246 : Great White Pelican

Great White Pelican - Pelecanus onocrotalus

I can remember taking this shot and thinking I have to make sense at some point of what is out there on the lake shore at Manyara. The birds were a fair way off and I was safely (?) behind a scaffold rail that had been put up to seperate man from hippo. I can see Black-Winged Stilt, Egyptian Goose and I believe these are Greater Flamingo (the bills are bubble gum pink and black rather than all very dark browny red). 

I am posting this picture up to log the Great White Pelican - "A wonderful bird is the Pelican, whose beak can hold more than his belly can !". I couldn't resist that. These Pelicans are massive indeed and can be told by their banana yellow bill pouch. The male and females can be told apart by the facial skin around the eye - more purply in the male. 

We have come across one species of pelican to date on the Daily Bird - the Spot-billed Pelican. There are just 8 species to "collect" so we can celebrate that we have chalked up 25 % of the world's species and we have 26 years and 3 months to go. They are also big and easy to see so I am pretty confident about a slam with the Pelicans. 1 species is listed as vulnerable so I will need to drill down on some more information to find out why. There are species in Australia, Peru and America all of which seem sensible places to go at some point. No doubt I will find some Peruvian high Andean Pelican which only nests on one lake next to a gold mine that is poisoning the water with mercury.Sadly its not that local - its the Spot-billed that is at risk and mostly due to persecution right across its range by the poor fisherman of Asia. Check out the Hindu attitude to Spot-billed that I discovered in India in the posting linked above.   

Pelicans are friendly birds and have had an affinity with fishing men since time immemorial - the thrown fish thats not big enough for the pot. The fish that jumps out of the net on the lakeshore. On many occasions they do not compete eating fish that man does not use. The eight species really do have a worldwide range - they are adpated to both fresh and saltwater. They are also among the heaviest of all flying birds weighing up to 33 pounds (15 kg) with wingspans of up to 11 1/2 feet (3.5 m). Most pelicans including the Great White Pelican feed by herding fish from the the surface and then lunging - sometimes in cooperative groups. The fish are then swallowed quite quickly as the weight of water trapped in the pouch prevents the bird from taking off again.Only one species plunge dives and we will have the chance to catch up with that later in the year. They are long-lived in the wild (15 years) and birds in captivity have been know to make the grand old age of 50.

Pelicans need 10 % of their body weight in fish every day to survive - more when they have chicks to feed. One main Pelican product is guano, rich in phosphates and a valuable fertilser. Around the world breeding islands have been exploited for the huge piles of natural fertiliser for hundreds of years - mostly in South America.

So thats a smorgasbord of Pelican facts for a cold Tuesday morning in Dubai - can you believe its 13 or 14 degrees some mornings at the moment with a cool mist in off the sea ! Unlike the Pelican I have the choice of a gym rather than the pool - as they wake they will fly some large distances to their feeding grounds - a cold sea or lake with the requirment to haul out a kilogram of fish with "net". I am trudging over to a cross trainer to try and get some fitness for the wilds ! I have identified that its not much use trying to photograph the worlds birds if I cannot e.g. walk into the jungle to see them. I saw a superb documentary on Venezuela last night I had taped of Animal Planet. Looking foward to getting up the Orinoco at some point.

If you are regular have a great day - get that holiday booked - its cold and Januaryish we need something to look foward to ! I felt better as soon as I had got the Safari booked. I am owing on a Disney World trip but now I know there are Brown Pelicans waiting which I believe are the only plunge diving Pelicans I am doubly incentivised.  

Great White Pelican, Pelicanus onocrotalus 

Lake Manyara, Tanzania

July 2013

245 : Glossy Ibis

Glossy Ibis, Plegadis falcinellus

I thought I'd add a picture of the Zhakar Pools below - nestled in the dunes of  the desert lapping up to Jebil Hafite and the grand Hajar mountains. Spot the Ibis ! Clearly these pools are a result of human activity. The water works for Al Ain have literally overflowed and the local municipality have taken an active decision not to plug the leak. They have now built a number of picnic benches and shades so they are obviously planning to keep things as they are despite a complaint that the desert is being spoiled. It is a shame to see so much rubbish. Any picnic spot here in the UAE the locals will just dump their rubbish - having been brought up with someone from the sub-continent to clean up after them most of their lives. I guess it is no different from home anyway. Plastic in the desert is dreadful though.

