AA Birdpix, Birds, Travel and More

Ecomath- a new word? I have come up with a new word. Why not? Shakespeare did it, a rapper did it (the word "dench"), new words appear all the time. This is a derivative of "Polymath"; nothing to do with maths, but defined as a person who is interested in and has knowledge of a large range of subjects. Obviously an Ecomath would be one who is interested in all things natural.  Many birders are just birders, and remain so, but most, either through boredom or a natural interest, become interested in moths or butterflies. Mothing is an obvious "first step" as it does not entail leaving home, it takes a lot of learning (if you don't rely on AI) and has a far lower cost and carbon footprint than birding. I had a general interest in animals from an early age, I used to watch horse racing on the TV from about the age of four,  just to see the horses. I have only attended one horse race (the 200th Derby, as it happens) and never entered a betting shop, but I k...

 WHERE IS KAZAKHSTAN? Apologies to "House of Games" fans, but every birder should know where Kazakhstan is, because it's a great place to visit.  It is actually a very large country, and there is much to see scenically as well as birds. There is a variety of wildlife in the country, and whilst much of it (such as Snow Leopard) is not on the normal tour routes there are mammals, reptiles and butterflies in some numbers in parts.        It's one of the few countries (except Oz) I've visited twice, and the two trips were completely different. This was primarily because there was a thirty year gap between them, but I still remember the first trip as clearly as the one last year. It was just after the break-up of the former Soviet Union, and was organised by Russian Nature Tours, a fledgling company run by Algirdas Kynstautus, who has written several books and much else about birds in the region. The organisation was superb, but there was little t...

  NAMING OF WILDLIFE COULD BE FUN. There has   always been controversy regarding wildlife names, particularly eponyms. I have no argument with dropping the name of a person because it offends a section of the community, whether politically or racially, or whether justified or not, it is enough that someone is offended. I would be offended if someone were to put forward certain names (albeit very few). However, indiscriminate dropping of eponyms should be stopped for two reasons. Firstly there can be nothing wrong in honouring a research worker, scientist or conservationist. I use the IOC list , and the committee recognises the potential offensiveness of many names in the USA, and tends to concur with the ABA. More interestingly, there have been rational decisions made regarding spellings and actual names which differ between English and American English (but don't use a "spell-checker") .Thus we have Gr e y-headed Lapwing and Gr e y Noddy, but also Clay-col or ed ...