My first photo of a toucan in the wild.
Continue readingYellow-throated Toucan, Ecuador
Post Category → Birds
The Embouchure du Var: an Introduction to the Best Birding Hotspot in Nice
The Embouchure du Var, or mouth of the Var River, the best birding hot spot in southeastern France.
Continue readingRed-Backed Shrike, in Kranjska Gora
We all remember our first time.
I’m referring of course to the photo of this Red-Backed Shrike, above, the first bird pic* I took with my new Sigma 150-600mm zoom lens.
Continue readingGray Heron, Tokyo
I spotted this Gray Heron sitting patiently high above the Sakuradabori Moat on the southwestern edge of the Imperial Palace Gardens in Tokyo. I think this scene would make for a beautiful Ukiyo-e landscape woodcut.
Rose-ringed Parakeets, in Villenueve-Loubet
In a wooded setting, these Rose-ringed Parakeets look like escaped pets. At some point five to six decades ago, their forebears, at least in this part of Europe, were likely just that.
Continue readingLarge-Billed Crow, in Tokyo
This Large-billed Crow was another pleasant surprise while waiting for the runners at the 19th kilometre of the men’s marathoner at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.
Continue readingWhite Cheeked Starling, in Tokyo
A few White Cheeked Starlings spotted along a pleasant promenade in the Kokyo Gaien National Garden in Tokyo. They’re abundant in that part of Asia, and didn’t seem too bothered by people. They let me get reasonably close before fleeing onwards after briefly breaking into a high-pitched chatter.
Continue readingCommon Merganser Gallery
Kicking off the Common Merganser Gallery with this dandy dozen (or so) I watched over a few days on the Limmat River in Zurich
Continue readingBirding in Zurich – Limmat Vogelinsel
The Limmat is a river in Switzerland, with its headwaters in Zurich’s southern end at Lake Zurich. A Vogelinsel is a ‘bird island’; this one is about 4km northwest from the river’s headwaters.
Continue readingAfrican Fish Eagle, Western Uganda – Four Images
This fierce hunter is known to capture fish up to 10kg (22lbs) in size.
Continue readingHadada Ibis, at Lake Victoria
Another fabulous bird captured during a Spring 2017 visit to Uganda.
Continue readingLight pollution has lengthened birds’ days by nearly an hour
From NPR:
“For these birds, effectively their day is almost an hour longer. They start vocalizing about 20 minutes earlier in the morning and they stop vocalizing about 30 minutes later in the evening,” says Neil Gilbert, a wildlife ecologist with Oklahoma State University.
Gray Heron Gallery – Last Updated 9 Dec 2025
Images from France, Slovenia, Switzerland and Japan.
Continue readingWood Duck Gallery
This pair of immature Wood Ducks spotted at the Wahkeena Nature Reserve in Sugar Grove, Ohio, have the honor of kicking off my Wood Duck Gallery. They look thrilled, don’t they?
Continue readingStalking a Gray Catbird at Lunch
His lunch, not mine.
Continue readingLe Monde: Plastic waste in bird nests leads to deadly entanglements for chicks
The presence of plastic waste in bird nests, often mistaken for natural materials such as twigs or leaves, has been established for several years. However, the sometimes fatal entanglements caused by these plastics in chicks had, until now, been poorly documented.
According to Ursula Heinze, an ecologist at the University of East Anglia, this is because “nests are often checked late, when the young birds have already fledged. But when chicks die shortly after hatching, parents push their corpses out of the nest quite fast, so their deaths go unnoticed.” Heinze participated in a European study conducted in Portugal that aimed to address this bias by monitoring nests weekly for an entire year. The results, published in mid-July in Ecological Indicators, revealed that nearly all of the 568 white stork nests studied contained plastic, and that more than one in 10 chicks were found entangled in the debris; cases of entanglement were observed in more than a quarter of the nests.
Emerald Toucanet, in Copey de Dota
It’s not everyday that you can watch an Emerald Toucanet having breakfast while enjoying your first cup of morning coffee.
Continue readingBananaquit, in Mindo
Bananaquits are notorious sugar-lovers. They probe into and pierce flowers. They steal sugar packets from restaurant tables. I didn’t witness that, but the Dutch call them suikerdiefje, aka sugar thief, so that’s proof enough.
Continue readingChilean Skua, on the Beagle Channel
Another recent discovery, more than a dozen years after the fact: these two images of a Chilean Skua who seemingly gate-crashed a gathering of several hundred pairs of Magellanic Penguins on Isla Martillo.
Continue readingChasing Redheads in the Forest: Up Close With a Pair of Magellanic Woodpeckers
Best raging red mohawk on a bird south of the equator.
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