Smart finch is getting bigger
13 February 2009
I sold some zebra finches to an experienced fancier the other day, a man who has kept birds all his life. He cast an eye over the two dozen finches in the flight cage and said: “They look very old-fashioned.”
“What does that mean exactly?” I asked.
“They’re small,” he said.
Kodak Z980 zooms like a ’scope
6 January 2009
The latest Kodak superzoom, announced in the US this week, has a lens so l-o-n-g that most wildlifers can hardly believe such an amazing chunk of glass could reach the market at an affordable price. It stretches out from wide-angle to 24X – more like a telescope than a telephoto — with a specification which would have seemed like fantasy only a couple of years ago.
The Kodak Z980 was revealed to the world in a series of leaks and bungled Press releases, but despite its muddled birth, it looks like another step forward for the long-lens enthusiast.
The only early criticism seems to be of its appearance, one commentator suggesting that the price of $399 should include a paper bag to put over its head. Apart from that (and who cares?) it is creating all the right waves. More »
Going home to Socorro
27 November 2008
The dove in front of my lens at Edinburgh Zoo looked like one of the New World’s common birds, the Mourning dove. There are reckoned to be nearly 500 million Mourning doves in North America and up to 70 million are shot by hunters each season.
It also looked rather like the Eared dove, which is numbered in millions in South America – about 23 million in one district of northern Argentina alone.
But the Socorro dove is different. More »
Quietly through Masai country
14 November 2008
The camels in a Rudyard Kipling poem were called Can’t, Don’t, Shan’t and Won’t … and listening to our camels groaning and complaining in the cool Kenya dawn, I could understand why. On first acquaintance, camels are not attractive or willing animals.
But after a week in the dry bush of the Laikipia Masai country in Northern Kenya, trekking from camp to camp on camel-back, I think they are one of the great re-discoveries of tourism. A camel safari is a wonderful way to see the real Africa.
Farthest north
13 November 2008
A few miles up the road from the Most Northerly Golf Course (18 holes, 6009 yards), and the Most Northerly Hotel, not far from the Most Northerly Post Office and the Most Northerly Castle at Muness, we stopped at the gate of the Most Northerly House.
A low black-roofed white cottage, with a porch to stop the gales from invading the front door, it squats with its byres and peat stack on a grassy slope.
