fishing for a living

Giant Kingfisher (Megaceryle maxima) doing its thing.

Being botanically inclined, I tend to forget how damn hard it is to photograph birds, especially without long telephotos that cost as much as a luxury car. This guy helped a lot by deciding that the edge of the bridge an arm's length away from my car window was a great spot to base his morning's fishing.

Ten plunges over a half hour yielded a 60% success rate. Possibly assisted by low winter river levels, but still impressive. Only three misses and one extremely unimpressed look when a submerged root was hunted in error. I didn't realise quite how amazing it is that they just fly out of the water.

Kruger National Park

Imagine a scattering of conservation officials from all over South Africa. Yes, with two-tone khaki. Now also imagine lots of conservation planning professionals. You know, the kind of people that simultaneously worry about where to conserve representative plant and fish and everything else habitat, complex spatial modelling using GIS, and how to influence policy, law and politicians, preferably using maps. Stir in a cupful of provincial and national environment department staff, a pinch of NGO, and season with a few eccentric consultants. This is the nicest, most passionate collection of misfits and nerds you could hope to meet. Every year we get together, talk about technical innovation, triumphs, failures and strategies. And every year we go away ready for another year, feeling a bit less like we're beating our heads against a wall. Last month we gathered for four days in Kruger National Park for the ninth annual Biodiversity Planning Forum. We started at 8 every day and with workshops and meetings often running past 7 pm, ironically there was little chance to get into the reserve. Only by gettting up well before dawn and staying an extra day did I get any bush time  at all. Nothing particularly special, but since I never get tired of sleek impala, Acacia and Terminalia trees, and the scent of earth and potato bush, that's OK.