All My Blogs

King vulture as photographed at the National Aviary of Colombia.  The photo above is of a King vulture; I took it while visiting the National Aviary of Colombia yesterday.  The vultures I am familiar with include the turkey vulture, which we have in Canada, and the black vulture, which is found in and south of Texas latitudes.  By comparison, the king vulture is beautiful. That beauty could easily be undermined if you happened to see one with its head deep inside the bowels of some recently dispatched animal.  And it's not like you would have one in your home; its 6 foot wingspan would likely be a nuisance, especially with its hurricane-force winds when beaten.  And it could be very unhappy once you are all out of carrion.  There's nothing more compelling to go shopping than a very large bird looking at you as if you'd be a pleasant snack. I suppose that you could say it is a pretty bird, from the neck up, as long as it wasn't covered in entrails.  I c...

Great frigatebirds, male and female, above our ship in the Panama Canal. Not to be confused with magnificent frigatebirds, great frigatebirds are a touch smaller, although they come in with wingspans surpassing two meters.  The wings of all frigatebirds are amazing structures, giving a surface area to weight ratio greater than any other living bird species. Their silhouette is unmistakable.  They are seen in tropical waters around the world's oceans.  Their narrow, bent wings, short necks, and long tails that are V-shaped identify them immediately.  I have seen them only twice, both times on cruises, once in the Caribbean and once in the Pacific near Middle Male frigatebirds have the large red throat that you may know about, the females do not.  They all eat marine creatures such as fish, squid, and crustaceans.  They pick these morsels from the water's surface but aren't above harrassing other birds to give up their bounty.  Their aggressive behaviour...

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...