Florida 2010 – V – Waders – not a simple task!

It will only be short this time, I have nothing special to write about and my head is now engaged with other project (will hopefully be announced soon). I was really looking forward to processing pictures of Florida waders – those are my favourite birds and there are plenty of them in Florida – what a joy! After picking out the best pictures (for me) there are still 29 photos “suitable for publishing” so I have to do the selection once again, not very simple indeed!...well it will be more about pictures than the stories today but who cares about stories :-)...

Florida 2010 – IV – Osprey, Florida`s fisher

When I made a list of articles in which I would like to present my pictures from Florida trip, I came to a point of which bird should I call a “fisher”? – Osprey or Pelican that usually acts as a fisher in animated movies and that can be seen everywhere in Florida skimming above the water and rushing down to catch the fish prey? It was Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) at the end, the elegant raptor that patrols high above the water to suddenly dive for a fish below...

Florida 2010 – III – Wakodahatchee, all in one

Florida 2010 – II – Pelican the bomber

In the older article I said the abundance of Anhinga in Florida can be compared to Mallard in Europe but what can I say about Pelican that you will almost certainly see on every beach of Florida? It will do to stick to the fact that Pelican is very common and abundant species in Florida and my comparison to a bomber is quite clear when you realize that most often you will see single birds as well as flocks of Pelicans numbering tens of individuals hovering low above the beach and this all – the large body with wide-spread wings cutting smoothly through the wind gusts - make you feel like a fleet of enemy bombers will attack you in a moment...

Huntsmen poaching

This article in Czech version focuses on the problem of Poaching among the Huntsmen in Czech Republic – it describes the case from the end of 2009 when 2 Huntsmen were accused from hunting down many protected mammal and bird species for purposes of taxidermy and illegal sale. Among the shot and stuffed species there were many Woodpeckers, raptors, passerines and owls including one Barn Owl with the ring! It appears that this is great problem in Czech Republic, especially because the hunting has powerful lobby between Czech politics as well as Police...

Florida 2010 – I – Anhinga, the snakebird

I got excited when I learned last year I would have a chance to spend a little time in Florida at the end of the year 2009. In the same moment I recalled the beautiful bird pictures of Ondra Prosicky and I started to gather any useful information and to get ready for the adventure. The whole trip was a business journey but you always get some time to spend with the birds, but this is not what I wanted to talk about...

Scottish landscape - Islands

It is a begining of November, it is cold and rainy outside and I am sitting in front of my computer looking through that heap of pictures from our May-June trip (honneymoon) to Scotland. I am looking at the pictures from the Scottish islands and strange feelings overwhelm me; the songs from the Pink Floyd album Dark Side of the Moon just sketch in my mood and I realize why such a odd but beautiful music got its birth right here, in Great Britain...

Did you know... Blue Tit

Birds evolution on-line

The finches that helped Charles Darwin to define his Theory of Evolution almost 200 years ago play significant role again! The scientists studying these birds on small Galapagos islands during last 30 years observed the natural selectiuon within one bird species. Thanks to the harsh weather conditions in last decades the large-billed individuals of the medium ground finch (Geospiza fortis) increased in the population at the expense of the finer-billed individuals. Dutiny following years the large-billed birds prevailed in the population and scientists are now surprised how fast the evolution can run in the nature...

More informations in the links below:

The Continuing Saga of the Galápagos Finches

Darwin's Birds: Evolution and DNA in the Galápagos

Colorful landscape of Scotland I

Did you know... House Martin

These short profile articles called „Did you know…“ should not only serve for presentation of some of my bird pictures but also as an ID card of each individual bird with basic facts about the described species as well as some interesting information that you maybe did not know…I do not say that I know these facts better but internet is a powerful tool of today and it is sometimes worth just to enter the name of the bird into the search engine and read through the found articles. It is also kind of ornithology class for me as I am still rather a birding beginner...

Norwegian landscape through the year

Norwegian landscape is very different from anything you can see in the rest of Europe. Especially for middle-Europeans is every trip to Norway a life-experience and even for us who have been living here for some time now, it always brings a new views and feelings. Although the heading of this article is “Norwegian landscape through the year”, it in fact only presents diverse landscape pictures from late Spring to Autumn – for the rest of the year Norway becomes a “Grey Kingdom” with short dark days and cloudy sky that turns everything into misty and blurry tones with no colours...

Be updated - newsletters

It was the nature photographer Alessandro Carboni from JuzaForum who suggested me to establish a mailing list where everybody could be updated with new information from this website. I have welcomed that idea – sometimes I do the updates twice a week, sometimes it takes me month or even more and I know how this feature might be helpful with websites as is mine – I like reading articles of other photographers but do not have time to check their websites every day.

With the „News subscription“ function you will be getting regular newsletter about what is going on this website – either it will be a new article or new photos in a gallery. The only you have to do is to sign up for the mail newsletter in the left menu under the heading „News subscription“ – after subscribing your name and mail address and email confirmation you will be added to the mailing list that I will use then for sending the newsletters. Your subscription can be cancelled anytime later. I hope you will find this new feature useful and will eventually sing up for the news updates.

Jiří Sláma

New web section – list of bird pictures A-Z

Handicapped does not mean ugly

This title of the article suggested my wife after I came back from Sunday birding trip to Herdla nature reserve (Askøy Island, Bergen, Norway) and watched the pictures on our PC. My primary target of the Sunday`s trip were the Snow Buntings (Plectrophenax nivalis) that regularly visit Herdla in autumn months and sometimes stay over the winter, but at the end there were especially the pictures of Dunlin (Calidris alpina) that made my day on Sunday including picture of one poor Dunlin with missing left leg…