PERUVIAN AMAZON – Iquitos & Allpahuayo-Mishana National Reserve
Our journey into Amazonia begins, officially, back in Lima, Peru. We visit this part of the world in February/March each year, flying into Lima and often enjoying a day trip to Lomas de Lachay. You can read our intro to the Peruvian Amazon region, and learn details about that day trip, HERE. Today I want…
KIRTLAND’S WARBLER Thrills and Success
Kirtland’s Warbler is a major target for many birders. In North America, they are found nearly exclusively in Northern Michigan on their breeding grounds, requiring special effort to see them. Like many neotropical migrants, Kirtland’s Warblers embark on a long migratory journey, leaving their wintering grounds in the Bahamas to fly 1,500 miles to the…
US Turtles & Tortoises List
In celebration of the 20th annual ‘World Turtle Day‘, our US guides have put together a list of the turtles and tortoises that we’ve encountered during our many tours throughout the US and Caribbean. Sure our tours might focus on birding, but tracking down cool birds takes us to genuinely beautiful and diverse habitats and…
PERUVIAN AMAZON – Intro to Region, Lomas de Lachay, and Ventanilla Wetlands
Many people who venture to the Amazon with Wildside have dreamed of visiting since they were children. And with good reason! Few places hold such intrigue, or thrill the imagination like Amazonia, with its river and rainforest and incomprehensibly vast biodiversity. The Amazon River Basin, in brief… The Amazon River is arguably the longest in the…
IN THE BACKYARD: Philadelphia mid-May
At this time of year I am usually exploring the southern shores of Lake Erie in NW Ohio for the Biggest Week in America Birding. Instead, I am now at home, eagerly anticipating migrants that might show up in my backyard in mid-May. And they did. Spring migration is in full swing! I enjoyed two…
SPECIES SPOTLIGHT: Aplomado Falcons
The Rio Grande Valley has a big list of subtropical specialties, and one of the heaviest-hitters among them is the sleek Aplomado Falcon. This rare falcon is really like nothing else. It combines some of the most badass attributes of various other falcons – the power and speed of a Peregrine, the fierce attitude of…
IN THE BACKYARD: Central New Jersey
On March 13, having just wrapped up our tour of Hawai’i, I returned to my home in Central New Jersey, near Trenton, and a state which would soon be one of the hardest hit in the country. “Shelter-in-place” orders came just days later. For myself and everyone else it has been an uncertain and troubling…
ID BREAKDOWN: Black-throated Blue Warbler plumage variation
Normally the entire Wildside crew and literally 1000’s of other birders would be gathered along the Lake Erie shoreline for the annual Biggest Week in American Birding festival right now… This year is a bit different though but I’ve been thinking a lot about spring migration in Ohio while I’m here at home editing photos…
WILDSIDE BIG SIT: World Migratory Bird Day
On Saturday, May 9th 2020, we celebrated World Migratory Bird Day and Global Big Day by hosting a Wildside Big Sit. Although our Wildside family is scattered across the globe right now, we’re always connected by our love for birds. We teamed up from a distance on Saturday, counting bird species and birding vicariously through each…
#GlobalBigDay 2020 – Klamath Basin Big Day
Lauren diBiccari and I chose to celebrate World Migratory Bird Day, the eBird Global Big Day, and our own Wildside Big Sit events by running a loop of the Klamath Basin near our home in southern Oregon yesterday. These events are held on the second Saturday of May each year, and it has rapidly grown…
SPECIES SPOTLIGHT: Northern Parula
I have a definite pattern of emotions that begins sometime in February each year. Winter shows signs of losing its grasp on the northeast. I can feel the light coming in through the cracks. March comes, and spring begins in March! Spring! But March is the month of unsteady weather. Cabin fever begins to feel…