Spring 2020

Decided to record some of the lovely spring that is taking place in the northeastern US (mostly in Prospect Park and Park Slope).  

April 2020

Birding Bali Barat National Park

 Bali Barat, or West Bali National Park, is in the northwestern corner of Bali, 4 hours drive through mountains and rice terraces from the madding crowd of tourists that cluster around the beaches in the south. This park was set aside as the last habitat for the Bali starling or mynah, which is found only on Bali. These beautiful birds became critically endangered due to persistent poaching for the caged bird trade, and there are now over 1,000 individuals in captive breeding programs around the world.

Fewer than 100 Bali mynahs remain in the wild, all of which gather to breed here in the park. We were lucky to see a flock of 12 birds flying from tree to tree as we stood on a hillside looking out over the forest canopy on our first morning. The next day, we found four pairs, garrulous and stunning in their startlingly white suits and brilliant blue spectacles.

The Importance of Being Warm

Christmas birding in and around Hangzhou, China

Why do races look different?

These are illustrations for a book proposal, showing the differences between European and North American barn swallows. Female European swallows prefer males with longer tail streamers, and have selected for males with streamers that are longer than is aerodynamically optimal. In contrast, North American female swallows don't care much for long tails, but prefer their males bright orange below. As a result, American barn swallow males have shorter tails but brighter bellies than their European counterparts. In the Descent of Man, Darwin first proposed this idea of the arbitrariness of female mating preferences as an explanation for most of the racial variation within humans.

Mountain bluebirds on University Mountain

Ellie

Our new dog, a rescue. Named after Eleanor from Sense and Sensibility, though after knowing her for two weeks, Marianne might have been more appropriate.

Cheyanne

Big sky country

Birds of Okinawa

Like many islands, Okinawa is full of endemics (species found nowhere else). We were lucky enough to have superb views to both male and female Okinawa woodpeckers as well as a family of Ryukyu robins complete with demanding fledgelings. The Ryukyu scops owl calls almost incessantly in the evenings when we were looking for elusive rhino beetles (Trypoxylus dichotomus). And of course the flightless Okinawa rail, with it's lipstick red bill and legs was a real highlight. Well worth sleeping in the car for a few hours in between nocturnal beetling and dawn, to see the rails when they were most active and busy feeding along route 2, which runs through the Yanbaru forest in the north of Okinawa. There are very sweet signs in Japanese and other languages all along the road, possibly marking the spots of previous rail roadkills. We were also most impressed by the conservation efforts to save the rails, which include a rather successful anti-mongoose fence across the island of Okinawa.

Reference illustrations for a book on evolution

Cuckoo hosts

 

Primate phylogeny pictures

 

Dartmoor ponies

Provence

View from Les Baux de Provence

Gordes

Rousillon