Peace Country Naturalist

Tag: wildlife

  • Eastern Indonesia: The Red and Wilson’s Birds of Paradise

    My primary reason for heading to eastern Indonesia was to have the opportunity to view species in the family Paradisaeidae – i.e, the Birds of Paradise. These birds have always had a near-mythical status to me. I have studied and admired them from books and videos but actually seeing one has long seemed out of…

  • 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…

  • Eastern Indonesia: Halmahera

    The next stop on the tour was the island of Halmahera, which was formerly called Gilolo. Getting to Halmahera is a bit of a process. There aren’t any major airports on the island itself, so first you have to fly to the city of Ternate, on the island of the same name. Ternate is a…

  • Eastern Indonesia: Sulawesi Part II

    After Lore Lindu, we headed back to the city of Palu and stayed a night there before heading to Manado. The hotel in Palu (Sultan Raja) was quite nice. I left a hat behind there and the hotel staff actually contacted the tour leader about it and had it sent to the last hotel we…

  • 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…

  • Botswana Part I: Okavango Panhandle

    I spent most of my trip to Africa in Namibia, but I did cross over into neighboring Botswana a couple of times. The first time was with the birding group. We spent a few nights at a secluded lodge along the Okavango River in northern Botswana. We took a short boat ride to get to…

  • 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: Spitzkoppe

    The semester’s over and I finally have time to write again! Note: The first blog post about my trip to Namibia can be found by clicking HERE. The next stops on the itinerary included Spitzkoppe and various sites in the Erongo Mountains. “Spitzkoppe,” which is derived from the German words for ‘pointed dome,’ is a group…