This spot has got a good list - I saw Teal, Shovelor, Common Sandpiper, Snipe, Pallid Swift - I was after a Cotton Pygmy Goose that I understood was overwintering there but I only had 20 minutes by the time I had found the place as my son had a game coming up. A place to revisit.



You can see the white mark at the base of the bill and light streaking on the head that confirms this as Glossy Ibis. Below - coots out on the lake - could be a park in Manchester minus any trees or grass or drunks.



Zhackar Pools, Al Ain, UAE

12 January 2013



244 : Pallid Swift

Pallid Swift - Apus Pallidus

My eldest son was in a rugby tournament today at Al Ain so in a break between games I decided to nip off to Zhackar pools which is a site I haven't visited before. As well a Glossy Ibis which I will post up shortly to further augment my Ibis collection I spent a good while pondering a small group of swifts that were hawking insects over the pools. I remembered my masterclass for birds in flight and ran off a short series to confirm my identification as Pallid Swift later on. Stops up 1 to increase the exposure, mode to Servo to continually focus and focus points all activated - finally put the steady setting to 2 to allow for the shake of panning the camera horozontally. The result was at least one very decent shot above which shows up the "scaling" on the after parts and the nice dark eye patch on the more frosty head. Pallid Swift indeed rather than a common swift with its more uniform brown colouring.

The other markings I know to look for are a fairly distinct light chin patch and almost transluscent pale primaries and secondaries - the shot above and below show these up quite well and again the shot above catches the scaling. 

I leave you with a few more shots - lovely birds.  

Above : Flaps down !

Cruise ! 

A bird that can spend months on the wing.



The wingspan is about 44 cm on these birds when extended like this. 

Pallid Swift, Apus Pallidus

Zhakar Pools, Al Ain, UAE

12 January 2013

243 : Superb Starling

Superb Starling - Lamprotornis Superbus

This bird is perched on what looks like Acacia - probably not a mature umbrella thorn - but Acacia nevertheless. You can see from the size of this bird, a little smaller than a dove that the thorns on this bush are a good 2 inches long. The tiny leaves are browsed by giraffe with their long muscular tongues who can reach between the thorns to strip them away.

These birds are a common but nonetheless dazzling inhabitant of Africa. Giving way to slightly different species across their range they were never far from camp in our travels and as much at home on the edge of a village as on the savannah.

Lake Manyara, Tanzania

July 2012

242 : Northern Grey-headed Sparrow

Northern Grey-headed Sparrow - Passer griseus

I have been immersing myself in African mammal books, guides to Tanzanian national parks and identification books for so many months now that I have started to consider that it just wasn't healthy.  
Just not healthy to leave it there when the current set of pictures runs out and I just couldn't find anything more to say. So I spent 48 hours in contemplation with my wife on the Imagine Africa website and then sent a lethal email  to Pierre. A quick call to the bank and we are booked to fly down to Dar es Salam on 27 June followed by quite a long coastal light plane flight into the Ruaha National park. 6 full nights more at the Kwihali mobile camp. I beyond excited and can now I think finally deal with the fact that my last Safari is over. I have found the neatest solution : book another one.

6 nights in one camp really means a full week in the bush. There are six tents where we are going. So we will make up a third of the guest population of the place for a full week. Ruaha gets only 3000 visitors a year still and is something like the size of Switzerland. A guide book I want to order is advertised as follows "Ruaha is one of East Africa's finest parks and one of the wildest. Why do so many Africa 'Old hands' love it ? This book and its many splendid photographs might begin to explain why".

We will have time to slow down on this safari - time to really get into the rythymm of the whole experience. I will be content to miss the odd game drive and just sit in camp with a Kili beer and bird watch from my tent veranda. 2013 is made for me - and the family I hope. Then camp is surrounded by 7 lion prides and there are good chances of seeing leopard and Cheetah most days. Also as we are further South than before there will be a change in some of the antelope with Roan and Sable in abundance as well as normal plains ungulates. The birds - well it's a cross over region for bird species so the task should not suffer.

I picked up a guide to Manyara earlier to take up as bedtime reading and out fell a postcard. " Neil and Jane, Welcome to the ancient drama of Africa, the hidden secret of Lake Manyara the jungle and the bush. Now fell then rhythm of its soul and share the beauty of its land ! thank you for sharing this special moment of your lifetime with us , Scott and the Tree Lodge team "

If it wasn't true I might cringe.

