It was my second day gorilla trekking in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park and I thought I knew the gig. My first hike, in the medium difficulty category, had been an easy stroll through bamboo and montane forest into an open glade where our assigned gorilla...
On land the town of Steinhatchee offers visitors little more than a food mart, gas station, and a smoked mullet stand, but on the river things are different. Marinas are well-equipped, the public boat ramp runs like clockwork and every accommodation is booked from June...
Bold blue and yellow flowers, as well as delicate pink and purple, peeked through brown grass. South Florida’s native blueberry offered small but luscious fruits. Young, new leaves promised renewal of a cowhorn orchid that was thought to have been lost to the previous year’s wildfire....
My first post-Hurricane Irma trip to the Keys was in early December. There were still a few signs of the storm in Miami - walls crumbled by giant trees whose roots had gathered the surrounding earth and raised it to the sky in their sinking;...
I’m not sure what caused me to glance up at that moment, nor how I noticed the writhing gray amidst the foliage but it stopped me in my tracks. I watched as tiny wings coated in fluff beat vigorously, but the bird went nowhere. Talons...
“New” seems to be a relative term in England and in the case of the New Forest, “new” dates back to 1079 when newly arrived William the Conqueror designated the land as a royal forest for his deer hunts. As a non-Brit, 1079 sounded ancient...
Pineland gave way to rolling dunes, dunes so expansive that the ocean beyond went nearly forgotten. It was low tide and the waves were so far out that there were no crashing sounds to remind me I was seaside. Burrows riddled the hillside and I...
I regretted leaving my camera at the hotel my first day in England. As I wandered Cambridge’s lovely meadows and gardens, songbirds new to me flitted in the bushes. A flock of fuzzy gallinule chicks paddled behind their parents, fresh from their nest in a...
It’s been about a year since I relocated from my proven wildlife-friendly yard in Key Biscayne to a new home in Coconut Grove. I embraced the challenge of incorporating as many of the recommendations included in my Attracting Birds to South Florida Gardens book as...
Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and now South America; just one more continent left on my tour of nature around the world. I wrap up my exploration of South America with nesting Leatherback Sea Turtles on Trinidad, an island that was literally attached to...