Originally published on the Freshwater Blog on 14 January 2019 The arapaima, a fish native to the Amazon Basin which can grow to over three metres in length. Image: Lynn Chan | Flickr Creative Commons Arapaima are one of the world’s most unique freshwater animals. A true ‘megafauna‘ species, these huge fish (which can grow to
This article was originally published in The Conversation on 24 July 2018. Header image via shutterstock The movement to declare London a national park city in 2019 is gaining momentum. Mayor Sadiq Khan recently launched National Park City Week, along with a series of outdoor activities to kick off the school holidays. Citizen groups and
It is a thoughtful moment looking into the eye of a bird that nearly went extinct. As I crouched and observed an Alagoas curassow my first thought was a sense of deep gratitude to Pedro Mario Nardelli who in the late 1970s acted to rescue the last wild specimens and establish a captive population in
This article was first published in British Birds on 15 August 2017 One Sunday last July I strolled down to the hide at RSPB Otmoor, one of my local birding patches in Oxfordshire. Five years ago I might have entered an empty hide. Not anymore. The place was packed with bird photographers, happily chatting as
In December 1978 the famous Brazilian ornithologist Helmut Sick made one of the ornithological discoveries of the 20th century. He located a breeding population of the fabulous Lear’s macaw – a species that had been known in collections for 150 years but whose whereabouts in the wild was a mystery. Lear’s macaw is one
Each March I take my MSc students on a field trip to Tenerife and each year I ponder on why more is not made of the canary in the island’s tourism promotion, tours and branding. This year the first canary I encountered was whilst eating breakfast in the Albergue de Bolico hostel. One alighted on a