Great materials at all "and Beyond" lodges. A checklist of East African birds for every national park on recycled paper with illustrations helped to narrow down this sparrow just now. We are going back . How lucky are we ?? I have to make it up with Disney World as promised but that is not a chore and I will save that up for the very end of Summer. Ruaha  - the BBC film there. The Daily Bird is on its way.

Northern Grey-headed Sparrow, Passer Griseus
Lake Manyara Tanzania
July 2013

241 : Sand Martin

 

 

Sand Martin - Riparia riparia

 

Pictured at its nest hole this martin is found nesting in banks of earth or sand. Large colonies will develop at quaries - along river banks - coastal bluffs and so on. They are seen hawking over water primarily for insects and are told from other Hirundine species by their brown above and white below colouration in Britain. Elsewhere it becomes more problematic with the likes of Crag Martins and so on.

 

They are a Summer migrant to the UK from Africa although Summer is probably inaccurate as they can turn up as early as the first week of April. They should be called Spring migrants.

 

A came across a small colony in the bluff alongside a beach in Anglesey this Summer while I was rock pooling with the boys.

 

Anglesey, North Wales

August 2012

240 : Goldfinch

 

Goldfinch - Carduelis carduelis

 

While we are on a run of cheerful British finches (thats a rather Ango-Saxon view but never mind) I present the common or garden Goldfinch. Here on a feeder at RSPB Conway guzzling on Niger seed which is a real favourite with them. 

 

They were associated in the Middle Ages with a lot of christian iconography, a male bird having supposedly come to Christs side during the crucifixion hence the markings on the face. I always remember the collective noun for Goldfinches - a "Charm" of Goldfinches which is delightful.

 

My parents turned over  the bottom half of their garden to a wildflower meadow that went somewhat arry a couple of years ago- one lovely by-product of the hayfield that ensued was the great clouds of Goldfinches that would rise up into the air as you walked down their plot. The calls are this metalic ting ting ting and a trill and  a flock in flight give off a cloud of noise that bounces along almost as the birds bounce in the air in the positions in the Group. Common yes but dowdy no.

 

 

RSPB Conway, North Wales

August 2012



239 : Common Bullfinch

Common Bullfinch - Pyrrhula pyrrhula 

I managed to get a quick shot of this shy and elusive bird at RSPB Conwy in North Wales on the feeders last Summer.

I was a "born again" birder in adulthood. I had been a member of the Young Ornithologist Club ("YOC") when I was younger - the youth arm of the RSPB in those days. A community minded guy called John Williams, a plummer by trade ran a small club from our Primary School, Hillmead in Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire. It was over subscribed at first and then settled down to a steady group of 10-15 kids. We went out doing clearance work at the Essex Wildlife Trust Sawbridgeworth Marsh site, trapsed around local woods, had coach trips to places like Welney and raised money for the RSPB. That all petered out for me as I entered my teens and birding along with a very poor pair of plastic binoculars was forgotten for a good 16 or 17 years.

I picked up birding again when I was 29. My then girlfriend, now wife's father was a vet and always carried a pair of binoculars and was an active visitor to places like Slimbridge WWT or local RSPB reserves. I decided that birding was something that I could do again and bought myself a new pair of binoculars (after an extreme embarrassement of birding at Cley with the 10 x 50 plastic binoculars from the 70's - they stank and every bird was blurred and yellowed). I decided that year listing and life listing were good for the soul and after I moved in with Jane and then got married most weekends would involve some sort of walk or visit to a reserve. My list followed me around for many years and I racked up possibly 240 or so birds in the UK, a couple of hundred overseas maybe and used to see about 130 or 140 bird species in the UK in a year - mostly concentrated in holidays or the like.  

One bird through that first 5 or 6 years of new birding (from about the age of 29) that always eluded me was Bullfinch. I'd hear that there had been one in Jane's parents Worcestershire garden or I would read about them in "Where to Watch" county guides. They simply eluded me. I didn't spend enough time in the field or try enough different places. It doesn't help that they are shy and flitting birds living deep in the hedgerows and that I lived in Clapham and then Balham as the children came along.  

One thing Bullfinches will do however is come out for a decent feeder as you can see from this only photograph I possess of one. In 2004 we escaped London through my work and moved to the North-West as I got a position with my Law firm in Manchester. A whole new gamut of sites and places opened up and I set about getting out and about most weekends with kids in toe at times. Living on the edge of the countryside in Hale I could get out to open spaces far more easily than in London (I will talk about London birding another time). I saw my first Bullfinch in amongst a group of 4 or 5 ! On a feeder in a small local wildlife reserve next to a resevoir. It was a well known spot with a hide where you could get up close and personal with this most beautiful of British birds.

