Red-tailed racer (Gonyosoma oxycephalum)

This glorious snake red-tailed racer (Gonyosoma oxycephalum) appeared in front of us at Endau-Rompin NP in Malaysia during the summer.

sunlit dragon

Displaying male Draco spilonotus at Tangkoko in April. I hope to return to Tangkoko and  Sulawesi with a Greentours group in the near future.

postcard from Corfu

 Misumena vatia

Finally got round to posting a few photographs from my Corfu trip last month!

 Southern festoon (Zerynthia polyxena) larvae were everywhere on Aristolochia, must have missed the adults?

 Number 2 found this assassin bug (Rhynocoris iracundus) on a walk along the coast.

Fireflies were everywhere at night around our riverside accommodation.

Orchids were reasonably abundant but confusing...

Calopteryx virgo

Seeing blue chaser (Libellulla fulva) is always a highlight.

The primary reason we went to Corfu was to track down some critically endangered Greek red damsels (Pyrrhosoma elisabethae), which we managed to do. Only one site seems to remain on Corfu sadly.

I was very pleased to finally catch up with Grecian copper (Lycaena ottomana) at the damsel site.

Birds were spotted during the week, invariably common migrants like this great reed warbler.

We only recorded ten species of Odonates, with most being recorded away from water like this immature Crocothemis.

Egyptian grasshoppers (Anacridium aegyptium) were egg-laying on all the sandy tracks we walked.

 The kids enjoyed finding tortoises on the trip, all were the expected Hermann's tortoise (Testudo hermanni) until we found this big marginated tortoise (Testudo marginata) on the walk up Mt Pantokrator. Perhaps a released pet? This species does occur on the nearby mainland though.

Another surprise on Corfu is the presence (again on Pantokrator) of chukar. Not present according to BWP but presumably must have been introduced for hunting?

Malaysia dragonfly tour - a look back to 2013

 Many of the tour participants were very talented photographers and would endure any amount of discomfort to get the right shooting angle on their subjects.

I wrote this for Svarovski when they lent me some gear in 2013 but they never used it to my knowledge - so here it is!

"My first experiences as an embryonic naturalist revolved around a dip net and a microscope. As a 9-year old I was fascinated by the life aquatic and would happily draw ostracods and Daphnia for hours in my notebooks, identifying many of them with the aid of the simple reference books available to me. The gift of my first pair of binoculars though saw me going down a path familiar (no doubt) to many readers of this blog. I became a committed birder and spent the greater part of my young adulthood joyfully chasing birds around the globe. Exposure to the rich species diversity of the tropics though ensured that my interest in aquatic fauna and especially Odonata was slowly rekindled. The problem way back then though was how to identify the stuff you found!

It is hard nowadays to remember life before the internet but its advent suddenly created an online world where communities of naturalists could come together, the identification of previously difficult groups of organisms, like tropical dragonflies, suddenly became possible through shared effort and collaboration. Likewise digital cameras and modern binoculars suddenly put the world of invertebrates into close focus. Against this backdrop of technological progress, I found myself working as a freelance naturalist, leading general natural history tours. Inevitably birding often took second place on such tours and I found myself returning to many of the haunts of my youth, but now with a mandate to look at other taxa; taxa ignored or simply unnoticed during previous bird-oriented visits. Now I could search out dragonflies and with the help of the internet and communication with benevolent experts have a chance of putting names to things. My interest in Odonata grew and so did my list!

The advent of dragonfly tourism was inevitable but is still very much in it’s infancy, pioneered by the likes of Dave Smallshire (UK) and Dennis Paulson (USA). Both are authors of acclaimed Odonata fieldguides for their respective regions and it was a meeting with Dave at the UK BirdFair that set the wheels in motion for an incredible tour of Peninsula Malaysia together with a group of ten of his ‘regulars’. Our two-week tour, along with one of Malaysia’s finest field naturalists (Dennis Yong), took in the wild, ancient rainforest of Taman Negara, the genteel but well-forested hill station of Fraser’s Hill and the mangroves and coastline around Kuala Selangor. A fairly typical nature-oriented itinerary therefore but for dragonflies we also had to factor in a day in some peat swamp-forest, an important habitat for a specialised and very desirable suite of species.

