In Search of the Unexpected Trogon.

Far away and long ago I was filming wildlife close by the small community of Portal in southern Arizona, travelling daily across the border to New Mexico; what I remember most vividly is having to get up an hour earlier each day to be in good time crossing into a later time zone... Getting up early has always been painful to me, especially if I'm missing breakfast! I remember this minor inconvenience better than almost anything about Portal; certainly it wasn't over developed - but maybe now, things have changed... I hope not, because out of the way places are…

Hummingbirds – They’re Almost as ‘Big’ as Africa!

I was out in the garden yesterday trying to convince plants to grow when I was buzzed by a drone - an exceedingly stealthy one. I didn’t see it, but certainly I heard it, hovering behind my head before making off at speed. My wife sitting in a nearby lounger was able to make a more realistic observation - I was standing on the flight path of a rufous hummingbird, a creature weighing no more than a spoonful of sugar... it was attempting to visit a bee balm flower. Not quite a drone then, but even the most technically advanced…

There’s More to a Raccoon Than a Davey Crockett Hat.

A Scottish wildlife organisation recently took a picture that might help save the planet - well, the Highlands of Scotland at least. It was on one of those automatic cameras used to monitor animals - and triggered on 17th March 2016 by a Procyon lotor - that's a raccoon for those of us who don't have the Latin - standing on it's hind feet it looked as if it was feeding on some form of bait attached to a post: www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-35942952 The image is technically limited and in contrasty black and white, but there is no doubting this is a…

HAWAII: JUST ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE. PART 2 – INVASIVE SPECIES.

On my first visit to Hawaii I saw a bumper sticker that I found amusing, because clearly there are no bad days in Hawaii. Every day on a tropical island seems pretty much the same to an outsider; barring the occasional storm, pleasant weather and spectacular light are the order of the day, but maybe there are more problems in paradise than most of us realise, although suggesting a luggage sticker has been designed with irony in mind might be stretching it a bit. There are odd little things you notice. You might for example begin to wonder what's going…

HAWAII: JUST ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE. PART 1 – IT’S THE LITTLE THINGS THAT COUNT.

On a recent visit to Hawaii, I hardly saw any native wildlife, a stark reminder that things haven't improved since I first came to film for the B.B.C. back in the early 1980s. Thirty five years ago I made my first visit to Hawaii at a time when travelling to distant tropical islands from the U.K. was considered exotic. In those days, you'd emerge from a plane into the shimmering light and once down the gangway steps walk to the terminal building with the heat of the sun bouncing beneath your feet like a playful pet; and just as you were…

Don’t know what’s going on? Take a picture – it might be useful.

Many years ago I went out into the desert and there I met a man who had a vision. I'll have to stop doing that... building up my story before I've started. More prosaically, I was setting up to film a sequence on elf owls for a movie about, well, what else but owls... and the man I met in the desert was Bill Peachey, one of those experts the B.B.C. seek out when their freelancers aren't sure what they are doing - pretending to know is useless and in any case, you can't know everything. Elf owls nest in…