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The Creepiness of Heidelberg Zoo

10,000 Birds

I am reminded of the ducks’ perilous and arduous existence on each family outing to Heidelberg Zoo. For some reason my son is absolutely into fish, and the duck pond might hold ducks of various species and sorts and shapes and colours, and pink flamingos too. He doesn’t go there for the ducks, but for the fish.

Zoos 190
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Birding the Schlachtensee

10,000 Birds

Slaughter Lake does not sound like it would be a nice place to visit but we three Americans, my small family, were blissfully unaware of what Schlachtensee translates to before our expedition there. It is at the edge of the Grunewald, or Green Forest, which is alleged to have Black Woodpeckers haunting its depths.

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Africa’s Big Five and Little Five

10,000 Birds

Thankfully the days of visiting Africa purely for slaughtering its wildlife have mostly come to a merciful end, and safari operators have adopted the Big Five term to market tours that offer sightings of the fortunate remanants of Africa’s once teeming great herds.

Buffalo 204
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KwaZulu-Natal

10,000 Birds

Even in the tropics there are few birds that excel some of our own in elegance and beauty of plumage and we have an unusually large number of species considering the smallness of the area they inhabit. ” (Woodward brothers, “Natal Birds”, 1899) The mighty Drakensberg Mountains run along the western boundary of KwaZulu-Natal province.

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Birding the Kruger Park (2): Bateleur area

10,000 Birds

The one bird I did not see here, however, was the Bateleur Eagle … One highlight in the area is the Saddle-billed Stork , likely to be the tallest species in the stork family. The African Spoonbill is one of the six global spoonbill species, and the main African one (there are also some Eurasian Spoonbills in Africa).

Ostriches 147
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Mrs Pankhurst’s Purple Feather–A Book Review

10,000 Birds

Their populations, plus those of other species that ‘wore’ the coveted long, colorful feathers used for women’s fashionable hats, were being dangerously depleted by hunters intent on feeding the millinery industry. The late Victorian age was not a good time to be an egret! It is reproduced in “Mrs.

Industry 119
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The Wryneck: Biology, Behaviour, Conservation and Symbolism of Jynx torquilla: A Book Review

10,000 Birds

It’s a unique bird, even its scientific name is wonderful, so it’s not surprising that Gerard Gorman, Woodpecker Expert Supreme, has written a book all about the species. But they are woodpeckers: the genus Jynx of the subfamily Jynginae of the Picidae family. They are beautiful, but in a different way.