They are still scarce. As a snapshot I quote from the Lancashire Bird Report for 2001 (yes I will collect these things - you never know when they come in handy) eg " At Warton Crag 18 territories were found compared with an average of 13 in the last 13 years...Mere Sands Wood estimated 5 breeding pairs, the highest count being 10 birds in April, the largest counts came from Lee Green resevoir with 9 on 1 January and 11 (mainly juveniles) on 28 September..." Such is the stuff of County bird reports  - it goes on. In the main " Several pairs were reported visiting gardens" and "At Heysham two territories were recognised during 2001".  These birds are not ubiquitous. They are highly localised to special sites and in particular special feeders in the Winter ! Right place and right time. Perhaps there were a few hundred pairs in every county at best ? Not every site is watch and only a tiny fraction of bird sightings are reported.

Those first views were a blessing and a pay back for years of chasing Bullfinches. I honed in on them by using reports and watching the boards at all the reserves I visited. I think it was at Lee Green that I found the feeders. I had my Bullfinch mecca and every Winter I would visit to spend 20 minutes with Bullfinches and tick them off on my year's list. Gooseander and Siskin if I was lucky at the same spot - you develop your routine as a year lister with British birds.

Now when I see one I still get excited and never take them for granted. Wherever I wash up when I grow up I would count myself lucky to have Bullfinches on a feeder in my back garden. In times gone by licences were granted to fruit farmers to cull them because of their habit of feeding on the buds of apple trees - heaven forbid.

Hawfinch is a whole other story - thats the one that got away. I have never seen a Hawfinch - the rarest of British finches - take the entire entry from the Lancashire bird report 2001 as an example "Birds were in evidence at Woodwell, Silverdale in January, February and December with a maximum of 3 (!!!) on 9 February. The only report away from this site this year came from Martin Mere WWT when one was seen and heard flying east on 22 October". Bad news is I have to get a photo of one of these birds. It is going to take research and a pin point strike at a Winter roosting site. If Bullfinches are elusive Hawfinches were the Yeti or Lock Ness Monster or my British birding. They are a white stag. If you have one in your garden keep it to yourself as you will start a stampede.

Bullfinch, Pyrrhula pyrrhula,

RSPB Conway, North Wales

August 2012

238 : Hadada Ibis

Hadada Ibis - Bostrychia hagedash

This is a stocky Ibis with noticeably short legs. One of a huge number of birds I am sorting out from the snaps from Tanzania. I saw this bird again on the first game drive in down the Mara river. It was the most magical couple of hours. 

 

These birds are named afrer their call - " Ha Da Da !" - I didn't manage to hear the call. Other facts I have picked up subsequently are that breed on their own rather than in large colonies and that they more often feed on land than on water. I expect that this accounts for the shorter legs. They are of course a touch feeder when feeding in water using the decurved bill to probe for small curstacea and invertabrates in the silt and mud.

 

We have a small collection of Ibises now so please enjoy these links to Sacred Ibis , Black Headed Ibis and Red-naped Ibis .

Olakira Camp, Mara River, Tanzania

July 2013  

237 : Bare-faced Go-away-bird

Bare-faced Go-away-bird - Corythaixoides personata

I spent my lunchtime at work yesterday on Google maps satelite view zooming in to Kogatende airstrip and then finding the location of Olakira near a rocky bend of the Mara river. The camp is not pitched in the satelite view so must be at its Southern location. You can see the square patches of bare earth where the larger tents were situated. You can even see a pod of hippos round the corner in the river. Criss crossing the open Savanah the feint lines of vehicle tracks from safari trucks. The camp moves North in about April/May I believe ready to catch the Wildebeest at the top of their migration as they cross the river on the way to the Masai Mara in Kenya.

I then spent a good half an hour looking at the Imagine Africa site and camps in the Ruaha national park. A large area in central Tanzania that still gets just 3000 visitors a year. There are only 5 camps in an area the size of Wales and you have to find all your own game as the other vehicles are few and far between. I am thinking about a quick dash in and out - 5 days - 3 nights under canvas perhaps. Leave Dubai Thursday morning - fly to Dar and then have an overnight stop in a cheap hotel. Then get the light plane in the morning into Ruaha followed by a couple of hours drive into the chosen camp. The small plane in and the drive into camp would basically be a fun game drive so the holiday would begin on Friday morning and we would have 3 days of solid safari (the light plane ride is fun !). We could catch a plane on Monday morning and travel all day to arrive home by midnight. It works on paper and 3 nights in the bush is enough. I have commissioned my agent to get some itenaries done. You just can't get it out of your system - at least I can't.

