Category Archives: Travel
A Redwing in Iceland
I was surprised by a loud, unfamiliar song, and a large thrush landed in the bush in front of me. At eye level, I was confronted by the vibrant ghost of Irish winter past right in the middle of a … Continue reading
Glories of Nature: Autumn in Ireland Part 2
The rich harvest of wild berries in the Irish hedgerows is a signature sign of Autumn. Blackberries and rose hips from wild Dog Roses, Hawthorn hips and Blackthorn berries better known as Sloes.
To see the glories of nature you have to look carefully. Autumn in Ireland part one.
As Spring approaches in 2017 I look back to October 2016 in Tipperary, Ireland on the shores of Lough Derg. It was a typical ripe Autumn bursting with berries and dying leaves rich with color. I found wildflowers before Winter and battered … Continue reading
An Unexpected Encounter With a Water Owl: Cuvier’s Beaked Whale
Several hundred years ago there was said to be a strange and fierce sea creature that attacked ships. The Water-Owl or Ziphius had the body of a fish and a head of an owl with huge eyes and a beak-like … Continue reading
Pacific Shore Birds on Rose Atoll
I find that shore birds on distant Pacific islands can be hard to approach. They are often far out on sand spits or rocky outcrops, and fly off as soon as one approaches. On Rose Atoll, the southern-most US national monument … Continue reading
Masked Boobies: Rose Atoll Part Two
The Masked Booby is such an elegant bird however the young are endearing and almost comical – as the first two photographs show. There were a few chicks and juveniles on Rose Island and I saw several adults flying. The young were … Continue reading
Rose Atoll, Remote US National Monument. Part One Brown Boobies
Rose Atoll is a tiny speck on the map in the Southern pacific and is part of American Samoa. This remote place has one small island that you can walk around in twenty minutes but is home for over 300,000 seabirds. … Continue reading
Ofu Beach American Samoa National Park
The second island in American Samoa I visited was Ofu. It is joined by a slim suspension bridge to Olisega and together they are six kilometers long. This isolated speck of paradise has steep verdant slopes of thick forest and … Continue reading
Beautiful National Park of American Samoa
I have just come back from a remarkable visit to one of our least known treasures and one of the most beautiful places I have seen – A National Park far deep in the Southern Hemisphere spanning several of the … Continue reading
August insects in Provence
I went for an early morning walk along the edge of the vineyards in a small valley near Bandol in Provence. The grapes were ripening and the wildflowers dying, but the insects, especially the dragonflies, were out in force. The sun … Continue reading
NaturalistNotebook 