By Howard Platt from the September 2010 Edition Roseate spoonbills bring a splash of colour to varied greens of the mangroves, so it is hard not to notice them. You will see them in the shallow waters of lagoons, moving slowly forward while they swing their heads from side to side in a wide arc. […]
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By Howard Platt from the August 2010 Edition My birding guides advise me that size is very difficult to judge, especially at a distance, and is not a good measure by which to identify birds. They are right, of course, and they know a lot more than I do about birding. That said, if you […]
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By Howard Platt from the July 2010 Edition Don´t let the name fool you. Yellow-crowned Night Herons do not have a yellow crown for most of the year, and they do most of their hunting during the day. That is if you call standing around waiting for food to come within reach hunting! The scene […]
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By Howard Platt from the June 2010 Edition It is the bird’s call that gets me. ”Cheeky, cheeky” it yells at me as I wander through wooded areas. Often I cannot see where the bird, just hear its taunting. Then it swoops by me in its undulating flight and lands on the trunk of a […]
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By Howard Platt from the May 2010 Edition The opportunity and willingness to take what one needs from others on the high seas, and the speed and agility to get away with it these were, and are still, the marks of a pirate. The old pirates along the coast of the Americas relied on the […]
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By Howard Platt from the April 2010 Edition Often in the morning a stream of dark coloured birds will flow across the bay, a hundred feet or so above the water. The stream is not very wide, but there may be hundreds of birds moving from roosting to feeding grounds. They are neotropic cormorants and […]
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By Howard Platt from the March 2010 Edition MOMOTUS MEXICANUS Motmots are permanent residents of the American tropics, but they appear reasonably happy to share their home with the many migrant birds that just come down for the winter, even us “snow-birds”. They are closely related to kingfishers, and have many of the same habits. […]
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By Freda Rumford from the March 2010 Edition FIVE SMOOTH STONES Ann Fairbairn This book, originally written in 1966, is rich with well drawn characters with whom the reader can empathize. The story is of interracial love and set during an era of deep shame in modern American times. In a time of such pure […]
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By Howard Platt from the February 2010 Edition Imagine spending all day wandering along the beach, picking up snacks whenever you feel like it, and just generally having a good time. I think that is what Willets and Whimbrels do all day. They love the wide open beaches of Playa Azul in Manzanillo, and they […]
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By Howard Platt from the January 2010 Edition Facts about the Aedes mosquito: – it lives where people live, in homes and gardens in urban areas of over 100 countries of the world including the southern USA and Hawaii; – the female needs human blood to produce eggs; – she prefers to bite during the […]
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