We will have to go to Disney world as well - thats the trade off and thats good birding also. In the Autumn we can do Italy for a bit of culture and I think we are well set. At the moment I have nothing booked and nothing to look foward to which is fatal for morale !

The bird above gets its name from its call. They are related to the brighter and greener Turaco's. They are a bird of semi-arid wooded and bush country. What a crest !

I promised we would be zooming off somewhere else in January. I did go out at the weekend only to delete all my photos while trying to download them onto my Ipad. I managed to see a nice suite of birds in Saffa park some Herons, egrets a common sandpiper, chiffchaff I think. Dressed in my safari gear I must have looked like a plonker next to the people going to the table sale or football practice or the swings.

I have a lot to do today so I am banned from the internet after 8 am and before 8 pm !

Tanzania, July 2013

236 : Wire-tailed Swallow

Wire-tailed Swallow - Hirundi smithii

Blue above and white below with a clean chestnut cap and very thin wire like feathers projecting from the edge of the primaries. You can see the filament of feather sticking out of the back of the wing on this photo. You can as ever click on to enlarge/ Often in pairs and often near water which they associate with.

This beautiful adult bird was sat on rock next to the Mara river causing me to cease photographing the first Nile Crocodile I had ever seen. These birds are resident rather than migratory like our Barn Swallow and only live in India, parts of Asia and South of the Sahara in Africa. They were named after Smith, a Norwegian Botanist who was on a British expedition to the Congo in 1816.

Its funny but I only found this bird again after blowing up a picture of a dot on a rock. What else is there tucked away in my holiday photos ?

Tanzania, Olakira Camp, Mara River

July 2013

235 : Bank Mynah

Bank Mynah - Acridotheres ginginianus

I took off for some New Year birding yesterday on my Saturday morning. I spent a couple of hours getting a ckick in my neck chasing warblers around some trees. I found a couple of heron species next to a private lake in Safa park in Dubai. I found a pleasing little Common Sandpiper feeding on a manicured lawn. But nothing new for the camera. I then mamaged to delete all the pictures on my camera card including pitcures of a fancy dress party the night before which was disapointing.

So I am relying on a previous visit to the Pivot Fields in Dubai shortly before Xmas. There are 3 species of Mynah in the UAE all of which are now logged on this site, Common, Pied and Bank. The Common and Banks Mynahs are common and noisy and unfortunately relegate to the level of park birds that hang about the bins. They have something of the "Angry Birds"look about them. They are escapes or have wandered across from India where they are a bird of Northern India - the countryside but also foraging at towns at markets and railway stations and the like for food scraps.

Pivot Fields, Dubai

December 2013

234 : Black-headed Heron



Black-headed Heron - Ardea melanocephala

I have almost stayed on safari in my head for 5 months now. By definition if this is the Daily Bird if I go and see 100 birds in 3 days that allows me 3 months to post them up. The only limitation then is my time in posting them up. I do think we need to mix it up a bit now and say goodbye to Tanzania so I am off this weekend to find some new places to talk about. I will have to come back to my "old laptop" to finish off this trip at some point.

This bird was there on the drive in to Olakira camp where I left a small part of my soul last year or I swapped it for something else. As stillness and a sense that the skies are so much larger when you get out of town. Turn the engine off and soak it up.

The Serengetti itself is in a way manmade - people were cleared from it to create a park for shooting. They never tell you that in the big documentaries. So thank you big game hunters without whom the original drive to preserve this would never have happened. But now just clear off and hang up your guns. Just go to these places and plough in money - because if they are worth more as playgrounds for all of us and create jobs for the Gregorys and Barrakas and so on they won't be turned over to the plough and the last antelope trapped. There is a lot of work to be done making sure more money trickles down. Its the Masai's land. We took it away - now its kept for a good purpose - whats good for everybody's pockets can be good for animals. I have no moral answer but I know that the Masai that act as rangers tracking every individual Rhino to keep them safe, who act as guides, cooks, pilots, policeman, truck drivers even love it the way it is now - they love the animals. Just tip big when you go and the money gets home to the families and the thing stays safe. Thats my feeling - we need to all buy this every year. Its not enough to sit watching Africa - money needs to go to Tanzania and Kenya to keep all of this safe.

