All My Blogs

Orange-chinned parakeet photographed in Colombia, South America. You, of course, have seen parrots, and probably parakeets.  Although exotic, they are popular creatures that people seek out, some for company, others because they have a passion for birds, and a few for eye-candy.   Many New World parrots, which include both the parrots and parakeets (Psittacidae) of the Americas, are green in colour.  But there aren't just a few species.  There are dozens.   The orange-chinned parakeet is just an example.  Parakeets are smaller than parrots, about half their size as a general rule.  Both groups are brightly coloured, green being a common theme.  They all eat nuts, seeds, and fruit. A great problem with all parrot-related birds is that they are often captured for the pet trade.  Population decline is a serious issue for all species.  Larger birds are especially attractive for poachers as they ave more valuable. While visiting the...

Kathryn and Eric in El Salvador using handmade indigo dyes. Our time in El Salvador was spent between two destinations and the bus upon which we got there.  I did a blog previously on the ruins of the Maya temple and mentioned I would discuss indigo dye another time.  That's this blog. Making natural indigo dye is relatively easy, but can only be done through a particular process.  The first part is to obtain the leaves of an indigo plant.  The odd thing about the indigo plant is that the leaves are green, regular green, with nothing seemingly special about them.  That is, until you take the next step. Here you need water and time.  You place the leaves in water and let them sit for a few days.  It ferments while stewing, naturally, without the addition of any heat, chemicals, or action. Then the leaves are removed and dried in the sun.  The fact that the tropical sun is hot and intense may make a difference; I will have to look that up.  Whe...

The Maya temple of Tazumal in El Salvador This is the fourth set of pre-Columbian ruins I have ever seen; it is the second best of the four.  On its own right, it is fairly impressive.  The structures were all built by hand over thousands of years.  The local authorities took it upon themselves to pour concrete over many of the vertical and horizontal surfaces to help preserve the structure and make it safer.  Unfortunately, when they did that, they made the site no longer a candidate for UNESCO's list.  Even without that, it is still worth visiting. The great issue for us was the time it took to get there.  We left the port where the cruise ship was moored at in a bus that drove for over 90 minutes, approaching 2 hours.  The roads varied from a four lane highway to narrow roads with buildings less than two feet away from the bus, at speed, no less.  How people don't die there regularly is unknown to me. Excavations of the site began in 1940....

  Kathryn on our cruise through the Panama Canal I discovered long ago, before I was married, that love is a choice. The problem with the word love is that it is used to denote perhaps the most cherished aspect of our existence. Without spending time discussing all the various meanings of the word, let me address the ones I am referring to today.   You'll notice the plural of the term.  Love of a friend.  Love of a family member.  Love of an intimate partner.  Promised love.  The love of life when together. If you base love on emotion, the feeling ebbs and flows like the tides flowing into the Bay of Funday.  "I only love you when you look pretty."  "I only love you when I get my way."  "I only love you when my needs are met."  This is not love.  It is selfishness.  It is love of self, not of another. Rather, love should be a continuous beacon, like a lighthouse that throws its beam into its surroundings whether it be...

  Three species of boobies found in the waters off Middle America. I have seen boobies before, the bird kind, I will defer my answer on any other variety.  Some, the masked booby, are pelagic in nature, meaning that they spend a great deal of time out at sea and are rarely seen from the shore.  Others, like the brown and blue-footed boobies, show up closer to land. I have photographed all three species in the last few days aboard our ship (Nieuw Amsterdam - Holland America).  The brown booby is far more common, while there has been a moderate showing by the blue footed kind.  I have only seen one masked booby.  As they are highly pelagic in nature, I suspect this is normal while travelling close to shore. All booby species and their closely related cousins, the gannets, are marine fish eaters and are not found associated with fresh water.  They often accompany ships and fast-moving boats as fish are seen to move away from the hull; the birds dive for t...

Golden-fronted woodpecker as photographed in El Salvador. It's rare to see a woodpecker taking such a keen interest in flowers.  And yet, here I was, in El Salvador, visiting an ancient Mayan temple, when an unfamiliar bird made its appearance. The first thing I noticed was its striped back - distinctly black with thin broken white stripes on the background.  The next thing that hit me was the shape of the beak and head.  You get familiar with bird types, and this one definitely was a woodpecker.  The wierd thing was that it seemed to be feeding on flowers. Not the actual blooms themselves, but perhaps nectar, or associated insects.  Some birds, like sapsuckers, will drill small holes in trees to take the leaking sap and any insects that get caught up in it.  I suspect it was similar with this bird; the nectar would help with dehydration, the sugars with energy, and the bugs with protein. It flitted from bloom to bloom, always arriving on top and disappeari...