July, 2018

June 23, 2018

Hello all:

I am in Brazil right now leading a trip to the Cerrado ecosystem, the Pantanal, and the southern Amazon basin. We are planning on seeing Jaguars, capybaras, caimans galore, hyacinth macaws, armadillos, giant tegu lizards, jabarou storks, giant anteaters, tapirs, and more birds than you can possibly imagine. And this is what I see nearly every single time. I’ve already got two trips scheduled for June/July 2019. If you are interested let me know.

Footloose Forays update: There is no room in either Farallon Island trip. There is a little room left in the Natural History/Natural Mystery outing in September in Western Sonoma County at The Cedars Preserve. Ecuador in January 2019 is wait list only. There are two trips to Tanzania in February. The first one is nearly full but the second one has plenty of room at this point.

2018 continues to be quite a whirlwind of travel for me. I just got back from a trip to Tanzania. It was delightful to go at a different time of year. We really had superb sightings and I put together a little video 10 minutes long about our recent trip. This was for a wonderful family – three generations – that I have done a half a dozen trips with. They are a lot of fun. This will give you a good sense of what a Safari to Tanzania is like with Footloose Forays.

My most recent KQED NPR Perspective–which played last week–was on raccoons! And just yesterday a raccoon tried to crawl in my open window at 5 am. Geez.

So you think you know yourself? Well this article in Scientific American clearly says you don’t. You only know how you would like to be, not how you are.

Art from the DiRosa Gallery

My favorite tree in the world is the Baobab. And many are dying suddenly after thousands of years.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”
– Steve JobsSperm goes into egg, egg becomes human being. The miracle of life is portrayed here in a most amazing way. I have no idea how they did it.Highway to Hell Grandma.

A great TED talk on communication.

True facts about armadillos!!

It is hard to have a favorite woodpecker but these guys are super cool.

I thought I knew all about Daddy long legs

And here’s the New York Times on trees.

Why you should stop being so hard on yourself. I wish I could learn that.

How this very wily creature conquered North America.

We are all on a journey and here is something from one of my favorite poets. Blessings to everyone.