers involved are staggering. At least equally so, and in terms of sheer mass probably more...
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Shaba National Reserve; superb 'outback Kenya'
For the natural history aficionados among us (and surely that's anyone reading this blog), Kenya calls loudly and clearly, even if we can't answer the call at the moment. Amboseli, Mount Kenya, the...
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Turtles and Tortoises; the real old-timers
These wonderful animals have been around in pretty much their current form for at least 200 million years. Two hundred and twenty million years ago the first turtles separated off from the other...
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Tjoritja/MacDonnell Ranges; our rugged heart
I write this in quarantine in chilly Canberra; like thousands of others we are isolated at home for two weeks as a result of having been in the same general area and time as someone who later tested...
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Tjoritja; MacDonnell Ranges#2. Some plants and animals.
In my most recent post I rhapsodised (at some length!) over the glorious mountain range that stretches west and east from Alice Springs. We know it best as the MacDonnell Ranges, but to the Arrernte...
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Big Bills - That's Cool! Toucans and Hornbills
Believe it or not, there is a point to that title! Both these families of birds have entranced me since I first encountered them on opposite sides of the world. (I began my overseas birding adventures...
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It's Not Easy Being Cool
Last time we talked about the wonderful toucans and hornbills, including the newly-recognised importance of their amazing bills in helping them keep cool. As promised, this time I'm going to talk more...
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Tidbinbilla; Canberra's favourite picnic spot. And much more!
When I arrived in Canberra to live over 40 years ago, Tidbinbilla was well established as a place you took your visitors, especially if they were from overseas - as many were, be they diplomats,...
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Woodswallows, the original grey nomads?
A long time ago, a popular 'getting to know you' game involved a series of 'if you were type of a XXX, what would you be?'. Seems a bit quaint now, but maybe it's still played? Anyway, in my circles...
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Mount Kenya; wet forests in dry plains
Some five months ago I wrote a post about Shaba National Reserve in northern Kenya, wonderful arid wildlife-rich landscapes reminiscent in some ways of outback Australia. I promised then to offer...
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Farewell to 2021!
This post continues a now well-established tradition of mine of posting on the last day of the year, aiming to offer one photo taken each month of the year as a way of celebrating the year that has...
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Black Cockatoos; wailing spirits of the land
No, I haven't really gone all mystical since last year, but there is something truly thrilling about a flight of massive black-cockatoos rowing easily across the sky, their creaking wailing calls...
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Seasons of Cocoparra National Park; a Riverina treasure
We're very recently back from a short stay in one of our favourite parks, Cocoparra, some 400km to the west, in a low range near the irrigation town of Griffith in the Riverina region. At this time of...
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Dragons Rule!
This is a fully revised version of a blog I posted years ago, with lots of new photos and updated information and taxonomy.Well, in Australia dragons rule anyway. Of perhaps 350 species of dragon...
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Feather Care; it's life or death
A feather is a truly wonderful thing. Birds, the most numerous group of land vertebrates, owe their spectacular success to their feathers, which evolved from the scales of their dinosaur ancestors. The...
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Weddin Mountains; a national park above the plains
North of Canberra, and a bit to the west, is an arc of four parks rising out of the plains of the western slopes of New South Wales. The western slopes comprise a broad belt of woodland (now mostly...
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Three Small Dry South African Parks; three visits that were far too brief!
As my more assiduous readers may recall - and I understand that there are a few of those! - in 2019, not long before COVID profoundly altered travel, we made a very special trip to East and South...
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Daisies, Daisies, here's an answer or two
Daisies seem to rule, I often think. There may be in excess of 30,000 species of them, though 24,000 is a more often cited tally. The mighty Flora of Australia is adamant (or at least was in 2015) that...
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Daisies Part Two; a family album
In my last post, I introduced the wonderful world of daisies, one of the world's two great plant families (along with orchids) in terms of number of species, which are found in all continents where...
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Buffalo Springs National Reserve; superb 'outback Kenya' #2
I've just realised that it's been a year since I posted on the wonderfully scenic, wildlife-rich and semi-arid Shaba National Reserve in central Kenya, which I ended by promising a follow-up on the...
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