How did we do? Well in many ways it exceeded our expectations; of the c. 250 species of Odonata currently recorded for Peninsula Malaysia we managed to see and photograph an incredible 120! Added to this we saw a wealth of other wildlife, enjoying the mammals and birds especially, and when we could summon up the energy many of us went for night-walks after dinner in search of amphibians and other fauna. A great experience and one I would love to repeat some time soon." 
 

Chlorocyphids or jewels were an incredibly attractive feature of the Malayan odo-fauna, at our first site on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur Heliocypha perforata appears for the first time.

Another chlorocyphid and one we all hoped to see was the peat swamp-forest specialist Libellago hyalina.

A small pond on the edge of the vast but largely inaccessible Krau Game Reserve quickly became the favourite site on the tour largely for the sheer diversity of species present and it was quickly dubbed the ‘Super Pond’. Here two new Rhyothemis species perch together in the sun.

Another chlorocyphid, this one (Libellago semiopaca) found by paddling in the Sg. Tahan at Taman Negara.

Mid-altitude forest in the Gombak Valley produced our first Ceriagrion fallax.

Night-walks at Taman Negara produced some great invertebrates including several encounters with the huge tarantula Cyriopagopus schiodtei.

Large forested rivers supported good numbers of the attractive damselfly Dysphaea dimidiata.

 Chance encounters with reptiles like the Malayan vine snake (Ahaetulla mycterizans) were much appreciated.

 Night-walks also produced the occasional mammal sighting, here a diademed leaf-nosed bat (Hipposideros diadema) checks us out.

On our last day at Taman Negara it rained heavily bringing out the frogs during the night, we were pleased to find a Wallace’s flying frog (Rhacophorus nigropalmatus) taking up a territory near the HQ buildings.

Postcard from Honduras

Brilliant blue-skipper (Paches loxus)  - I had just one afternoon of warmer, almost sunny, weather during the week on a day trip to Lancetilla -  an hour west of Pico Bonito. Butterflies and dragonflies responded and I saw a lot of new things including this little stunner.

I had a week in Honduras at the end of November, staying at The Lodge at Pico Bonito, which was excellent despite the non-stop rain (just my luck to be hit by a weather-bomb during my stay). The weather made frogging rather good but put a definite dampener on invertebrate activity and prevented me seeing many of the birds I had hoped to track down during the week. That said the place is amazing and if you have a week to spare and you fancy Honduras, this is the place to get to know the country and its wildlife. Great guides, accommodation and food.

 We visited the nearby Rio Santiago Nature Resort on two days. They have an incredible number of hummingbird feeders here and we had nine species of hummer including plenty of fantastic violet-crowned woodnymphs.

Another hummingbird easily spotted at Rio Santiago was the white-necked jacobin.

The Lodge garden was always worth stalking about to see what was coming into the feeders, like this collared aracari.

 Honduras finally produced my first male red-capped manakin, after a number of female/immatures in Belize and Guatemala.

This juvenile boa constrictor (Boa constrictor) was a nice find in the Lodge garden on the last day. A tick for me and yet another Brooke Bond wildlife card moment on tour.

The easy highlight of the week though was two Honduras brook frogs (Duellmanohyla salvavida) on a night walk at Rio Santiago.

 This crazy glass frog (Hyalinobatrachium fleischmanni) was the target of a concerted effort in the rain one evening at at the Rio Santiago Nature Resort with James Adams and some very good local guides. These frogs reflect or absorb light differently than most things!

More Duellmanohyla salvavida - this frog is a critically endangered endemic. They do not get better on the frogging front than this little beauty. The specific name is in honour of the local beer I believe...

