Monthly Archives December 2014

Mukura Forest Calling

September 2014. “Hello? Can you hear me? Hello?” Serge, my Rwandan consulting team member, was trying to call our contact at Mukura  Forest, the District Forestry Officer, on his cell phone.  We were driving up a rough rural road through
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Forest of Hope: A Visit to Gishwati Forest

September 2014. Sipping a draft Mützig in the patio restaurant at the hotel in Gisenyi, lightning flashing out over Lake Kivu.  Storms still around, after the fierce downpour this afternoon driving from Musanze to Gisenyi, where we stopped along the
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Islands of Biodiversity in the African Sky: Golden Monkeys and Irish Potatoes

September 2014. The view from my east-facing window at the Gorillas Hotel in Musanze before dawn was promising.  Even though Mount Muhabura was enveloped in clouds, the rest of the sky was clear.  After a quick breakfast we left for
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Searching for Grauer’s Swamp-Warbler at the Top of the Nile

September 2014. Tucked among the mille collines of northern Rwanda is a huge, high-elevation marsh called Rugezi. On a map, or on Google Earth, Rugezi appears among the “thousand hills” – as “mille collines” translates from the French of the
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The Art of Ecology: Audubon’s Oystercatchers and Other Examples

November 2014. After visiting John James Audubon’s (1785-1851) first home in America, Mill Grove, not far from Philadelphia, I was looking again through his masterwork, Birds of America. When I came to the plate of the Black Oystercatcher, I realized that
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