A New Blog To check Out...

I'd like to point you in the direction of a new blog: Wildlife & Birding Destinations It's focuses on the great places around the globe where you can watch wildlife or go birding as well as highlighting travel and wildlife guide books. There are also, of course, photos on wildlife. Take a look.

Guyana Again - Black Caiman

Getting back to my recent Guyana trip, well here is another photo. Some of us went out in the night with guys researching Black Caimans on the Rupununi River. What a night! Bats and insects all over the place. Saw quite a few caimans, too. This small one was the first caught, then measured and tagged with a chip. If I remember well, it was the 501 that they had tagged.

Common Cranes at Dusk

Not the best quality, I know, and it was dusk and overcast, but here is a video clip of Common Cranes Grus grus coming into one of the roosts at Hortobagy, Hungary a few days ago. The total number estimated last Thursday on a synchronised count was 140,000 roosting in the Hortobagy area. That is a record!

8 woodpeckers in 1 day

Yesterday it was a hard day's birding in the Bukk Hills in Hungary. Chilly, quite quiet in the woods... but, we still managed to get all 8 of the woodpeckers that are resident in Hungary... in one short day! We saw Lesser Spotted, Middle Spotted, Great Spotted, White-backed, Syrian and Grey-headed, and heard Black and Green.... not bad, not bad at all...

Parrot Roost in Guyana: Video Clip

At dusk we cruised to a roost of parrots on an island in the Essequibo River near Baganara. In this video clip you can hear one of our local guides excitingly shouting that an Anhinga is in front of the boat. Sorry about the quality, it was going dark and the boat was moving!

Piranha

Another photo from Guyana: a boy with freshly caught fish, including a large Piranha. Taken at Karanambu on the Essequibo River.

Kaieteur Falls

There were many impressive sights and sounds to experience in Guyana. For example, on our first full day we flew from Georgetown to the remote Kaieteur Falls. We flew over and around this sheer 741 foot (about 228m) high drop of thundering water along the River Potaro in a small plane before landing nearby on a simple airstrip from where we hiked a short way to the very edge of the falls. It was the dry season so the falls (see photo) were not "full" but still very impressive.

Back from Guyana

Well, I am back from Guyana. What a place, what an adventure! My companions and I saw all sorts of wildlife, including 12 of the 21 species of woodpecker possible there. I also heard but did not see Ringed Woodpecker. Not bad at all and thanks is due to my companions and local guides for helping me in my quest. More on all this in the coming days.