(The problem with seeing much is finding time at the end of the day to write about it all. It takes a fair amount of time to prepare an entry! This is a bit tardy and I haven’t been quite as frequent as I’d like… Read More
comment 1
All posts filed under “Birding”
KL, Kuala Lumpur, Selamat Datang
As the self-aggrandized old hand of the Southeast Asian urban landscape, you’ll peer about joyfully bewildered. You aren’t enveloped by partially peeled cement walls and blackened exhaust. Writhing, verdant walls of vegetation veil cyclone fences and railings. The scene outside the window of your cab… Read More
Pak Thale and Spoon-billed Sandpipers
Sometimes I question my sanity. Here I was, halfway around the world, standing next to fields of salt. I wasn’t lost, I intended on arriving here at some point. But did I really need to come to Thailand to feel desiccated? The answer in this… Read More
Doi Inthanon National Park
Yesterday I stood on top of Thailand. I made the steep trek and it was well worth it. Don’t leap to conclusions though, I rode a motorcycle. Doi Inthanon is the highest point in Thailand, as well as in most of mainland Southeast Asia east… Read More
Pai(land)
Pai could easily be seen as just another town on the tourist track. It used to be a sleepy town in a valley in Mae Hong Song Province until recently, when a couple Thai movies were filmed here and tourism exploded for the wealthy Thai.… Read More
Doi Suthep and the First Steps in Tropical Asian Birding
Culture shock can come in many forms. I’ve been struggling with something people keep repeating here: “they eat all the animals.” Deciphering whether this is Western racism or simple reality is complicated. I do know that the Thai sense of edibility is far more encompassing… Read More
Bangkok to Chaing Mai
“I wish our common birds were ridiculously colorful.” Ryan, Scott, and I were eating a “breakfast” of Pad Thai in Chaing Mai, on plastic seats in a street stall facing the river Pai. Opposite a Eurasian Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus) and not far from a… Read More
San Luis and the Leiton Finca Part I
After visiting the Ara Project (www.hatchedtoflyfree.org) near San Jose my family and my friend Tiffany (we both studied at La Selva Biological Station in 2006 through a program at The Evergreen State College) headed out towards Monteverde. All of us except my mother had traveled… Read More
Photo Blast: Cactus Wren
The Cactus Wren is the state bird of Arizona, but that is probably the least interesting of designations. More importantly it is also a member of one of the largest genera of wrens Campylorhynchus, dominating both in size and number of species (the largest, Giant… Read More
LEWO!
“Holy Shit, there’s a fucking Lewis’s Woodpecker in the backyard. I gotta call you back.” I was talking with my friend Ryan on the phone about birding, standing in my parents’ jungle of a suburban backyard. A few less usual birds, including a Yellow Warbler… Read More
Wingtrip 