Botswana 2012

Just coming back down to earth after ten days in southern Africa: wonderful places, wonderful people, great group and outstanding wildlife... I didn't take much video, but here's some, for what it's worth...

Zambia: Zambezi, Victoria Falls and Mosi oa Tunga National Park

The end of our first real day in Africa... and what a day and a half it's been already!

Not quite up to processing it all at the moment (mainly because I'm knackered and falling asleep!), but in the meantime, some visuals... starting with the view from the plane window as we came in to land at Livingstone, with the Zambezi sprawling across the dry bush and, just visible above the wing, on the left of the picture, roaring over the cliff at Victoria Falls: Mosi oa Tunga, the smoke that thunders.

From the top: bull Elephant; Giraffe; Victoria Falls, from the Zambian side; Hippo, a common sight during our evening "cruise" up the Zambezi; male White Rhino, an amazing experience, walking through the dry bush and right up to a group of four rhinos... jaw dropping; Little Bee-eater; Bushbuck, a shy-ish animal, although last night a male trotted across the lawn at our hotel!; African Finfoot, another denizen of the hotel garden, a fantastic, and fantastically weird, bird; Waterbuck, our first 'big game' as we arrived at the hotel yesterday.

Wildlife Travel news

Trip reports from our June visits to the Aragonese Pyrenees and to Lake Neusiedl and the White Carpathians (where the above photo of a newly-emerged Apollo was taken last week) are now available to download from our website, along with those from many other Wildlife Travel trips.

We already have confirmed departures for 2013, to Tasmania in January and to Costa Rica in February, as well as taking bookings for our April return to Galapagos. Further details of our 2013 holiday programme will be finalised over the next month or two: check our website for details, or get in touch if there is any particular destination you would like information about.

Meanwhile, I must go back to my packing... next stop, Botswana!

The White Carpathians: 13th June 2012

So today was our day to get wet. Properly wet� Under dark skies, we headed around to the other side of the mountains to Porazky nature reserve. We braved the weather and walked a Martin-mile up the hill, initially along a very muddy track and then through the flowery (but very wet) meadows where one or two brave Tree Pipits sang and some damp Roe Deer watched us bemusedly: I thought it was mid day sun that was the weather for mad Englishmen?

Once at the reserve proper, we quickly found the target, the tall creamy yellow spikes of Giant Lousewort Pedicularis exaltata at its only site in central Europe: otherwise, this internationally rare species is only found at a single site in north east Poland and a handful in each of Romania, Ukraine and Belarus.

In the afternoon, we saw a LOT of water falling from the sky, and a gorgeous Fire Salamander... and did our best to dry our boots before tomorrow's train journey home.

The White Carpathians, 12th June 2012

It's been a busy few days in the White Carpathians, (mostly) successfully dodging the rain showers and digging out a surprising haul of butterflies (of which much more later) and wild flowers.

Today was spent at two large grassland reserves on the Czech side of the range, where a highlight (for me, at least!) was seeing three rather spectacular species of cow-wheat. Any Melampyrum is always something special to see, but to have three such showy species all growing virtually alongside each other on the same site was something pretty cool.

 Field Cow-Wheat Melampyrum arvense

 Crested Cow-wheat Melampyrum cristatum

Wood Cow-wheat Melampyrum nemorosum

Lake Neusiedl/Fert�-Hansag, 9th June 2012

Sometimes I wonder whether everything sounds just that little bit too rosey, when reporting from Wildlife Travel's trips... surely it can't always be so great? Well, at the moment I'm in the hotel in Illmitz, listening to the rain hitting the roof. After superb weather in Romania and in Spain, it seems like that oft-predicted rain has finally caught up with me, and alas it looks set to stay with us for the next couple of days. Ah well...

Meanwhile, our first few days in Austria (and this afternoon just across the border in Hungary, where Lake Neusiedl suddenly becomes Fert�-Hansag) have been pretty successful! We had a couple of days of beautiful weather, all blue skies and fluffy clouds, with butterflies in profusion, soaring raptors (including a thirty minute period with 2 White-tailed Eagles over one way, a first year Eastern Imperial Eagle over the other way, four Common Buzzards, a Honey Buzzard, a couple of Montagu's Harriers, numerous Marsh Harriers and Kestrels, and finally a sub-adult Eastern Imperial Eagle over as we tried to leave...), Nightingale singing out in the open, Icterine and Barred Warblers, a pair of Penduline Tits and, ironically, a definite shortage of water in the shallow lakes...

This morning we were up early, and headed south towards the Hungarian border where we found two enormous white balls of fluff, displaying male Great Bustards (with at least two females showing an interest), before yet another Eastern Imperial Eagle drifted over, being vigorously mobbed by a male Marsh Harrier.

From the top: Eastern Imperial Eagle with Marsh Harrier; Anagalus onobrychis; Paraplagionotus floralis; Marbled White; and Hungarian Grey Cattle, a very impressive, almost pre-historic looking beast.

White Carpathians 2012

White Carpathians 2012, a set on Flickr.

Photos from the first couple of days in eastern Austria, around the town of Illmitz on the edge of Neusiedl See National Park. Including some great insects and a very showy Nightingale.

Aragon 2012

Aragon 2012, a set on Flickr.