And in the end if a Rhino was worth more alive to everyone locally then they wouldn't be shot. The orders come in through some middle man for matted hair from China which serves no medical purpose and one of these last few great creatures is killed for the sake of new mobile phone  in Tanzania and a new car in Shanghai. I don't have any answer - I know that the whole world needs to keep this place and this animal safe for eternity.

Black Rhino - way less than 100 left in this population. It was a privilege - I wish it wasn't. I dont see a roaring trade in Panda pen*s so you can stop this if you really want to China.  You have no tigers left of your own - you have all but finished off the asian Rhino. Stuff your traditions - really - just stuff them - they are not worth the life of one more of these beautiful creatures. Lets stop buying any Chinese goods - the whole world. Shark fins, tiger pen*s, rhino horn, ivory - please just get over yourself. Enough.

Tanzania

July 2013

233 : Ruppell's Long-tailed Starling

 

Rupell's Long-tailed Starling - Lamprotornis purpuroptera

 

There are quite a few beautiful glossy starlings like this in Africa - and I am only beginning to sort out the shots that I brought back with me from Safari. I left quite a few small difficult birds until last ! We tend to look through starlings at home but if you take a much closer look they have a lot to recomend them. Click to enlarge and admire the absolute sheen on this bird. All of the starlings would scavenge around the camps that we went to and truck stops and so on. As much at home on the edge of a town or village as in the savanah. They are basically omniverous as a family and will take any scraps as well as grains and insects and so on.

 

Well its the third of January 2013 and I am short a bird already so I must try and get a few more done this evening and get ahead. I am sure this photo was taken right in the camp a few yards from my tent door. It is the season to plan travel and if I had my way I would go and spend another week just sat in a tent flap somewhere with a beer watching the African world go by. I am sat in my office and I cannot see a single bird from the window. Not even a Myna or a Pigeon. Glass, concrete, cars, dust, noise. I am not complaining as a few months of this pays for a good trip - somebody posted on Facebook a whimsy today imagining that you were asked to be the Cameraman for Attenborough - I'd carry the bags - I'd even wash the dishes.  

 

Mara River, Olakira Camp, Serengetti

July 2012

232 : Three-banded Plover

 

 

Three-banded Plover - Charadrius Tricollaris

 

Happy New Year 2013 !!

 

These are a tiny plover that inhabits freshwater margins in Southern and Eastern Africa. As with all plovers it has a short bill and large eyes. It is a sight hunter (rather than a long billed prober) picking small insects, invertebrates and molluscs off the surface of the mud and water. I spotted this little fellow on the side of a small stream - more like a ditch - that ran down into the Mara river near our camp. The tiniest little wader to start me off with the 100 or more species I was going to pick up in 2 days. So many that some 5 months later I am still logging them up !

 

I have some new year resolutions written down again this year and one of them is that I take the Daily Bird up and beyond the 500 mark. There are dozens of birds I need to pick up in the UAE. I really haven't gone off the deep end with my birding here perhaps only getting out 10 or so times a year. I am going to target some road trips on Saturday mornings to known spots to pick up some species - twitch as it were for some common species that I need to pick up. I am planning another weekend spectacular using my air miles. The rules for that are a 3 hour flight, a guide and 2 days of solid birding from a 5 star base. Pakistan has been ruled out in my head because of safety for now. I believe that Cyprus is in range and that could be quite special. I also have Northern India, Ethiopia, Egypt all well within range. That has to be done.

 

The big bahuna this year will be Walt Disney World Orlando. I have seen and photographed very few american birds - nestled on the edge of the Everglades I will have to try very very hard not to see 100 species in a week. I also have a few tricks up my sleeve with business travel. I have a conference on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean. You would hope that some seabird action would be possible from the balcony of my room. I also have some training in Cambridge so if I extend that by a day I could get into the fens to pick up a dozen ducks and so on. Its about taking my opportunities when I can as it will be a busy year at work and much as I would like to I cannot just head off circumnavigating the globe taking bird pictures. When the time is right I will go. I have a good decade or more to earn that right left and a few promises to keep before I can indulge myself.

 

So I am looking foward to 2013 as I really feel in the swing of this now in terms of racking up the list. It has almost replaced my life list now - I don't feel I have ticked a bird until I have a shot and I have written something about it - however short.

 

Three-banded Plover, Charadrius Tricollaris

Mara River, Tanzania

July 2012