Anticipating the first rain in ten days and thanks to protracted daily power cuts, Dismas and I have attacked the Lantana brakes with a vengeance, in the week just passed. This rioting alien once known as the American Bramble has, since the plentiful Long Rains of March-to-May, completely choked the finest glades in my garden. It has surged in […]
Feathers from a Birder’s Garden (1) Mount Meru, Tanzania – September 30, 2014 Phew! … I, we both, we’ve made it, back to the plateau of East Africa and before September’s end. The above photo of a Willow Warbler was taken on St Mary’s, in the Isles of Scilly, and is likely of the nominate form trochilus rather an […]
This is the September Equinox. Here on the upland plateau of East Africa we’re pulling-away in dusty conditions (that this year are perfectly tolerable) from the long cool and dry of “our winter” which reduced soil moisture and constrained plant growth in the three months just passed. Meanwhile from the North Pole the sea ice begins a glacial creep. Perhaps it will […]
In mid June 2007 I returned to Arusha from a very special safari experience, a five day pilgrimage by camel, camping across Tanzanian Maasailand. Here is my write-up, from that time, of that wonderful journey. Our little band of fifteen people parted with contemporary civilization (i.e. the East African mobile phone network) at the foot of […]
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Amikosik Lots of European bird-watchers grew up in towns. Many, like myself – I come from northwest England – lived near the grey Atlantic, in a decidedly cool corner of our “Great Peninsula”. Here for perhaps half our days, up to seven months of each impatient youthful year we suffered a suffocating Tupperware opaqueness overhead. A grey shield of cloud that far too […]
Each autumn, during the years of my retirement in the late seventies and early eighties of last century, was given over to worshipping the gods of migration. It was my personal homage to birds. To the birds and to the greatest wonder of my known world, VisMig, the migration of birds. I was fortunate in […]
September is the first of the happy months for many European birders living here in East Africa. October will get even better whilst late November is probably best overall. However the greatest volume of migrant passerines pours south across the region during early December, overnight and largely unseen. Nevertheless it is during September that the first wave of Palearctic passerines arrives […]
Fish Eagle Point, Tanga Unspoilt and unpretentious Fish Eagle Point is surely the best place along the coast of Northern Tanzania for some relaxed and undisturbed Naturalist Birding. It’s also the perfect place to get all that Masailand dust (and Tan-roads bumps) out of your system after a full-on motorised safari jolting about on Tanzania’s famous northern […]
Vagrant Mind 