Islands hold a particular mystique, they capture our imagination and hold it prisoner, filling our heads with romantic notions of shipwreck, isolation, escape and abandon. Who hasn’t entertained the notion of being able to own an island, be master of your own domain and sever ties with the everyday world? Well, some lucky people can…
Author: birder
Fairy Circle
We’re now at the end of an all too brief visit to Honolulu, a 5 hour leap from Japan, rendering our body clocks somewhat confused. No sleep on the flight from Tokyo, too much spicy airline food, together with the aforesaid time differential initially resulted in feelings of nausea, lack of balance and general malaise. …
Mile High Blogging
Back to blogging from a mile high, this time en route to Honolulu (someone has to do it). Thing is we’ve just spent 3 hours in the lounge at the airport guzzling wine and playing cards, so there’s every chance I’ll fall asleep. If this blog suddenly ends you’ll know why. In the meantime here…
Imperial Birding
By way of change I’m writing this blog from the comfort of a fast moving train, the Shinkansen, better known as the bullet train. We’ve spent the past few days in Japan, firstly Kyoto and, until 30 minutes ago, Hiroshima. Tokyo beckons – we head that way at 200mph. This is the cultural section of…
Bye bye, Borneo
We have left Sabah and are arrowing through a very cloudy sky on a B737-800 back towards Kuala Lumpur where we spend a night before moving further east to Manila, so its bye bye, Borneo. There has been so much to see and record that it would take hours to set it all down, but…
Geckos
As I was sitting typing the last blog, something landed with a thwack on the floor beside me. It was a little gecko that had somehow fallen from the ceiling. I wondered if it was injured, but as soon as somebody came close it sped away to seek cover. There’s not many places I know…
Hornbills
Hornbills are large, impressive birds with some serious adornments to their thick decurved bills. There are eight species of hornbill in Borneo and the blurb of travel websites and brochures teasingly speculate that you might stand a chance of seeing them all. It’s good PR, but my friends, we know its not that easy. Nothing…
The Tree at Tabin
In the grounds of Tabin Wildlife Resort, in fact dominating the entrance to the communal dining area, is a fruit laden tree. It is positively alive with wildlife of all kinds. This morning at 6am (we’re getting used to these early starts), twenty Rhinoceros Hornbills were feasting on the bounty, flipping the small red fruits…
Kinabatangan
It’s a strange fact that there are parallels all around the world. In a past life when I worked at Ranworth in the midst of Broadland, I could look out on usually murky water and watch the Swallows hawk insects for their young, swirling round twittering pleasantly as they did so. Here I am 15…
Indian Roller
The loose target for Sri Lanka as far as bird sightings go, was a trio of Bee-eaters and Indian Roller. We got two bee-eaters, but the third, the Blue-tailed, have migrated north to breed so could not be seen. No matter, since two out of three ain’t bad (that would make a good song title)….