Autumn Crocus

I came across these little blue belles whilst walking along the Rio Sor in Galicia earlier this month.  There were not present in any sort of profusion, but they had a delicate blue colour which made them stand out amongst the green grass.  There are it seems three subspecies of this autumn flowering species, Crocus…

Pity the poor pitta!

I have searched long and hard for a pitta!  I am not a very good bird-watcher; I tend to get bored too easily if the bird does not appear right in front of me, sanding still for its photograph!  Pittas are usually the least-likely bird to do this, they have to coaxed out of their…

Selamatkan Yaki! (Save the yakis!)

Black Crested Macaques or Sulawesi Black Macaques (Macaca nigra) are only found in northeastern Sulawesi (and on a couple of adjacent islands) in Indonesia, and are critically endangered as a result of both habitat loss and hunting for bush meat.  Unfortunatley for them, they are considered a delicay in this part of Sulawesi (Minahasa) so have…

Blues on the heath!

The hills and mountains of of Galicia in north-west Spain are covered in heather and gorse which flower from late summer into autumn.  The heather and gorse are alive with insects (and spiders!) including an array of small blues.  When I visited Galicia in early October, the heather was still flowering and butterflies were still…

A comma, not a full stop!

The Comma (Polygonia c-album) is a very distinctive butterfly with an interesting history in the UK.  It was very common and widespread in the early nineteenth century, but then its range contacted and it became rare, so that by the 1920’s it was hardly ever seen in Britain.  From the 1940’s however, numbers started to pick…