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Part 2… A breath-taking collection of wild bird photographs that will make you dream and fill you with wonder. How can we imagine a world without the freedom and color of birds in the wild? The most diverse, most beautiful places on earth to see wild birds are all threatened by mining, agriculture and the…
We were unable to post the “Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week” last month due to work in the field and limited internet access. Here are the first 25 of a collection of 50 wild bird photographs submitted to the Wild Bird Trust in April… Absolutely stunning photography that gets ever closer to…
Explore the wilderness with us… This week we share the “golden wilderness”! The rich colors and textures of the wild can never be replaced or surpassed. Within the next 10-15 years we will see the last-remaining wilderness area on earth dominated by the demands of growing human populations and undermined by accelerated climate change. When…
An “Open Letter” to His Excellency, Dr Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, President of South Africa and the African National Congress, on the current state of South Africa’s yellowwood forests. We lost most of our grand, old yellowwood trees to mining timber and railway sleepers in the 1800s. Today, we continue to legally and illegally whittle away at the remaining forest patches. We now face a choice between beautiful furniture and the last giant yellowwood trees. Halt the harvesting of yellowwood trees in South Africa and restore these forest to their former glory…
Explore the wilderness with us… This week we share the “golden wilderness”! The rich colors and textures of the wild can never be replaced or surpassed. Within the next 10-15 years we will see the last-remaining wilderness area on earth dominated by the demands of growing human populations and undermined by accelerated climate change. When…
“A celebration of bird in flight” This photograph of a bald eagle and heron flying in perfect formation shows us why we should all want to be birds… The eagle is chasing the heron away from a nest with eggs, but still manages to do this with grace and power. If the policies we use…
As with most wild parrots, the story of the Cape parrot of South Africa, is a tale of people and parrot over many generations… We have been fascinated by parrots, their colors, characters and voices. for thousands of years. A longtime ago in prehistory the ancestors of today’s Cape parrot Poicephalus robustus specialized their behavior…
Explore the wilderness with us… This week we share the “golden wilderness”! The rich colors and textures of the wild can never be replaced or surpassed. Within the next 10-15 years we will see the last-remaining wilderness area on earth dominated by the demands of growing human populations and undermined by accelerated climate change. When…
Coldplay has already partnered with the likes of Eminem and Beyonce on the reworking of songs by African musicians for Artists Project Earth (APE). APE funds reforestation and wetland conservation projects, aiming to raise the global awareness of climate change. Mumford & Sons, Red Hot Chili Peppers, R.E.M., Cee Lo Green and Bruno Mars have all…
It has taken us less than 70 years to decimate most grey parrot populations, transforming the species into one of the most abundant, well-known and widespread pet parrots on Earth. Over a million have been captured and removed from the wild to accommodate booming demand over the last century. Millions have now been bred in…
Birds swim better than fish, run faster than humans, and can see hundreds of times better than a hunting dog. Oh yes, they can also FLY! Birds have had millions of years to evolve the color and diversity we see in the thousands of species that have inhabited the farthest, most inaccessible corners of the earth. This…
Explore the wilderness with us… Within the next 10-15 years we will see the last-remaining wilderness area on earth dominated by the demands of growing human populations and undermined by accelerated climate change. When the earth’s last wild places are gone, all we will have are fenced off protected areas dependent on constant intervention to persist…
In September 2010, we departed from Seronga Village in two “mokoros” or dug-out canoes on an adventure of a lifetime…. No one we knew had ever done this before and the raw energy of that “first-time” was inspirational. We filmed what we could and took some amazing photographs, but remained focussed on the research and…
On the second day of filming and observation the female Cape parrot came much closer… Here is 20 seconds of amazing footage of her calling about 15 feet away from us. We witnessed her close-up on-and-off for an hour and were both shaking when we eventually left the cliff. The reason she had approached so…
Every week we are astonished by the breathtaking beauty of the birds of the world! Up until recently very few people had access to a telescope or pair of binoculars that could actually focus on and see small birds and animals at a distance. The earliest naturalists were all hunters and collectors with a sling…
We can only imagine what these vast tropical forests looked like 300 years ago when wildlife numbers were at the maximum that the ecological balance could support, a lush green paradise filled with the abundance of life… Now we have the “African silence”… The direct result of hundreds of years of exploitation by foreign powers,…
This 1-minute video clip is the first-ever footage of the Endangered Cape parrot (Poicephalus robustus) feeding in the high canopy of a yellowwood tree over 40m above the forest floor.
Explore the wilderness with us… Within the next 10-15 years we will see the last-remaining wilderness area on earth dominated by the demands of growing human populations and undermined by accelerated climate change. When the earth’s last wild places are gone, all we will have are fenced off protected areas dependent on constant intervention to persist…
Contingas, pardalotes, whydahs, eremomelas, camaroptera and cutias… Taxonomists are not good at coming up with easy-to-remember bird names. This is especially true for the rarest, remotest and often most beautiful birds whose ancestors were not named by local English-speaking peoples. As a result most of the over 10,000 bird species on earth have difficult unpronounceable names.…
South Africa’s national parrot, a story of people and parrots over many generations, is wonderfully documented in this 14-minute insert on the Cape Parrot Project for a popular conservation TV show on the national broadcaster. This important video by Zach Vincent provides a unique view into community-based conservation actions aimed at stimulating positive change for…
Explore the wilderness with us… Within the next 10-15 years we will see the last-remaining wilderness area on earth dominated by the demands of growing human populations and undermined by accelerated climate change. When the earth’s last wild places are gone, all we will have are fenced off protected areas dependent on constant intervention to persist…
Frogmouths, toucan barbets, blackbirds, merlins, violet-ears and birds-of-paradise… These names speak of the diversity of bird species around the world and the child-like fascination they cause in people. Binoculars and spotting scopes available to ordinary birders have advanced tremendously over the last 20 years. High-quality roof prism binoculars like Swarovski have HD optics and literally…
African grey parrots are the most populous non-human Africans outside of Africa… These charismatic parrots are our most important ambassadors, charming people around the world with vocabularies of up to 200 words and advanced cognitive abilities. For at least 50 years, grey parrots have been among the most internationally-traded wild birds on earth. CITES (the Convention…
Birds make us notice the little details and take the time to really appreciate nature. They have been doing it for millions of years and we have a lot to learn from them. There are many small treasures in the collection of wild bird photographs submitted by passionate photographers around the world. I cannot imagine…
Explore the wilderness with us… Within the next 10-15 years we will see the last-remaining wilderness area on earth dominated by the demands of growing human populations and undermined by accelerated climate change. When the earth’s last wild places are gone, all we will have are fenced off protected areas dependent on constant intervention to persist…
