Natural Selection

When we looked at the excursion options on our holiday the one we immediately discounted was flying to mainland Tanzania for a day safari. It was expensive, indulgent and not good for the planet. But then Jane decided we would never have an opportunity and wanted a birthday to remember, so we did. Being based…

Having walked north along the beach on our first full day we decided to go south the next day (9 August). The sandy tourist beach soon gave way to rocky and muddy terrain, and continuing our ineptitude of the day before Jane wasn’t really in the right footwear but we persisted. Even though we were…

Striped Kingfisher We flew from Gatwick mid afternoon and changed in Dubai at 2.30 local time. Not knowing what to expect we were surprised to end up on a train / tram in the airport. Even when we got to the right place the bus transfer was fairly epic in very humid conditions. When we…

adult Egyptian Goose I’m not sure whether I’ve mentioned eBird streaks in a blog before. Basically it’s doing some birding every day and putting some records on the eBird platform. I’ve kept a streak going for 700 days, just because I think birding every day is good for my wellbeing. But sometimes it’s a challenge…

Olive-backed Pipit by Len Worthington, used under Wikipedia Creative Commons Licence A proper birding post on Natural Selection for a change, regarding an Olive-backed Pipit I found on Out Skerries in October 2022. So why am I going back to this now you may ask. The answer is an article in this month’s Birdwatch magazine.…

Regular readers will know I like to check the gulls on the Leven Estuary at Greenodd for ringed gulls when passing on the A590. I was in South Cumbria yesterday taking a family member to a medical appointment and stopped on the way. I quickly picked up an adult Lesser Black-backed Gull – green N:76B.…

I spend rather too much time scanning through gulls flocks at Skippool for ringed birds these days. It has had its moments though, incIuding three Norwegian Common Gulls earlier in the spring which were the first I’d ever managed to read anywhere. A couple of weeks back I was surprised that literally the first Lesser…

James (centre), myself and other participants in the morning bird walk I have a number of blogposts I’d like to write that I haven’t got round too. We’ll see if I get round to them. This week I was at a work conference at the Cotswold Water Park. Clearly I’d worked out that even in…