Hi! I’ve stopped calling these blogs ‘Day something’ because they are already getting out of synch! I’ve already told you twice, so this is time number three, that I crossed the Mississippi River two days ago. That marked a sort of boundary between east and west. Yesterday I passed another boundary, and another today. Today’s…
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
Loveliness on the Tall Grass Prairie – Day 16
I think yesterday was so lovely I didn’t have room to tell you all about it. Let’s backtrack just a bit. I crossed the Mississippi River, heading west. The river forms a notional boundary between the forest area (to the east) and the Great Plains (to the west). Obviously it’s not a hard and fast…
Kansas – Day 15
It’s been a long day – starting in Indiana a bit west of Indianapolis and ending in Kansas a bit west of Topeka. You can tell it was a long day when I say that the first words I heard were from the satnav saying ‘stay on the I70 for 200 miles’ which only got…
Mostly on the road – Day 14
It’s been a long day and I’ve covered a lot of miles. But I also met someone I have only previously ‘met’ on social media. Hope to see her again soon – at the Bird Fair, I hope. Let me take you back nearly, but not quite, two weeks to when I picked up this…
What a hoot – Day 13
The ospreys, herring gull, turnstone and swallows could have been in Scotland – even the brood of goosander ducklings and the distant great northern diver could have been Scotland, but these were common merganser ducklings and a common loon. And they were with hooded merganser, spotted sandpiper, ring-billed gull and purple martin so we were…
A memorable Memorial Day – Day 12
Today has been a holiday here in the USA just like back in the UK. Here it is Memorial Day where those who fell in battle are remembered. There are stars and stripes all over – and I like that. Remembrance Day in the UK, with its poppies, is moving, but the only time you…
Penn sylvania – Day 11
Pennsylvania isn’t named after the Penns for nothing – and nor is it called sylvania for nothing. It’s full of trees. It’s the most tree-rich state I have seen so far. As I drove up the Allegheny river’s course there were trees everywhere. Trees and rivers. It’s May and so the mayflies are flying. Here…
KW – Day 10
The Mio Motel, in Mio Michigan, hasn’t got uniformly great write-ups on TripAdvisor but I liked it. The guy in charge is a bit brusque I agree – but by the standards of British customer care he is in the ‘eccentric and a bit curt’ category – no worse. And my room had photos of…
Petoskey – Day 9
Driving around, and I’ve already done a fair bit of it, you need things to keep you entertained. Music is one thing, listening to US radio is another, reciting all 50 states of the USA is another. My car has Texas license plates so I’ve already had a few ‘You’re a long way from home’…
Bev, 2 lifers and a monument – and more – Day 8
Today is Bob Dylan’s birthday (although for British readers – that was yesterday) so I started the day with Blood on the Tracks, whose first track (Tangled up in Blue) starts ‘Early one morning the sun was shinin”. But it wasn’t first thing today, although it did for a lot of the day. I drove…