Having returned from two idyllic weeks of birding the Friesian Islands of northern Holland, it was great to finally get home to The Alice where the weather in my absence seems to have been decidedly… Dutch. The rain has continued in Alice in the earlier part of the week and we even had a thick … Read more

On Tuesday 13th July with guests I observed a pair of Magpie-larks apparently picking ticks off a group of reclining Eastern Grey Kangaroos at Mareeba Golf Course. The birds were walking up to each animal and would alight on an individual looking for ticks. On collecting one they would move to another kangaroo. The kangaroos … Read more

I recall some lots of years ago of someone telling me of having a Brown Goshawk, over a period of days, observed in various stages at having killed and eaten a family of Tawny Frogmouths. I think this was an adult pair of Tawny Frogmouths and their part grown young. I suppose there is nothing … Read more

As I mentioned in another post, I attended a geography conference in Christchurch last week. I had a spare day before the conference and booked myself on a 3 hour boat trip out of Kaikoura. As the recommended travel time from Christchurch is 2.5 hours, this meant setting off more than an hour before dawn. … Read more

I was Aotearoa last week for a geography conference and acquired a NZ field guide before setting out. This proved to be a bit depressing as the NZ guide only included about 60 endemic/native/vagrant species that weren’t in P&K. (This included 18 passerines and 8 shags.) The remaining species not found in P&K were exotic … Read more