Anyone who has ever met me knows that I am generally an enthusiastic person and I get very passionate about things. Sometimes these passions are short-lived – let’s never again mention my, thankfully brief, interlude as a teenage plane-spotter – and some sustain over the longer term. I’ve been mad keen on nature my whole life and this is where most of my passions are rooted.
Like most naturalists, my initial introduction to nature was through birds and butterflies, and my fascination with birds has never wavered over five decades. I am not immune to the desire to see new species, but some of my most desired seemed unobtainable, mainly because my financial resources are not bottomless.
Albatrosses had always captured my imagination a...
MV Balmoral - Barbados to San Diego - 31st January to 19th February
Central American Pacific to San Diego
All images are taken on the tour. Copyright Jeff Clarke Ecology Ltd unless otherwise stated. Click on images to enlarge.
9th - 12th January – steaming toward Puerta Vallarta
Back out at sea heading up the pacific coast of Central America. We once again gathered a horde of Boobys around the ship, with most again concentrating their feeding efforts on the starboard side of the ship. Much of the time this involved several species, though the composition would change subtly as we steamed northward toward Mexico.
Brown Boobys were by far the most abundant species, but they were periodically joined by Red-...
11/02/17 Punta Arenas and the Magellan Strait
Click on the images to see them at a larger size.
After four flights we finally reached our destination of Punta Arenas, Chile, situated on the north side of the Magellan Strait in deepest Patagonia. Here we joined the Fred. Olsen owned cruise ship Boudicca on my latest speaker tour. Among other things I would be lecturing on the birds and cetaceans of the region. I was accompanied on this occasion by my fellow ecologist and cetacean enthusiast Anthony (Anno) Brandreth. Ship business prevented us from exploring ashore so we had to content ourselves with a session viewing the Magellan Straits from Deck 10.
Brown-hooded and Kelp gulls were much in evidence, as was Chilean Skua, Souther...