10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 22, 2020

Ahead of the first trip, I wasn’t thinking much about mammals, and yet, you cannot miss them, from Nilgais near villages to Indian Flying Foxes in town centres, not to mention those ubiquitous and irresistibly cute Palm Squirrels eating seeds left for parakeets. I clearly needed a mammal book.

Asia 181

Asia Mammals Sri Lanka Bhutan 181

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 30, 2011

But there is one kind of tick that I genuinely do enjoy, and as I do more and more birding it becomes harder and harder to get; new families. Getting entirely new families is easy when you start birding. Sometimes you may even lose them, like the aforementioned woodswallows which are probably no longer a family.

Family 164

Family Wombats Uganda Fiji 164

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 17, 2022

Quite a few mammals come out in the open to steal bananas left for the birds.

Costa Rica 257

Costa Rica Rats Parrots Raccoons 257

10,000 Birds

MAY 30, 2012

This huge member of the Australian robin family is really tame in this carpark, making it probably the easiest place n the world to see the species (other than the Tableland it is only found in New Guinea). These attractive birds are quite the handsomest members of their family in Australia, and were just the thing to lift my mood.

Kangaroos 162

Kangaroos Guinea Pigs Turkey Guinea 162

10,000 Birds

APRIL 15, 2015

These strange birds are two species in their own family; White-necked or Yellow-headed, endemic to the Upper Guinea forests and Grey-necked or Red-headed, restricted to Lower Guinea forests. The rare Rufous Fishing Owl was one of the many species seen by the group here.

Ghana 199

Ghana Hunters Guinea Gambia 199

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 1, 2013

In addition to longtails and rats, Wingate battles developers (of course), a rare Snowy Owl that kills 5% of the cahow population (Wingate shoots the owl, to the dismay of many), and the U.S. A particularly good type of fertilizer, for example, drastically increased the population of crabs, spoiling Bermuda’s golf courses.

Birds 172

Birds Rats Breeding 2012 172

10,000 Birds

JUNE 21, 2012

Among the Efe (Pygmy) people that I lived with in the 1980s, the young men would in fact disappear from the bosom of their families and spend a lot of time, perhaps months, living on their own in the forest. Which keep eating rat poison. But it seems that many societies have a version of this that is less dramatic. But I digress.

Birds 171

Birds Collecting Rodents Wounded 171