Peace Country Naturalist

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  • Eastern Indonesia: West Papua (New Guinea)

    Back to blogging! The next stop on the tour was Sorong, a city in the Indonesian province of West Papua, which is on far west side of the island of New Guinea. I’ve always been fascinated with this island due to its diverse people, landscapes, and wildlife. It is home to some of the most…

  • Botswana Part II: Chobe National Park, Plus Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe)

    The second time I crossed over into Botswana was with a separate tour I took out of Victoria Falls. The birding tour ended in Victoria Falls, but I decided to stay there for an extra couple of days. For one of the days, I went on a tour of Chobe National Park. I booked it…

  • Birding in Etosha National Park (Namibia Trip)

    Etosha National Park in Namibia is famous for its astonishing diversity of large mammals, but it is also home to an impressive variety of birds, from tiny finches to giant ostriches. Many of these birds are easy to find and photograph because of the abundance of open country in the park. Bustards (family Otididae), including…

  • Namibia: Etosha National Park (Part I: Mammals)

    The next stop on the trip was Etosha National Park, a large (22,270 km2) wildlife reserve located in northern Namibia. Etosha is famous for its astonishing concentration of wildlife, which includes almost all of the iconic African big game animals, including savannah elephants, white & black rhinoceros, giraffes, zebras, gazelles, oryx, wildebeest, lions, leopards, cheetahs,…

  • Namibia: Spreetshoogte Pass and Namib Desert

    Note: My first post about my trip to Namibia is HERE . After the trip to Daan Viljoen, we headed towards the Namibgrens Guest Farm, which was in a picturesque area of the Khomas Highlands. I took a photo of the villas, which are built right among the hills and rocks. The next day, we…

  • North American Breeding Bird Survey

    The North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) is a long-term, large-scale ‘citizen science’ project that is used to monitor populations of breeding birds in North America (including Mexico). A ‘citizen’ science project is one where non-professional scientists are involved in data collection. Bird monitoring projects often benefit greatly from the efforts of citizen scientists, as…

  • Winter Birding in Alberta

    Birdwatching in the winter in Canada may not seem like it would be very fruitful. Lately (as I write this in late December), it has been extremely cold, windy, and snowy in Alberta, with temperatures dipping to – 30 C or lower. The land looks stark and frozen. It is worth it to go birdwatching?…