 Some crazy invertebrates are attracted to the light at the Lodge, it was not brilliant whilst I was there because of the rain but things like this freaky Odontoptera carrenoi could be found.

 The blunthead tree snake (Imantodes cenchoa) was surprisingly easily found at night around the Lodge.

The animal I most wanted to see at night was the iconic red-eyed treefrog (Agalychnis callidryas). They did not disappoint at the specially-constructed ponds near the Lodge.

Dolichophis jugularis

Another new reptile for me - Dolichophis jugularis or black whip snake - this youngster was caught by some Norwegian herp-freaks that we met wandering the ruins of Kaunos near Dalyan.

Later the same day one of the team found this basking adult.

reptile tick

Got a new reptile this morning, Nile River softshell, a big terrapin that can be found in the river at Dalyan, SW Turkey. A great start to the tour for me.

long-tailed grass lizard

 Spent the day cataloguing photographs and found this excellent animal in the files, a long-tailed grass lizard (Takydromus sexlineatus ocellatus). This species has a huge range in Asia but this individual is the only one I have ever photographed. The incredibly long tail can be appreciated fully in the shot below.

an hour in Bucharest

Arrived in Bucharest mid-afternoon on a recce trip to the Danube delta, highlights of a short walk around an open-air village architecture museum were two species of woodpecker, this poorly-imaged middle-spotted and a Syrian.

A rather unpleasant looking lake supported both European pond terrapin (above) and the introduced red-eared slider (below)

The first odo of the trip was Orthetrum cancellatum...

red-backed shrike

Common lizards appeared today and I even had a brief glimpse of an adder. It remains rather cool though and we had frost overnight. We still have a long way to go before it feels like spring.

Had a busy morning in Ängelholm, tree pipits notable migrating overhead early on and two grey partridge at Barkåkra on the way home. Driving back into BK after lunch I headed straight for Vasaltheden where Kent had just located BK's first red-backed shrike and thrush nightingale for the year. I walked the site and nearby Öllövsstrand picking up the red-backed shrike - a lovely male. Throughout the walk I was struck by how much this spring feels like autumn, birds are coming through but not singing. Normally migrants go straight onto territory and get busy but this year birds are too busy feeding it seems. I pished a likely spot at Öllövsstrand and was rewarded with an hitherto undetected common whitethroat, my first of the year. Normally you would find these birds singing...

Other notable birds during the session were whimbrel (1) and three sand martins.

my day off in Crete

A day spent ferrying various clients not coming on the Crete extension to their respective destinations gave me five hours in the field on my own yesterday and I made the most of it! First stop was Georgiopolis lake which produced some great birds in a short session. I was excited about the great views of spotted crake (1) and pygmy cormorant (1 - vagrant in Crete I think?) but then this great snipe wandered out of the Juncus briefly. I have never seen a great snipe wading about before but this might reflect the lack of suitable habitat in Crete I suspect.

Nearby Kournas Lake gave me a chance to photograph black-winged stilt.

Other birds at Kournas Lake included this greenshank and also a lone whiskered tern.

Next stop was Petres, where the sun finally came out after nearly a week of very poor weather and a wander along the river was great for invertebrates.

Petres finally produced a single Sympecma fusca for the dragonfly triplist. 

 Ischnura elegans was abundant at Petres but I am still looking for a pumilio for my Crete list.

The first of two reptile lifers at Petres came in the form of great views of Cretan wall lizard (at last!).

Thistles accommodated the splendid Cretan endemic sub-species of Agapanthia cyanarae - longhorns rock!

Been busy photographing Orthoptera in Crete and will do a separate post once I have them sorted out. Not sure on the id on this one yet...

Finally whilst enjoying watching the Cory's shearwaters and a flyby male red-footed falcon offshore I came across another new reptile on the beach - Balkan whip snake. Sweet! The day was rounded off nicely by a flyby Eleonora's falcon as I drove to my last pick-up of the day. Driving through Crete at night to get to the next hotel was excellent too with three beech martens on the road as well as nightjar and Scops owl. Great 'day off'.