Colorado Challenges

I don’t normally issue two blog posts in rapid succession, but my draft post seemed too long, so I split it in two and sent out the first half (Texas Genera) yesterday, intending to have the second half go out a week from now. But WordPress, which has always handled picture captions inconsistently and unpredictably […]

Texas Genera

We started our main road trip for the year on April 14. We plan to visit 11 western states, with an emphasis on finding new plant genera, and then finish up the year canoeing in Minnesota. During the six months we’ll be gone, we will take two breaks for birding tours to Borneo (June) and […]

Guyana

We left on March 24 for a 13-day trip to Guyana (formerly British Guiana) in northern South America, slightly north of the equator. This birding tour, run by Field Guides, Inc., was led by Marcelo Barreiros, and co-led by local expert John Christian; they made a very effective team. Guyana has become a popular birding […]

Natural History Goals

We’ve just returned from a 12-day camping trip, visiting west Texas and the southern reaches of New Mexico, Arizona, and California. On this trip, wedged between two birding tours to South America, we reached a milestone that has me thinking about the various natural history goals that Eileen and I have had over the years. […]

Northeastern Brazil

We took two back-to-back birding tours from Jan. 18 – Feb. 18 with Field Guides, Inc. (Nowhere but Northeast Brazil and Bahia Birding Bonanza). These tours visited the states of Pernambuco, Ceara, and Bahia in northeastern Brazil, with the bulk of the time spent in the latter. These areas are well southeast of the mouth […]

Zealandia

Zealandia is essentially a submerged continent about half the size of Australia. It is a piece of crust that broke away from Gondwanaland, the great southern supercontinent, about 80 million years ago, and subsequently subsided. About 94% of Zealandia lies below sea level. New Zealand, comprising 5.4% of Zealandia, lies about 1300 miles southeast of […]

Delmarva Peninsula and North

After leaving the Allegheny Plateau of West Virginia on May 30, we headed for the Delmarva Peninsula, named for the three states that encompass it, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. It is separated from the “mainland” by Chesapeake Bay, so it has extensive marshes on the west side, and fine ocean beaches, including a superb array […]