At six, a thick sea fog envelops Scurdie Ness. I can see barely one hundred yards from my seat at the window. Only House Sparrows, so far, enliven the little garden. Animating the yard of my Inside-Out Aviary. Occupying one quarter of an acre, at most, this is a very small rectangle of Rewild-able ground […]
Tour Narrative – Tanzania November 2019 The unique Sunbird-Wings Safari Birding Route has evolved over nine years to become what this ‘Designer Naturalist’ feels is a succinct introduction to the ecological wonder land of northern Tanzania. Here’s my tour report from 2019: And thus we started our November tour this year (2019), as has become […]
Tour report : Ecotourism Safari in Tanzania with James Wolstencroft – Ngorongoro Crater, Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti, Tarangire, the Great Rift Valley : Just being there is often enough, the powerful experiences in unique locations, where Wild Nature and Cultures Converge. It could be said some Eco-tourists come to ‘Tanganyika’ as pilgrims in the hope of […]
For the tour operator Tanzania remains a unique and challenging destination. The more so because world travellers hope to find here a savanna Africa of their dreams. Yet with a little luck a well-planned safari here really should become that “holiday of a lifetime”. A safari here is always going to be expensive, on account […]
Part One: How it began, a life project to become re-immersed and, by the same token, a way out via open domestic wildness. I became a ‘rewilder’ in June 1967, aged eleven. Molly, my maternal aunt, helped me by driving us to a disused limestone quarry at Trow-Barrow in Silverdale, North Lancashire, England. Here there […]
Shortly after sunset yesterday three bird brains here got vixenated. In the twilight of June’s quarter waxing moon, after a wait of sixteen years, I became properly reacquainted with the Red-necked Nightjar. Andalusia’s “Chotacabra pardo”. And we were introduced by a familiar fox. I first heard the Nightjar from the bed, for he was close. […]
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 […]
Vagrant Mind 