All gods creatures have a place in the choir, including the world WE live in.

It is December and Today I'm taking you to the Skagit flats, about 60 miles north of Seattle in Washington state. The Skagit flats is one of Americas best winter birding destinations and one of the American birding associations “important birding areas.

Let us take you to the Grand Island, Crane meadows to hear the spectacular Sandhill Cranes and then up north to the Calamus outfitter ranch to hear a "Bar room brawl" staring the Great-Prairie Chicken. more information at www.naturesound.org ENJOY

Fantastic book from  mountaineers books, photos by Subhankar Banerjee and others. there is a 60 minute CD with my sounds recorded from the refuge included.

more info visit

http://www.mountaineersbooks.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=675  Or  http://www.naturesound.org

 

 

My friend the starling would like to say "be easy on me"

This is a short podcast defending this magnificent bird from back home.

The Yucatan Peninsula and the affect hurricanes coupled with global warming have on migratory birds. Here is Antonio Cellis, a bunch of birds recorded in Redmond, WA, and a soundscape from the Yucatan.

Will the threat of drilling ever go away? Unless we make this place a "class 1" wilderness it won't. Should we stand up for what we believe or let big money oil companies dictate to us what we can and can't have?

Bird sounds from the refuge at Sunset Pass and Andy Keller join this podcast from the refuge. Listen to Jaegers and Longspurs with the odd Loon thrown in for good measure.....

 

Bluethroat

Luscinia svecica
AKA: Red-spotted bluethroat, White-spotted bluethroat,

A small robin-like bird, the male is unmistakable in spring with his bright blue throat, bordered below with bands of black, white and chestnut. Its central throat spot can be white or chestnut. They can be quite secretive, flicking into the cover of a bush with a flash of their chestnut tail patches.

 

First of all I feel I have to apologize for the lack of podcasts this year, I had all good intensions to keep them rolling but my work has gotten in the way, now I have to produce these great little broadcasts when I can…..Thank god for people like David Dawson of “on the wing� and the RSPB to fill in these huge gaps I create.I have many podcasts in the can as they say and hope to produce them a little later in the year including my trips to Mexico and the threatened Arctic national wildlife refuge.For now let me play you a delightful recording made in South-east Arizona on pursuit of the elusive Whiskered screech owl……Ramsey canyon was the setting; we stayed in the B&B next to the Nature conservancy headquarters. Each night we went out in search of the owl and finally……

Recorded on Alcatraz island, the colony of some 3000 Western Gulls that inhabit the rock.

I took a trip to Big Bend National Park intent on recording the Colima Warbler. There are probably some 200 pairs here in the park and Big Bend is the only place in Northern America where they breed, High up in the Chisos Mountains. Each spring/summer Colima Warblers nest in the surrounding oak canyons. we climbed the Pinnacles Trail (climbing 1700 feet) and believe me, this was a hard climb in the heat! I set out with my wife at 6:30am and on the way up the Pinnacles trail we saw Mexican Jays, Canyon Towhees, Titmouse, white-throated swifts, Canyon Wrens and Blue Grosbeaks. after about 5 hours we encounter the Colima Warbler. This large, mostly brown and gray warbler with a yellow rump is one of the least studied warblers in North America, very little is known about its population size and what threatens its survival.

8/24/2005 Common Murre Tatoosh Island WA. What a fabulous experience, I was invited by the University of Washington to stay with the Biologists on the Island and record birds, this recording was done in a blind right in the center of the Murre colony. Various bangs you here are the Murre hitting the one-way glass, certainly up close and personal! MP3 recorded with M/S MKH/40-MKH/30 Sound Devices 722....... 4:43sec