Hummers are gas-guzzlers to most Americans – but they are hummingbirds to some. Hummingbirds seem exotic to the UK birder because we have nothing really like them – and because they really are exotic. My first hummingbird ever was about 30 years ago when I was sitting on a log in Ontario, looking at a…
Author: Mark
Born Bristol, UK
Educated: Cleeve House School Bristol, Bristol Grammar School and Downing College Cambridge
Ph.D. University of Aberdeen, Winter activity of pipistrelle bats.
NERC post-doctoral Research Fellow, Edward Grey Institute, Oxford University
Former Conservation Director of the RSPB, 1989-2011
Mom’s place
I didn’t know much about Utah before I started driving through it and I’m not an expert now. Brigham Young and Donny Osmond came to mind but I have tried to blank out both. Before I left the UK I met the Independent’s Travel Editor Simon Calder in a TV studio and his advice on my trip…
Yellowstone
Yellowstone National Park is an amazing place – it really is. People have written books about it and I can only scratch the surface in this blog. Here are just a few thoughts to be going on with; – visit yourself if you can – in the very early days two tourists were killed by…
Dancing with ducks
After yesterday’s Grizzlies – didn’t I mention the second distant one, also with two cubs, late in the evening? – I was reconciled to a more mundane day. But this was a warmer day and the sun shone and the scenery continued to be gorgeous and amazing. And who needs bears anyway? There are plenty…
Bear and Breakfast with Barbara
Breakfast today was a good meal – partly because it was preceded by a Black Bear, but also because of the conversation. I slipped into an empty booth between a man of retirement age thumbing though a Peterson Field Guide and a middle-aged couple. I asked the Peterson Man whether he was a birder and…