After 6 months of seabirding day in day out from ships thought it was time for a holiday… and some sea watching from Santo Antao. No Black-capped Petrels last night but Boyd’s and Cape Verde Shears & 32 Fea’s were nice company. I suspect I may be too late for BCP

The concentration of #SaharaDust in the atmosphere over Cabo Verde is pretty insane at the moment, on the plus, it makes for some great sun viewing with all the #SunSpots currently visible #StormHour

A dawn foray to Mindelo Water Treatment works today produced 1-2 Laughing Doves (still rare in Cape Verde) including a singing/displaying bird plus a crazily pallid Collared Dove. Black Heron & Yellow-billed Egret added a Sub-Saharan feel. Sad to find a recently dead CV Barn owl

A short clip of part of a 300+ strong pod of Melon-headed Whales between Ascension and Cabo Verde, just one of 21 species of Cetacean recorded over the past 30 days (with only 0.5 glassy days and 2 days under sea state 2) #Cetaceans #Atlantic

Managed a much longer than anticipated walk on Santiago today (long story) though this stunning Ribeira. Highlights included the phenomenal Baobab visited by Darwin, 50+ Grey-h Kingfishers, Cape Verde Swamp Warblers and a plethora of insects #CaboVerde

Last year Nigel Jones and I had 8 days surveying insects in Upper Deeside between Muir of Dinnet NNR and Mar Lodge Estate. The report describing where we went and the circa 600 species we found can be found here: researchgate.net/publication/37…

Dawn off Fogo, Cape Verde, and great to see a number of Fea’s Petrels plus Boyd’s Shears, a surprise Sooty Shear, Arctic Terns, Brown & Red-footed Boobies, Red-t Tropicbirds etc but almost nothing at dusk this evening. Looking forward to 9 days exploring these islands #Seabirds

A beautiful day cruising north of the equator filled with Long-tailed Skuas, Arctic Terns, Leach’s & Bulwer’s Petrels, Blainville’s Beaked, Melon-headed & Sperm Whales plus Spinner Dolphins. The biggest surprise was a Black Tern (600miles off the coast!) - Doldrum magic!

Really excited to announce the launch of the Braemar Nature Festival 10-19 May, a local festival celebrating nature & a great reason to visit the eastern #Cairngorms this spring.
Full programme complete with booking links available here: wild-discovery.com/wild-diaries/b…
Spread the word!

Boatswain Bird Island, Ascension is like a combination of St Kilda and the Noss Gannetry plonked in the tropics & festooned in #seabirds . It lived up to its name with Yellow-billed Tropicbirds but stars were the Ascension Frigatebirds - totally epic! #AscensionIsland

Wirebird, aka St Helena Plover showed well at Flagstaff on Saint Helena with at least 11 birds in the grazed pastures including a couple of juvs. This year there are an estimated 600 birds which is superb news given how rare it once was. Barbed wire prevented any closer approach

Slowly heading NW towards Ascension and there’s been a steady (if small) passage of Arctic Terns today all heading on a subtly different bearing that is basically a straight line from the Cape of Good Hope to the coast of West Africa. Just love visible migration!

Red-billed Tropicbirds in the urban environment around Jamestown, St Helena yesterday looking stunning in the late afternoon light from Jacobs Ladder. #OM1 #SuperSeabirdSunday #SaintHelena

Meet Jonathan, an Aldabra Giant Tortoise and the worlds oldest known living land animal at 192yo!! He grazes the lawns of the Govenor’s House at Plantation #StHelena with 3 others & is quite a character and celeb!

So today it happened, officially my first bird-less day

I thought today may be my first day in over 15500 days when I didn’t actually see a bird on the planet despite actively searching but a distant un-ID’d Pterodroma saved the day - 1 bird in 250km of tropical ocean!

Into effectively tropical waters at 27 degrees south and after several hours without a bird we have 4 Spectacled Petrels behind the ship. Will they still be around tomorrow? First Cory’s Shearwater today too making its way north. #Seabirds

Negative side effects of heavy rains in southern Spain during the last week... Great work of this NGO SOS Vencejos collecting and recovering #swifts !

Views literally don’t get any better than this! Singles of both Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross and Great Shearwater swam up to my zodiac giving everybody a pretty incredible experience at Inaccessible Island. #Seabirds #TristanDaCunha #OM1

Zodiacing around Inaccessible Is allowed us to enjoy Portuguese Man O’ War up close, a fascinating neuston (sp living both above & below the sea surface) & colonial Siphonophore (not a Jellyfish) in which zooids with specialised functions allow it to act as a single organism