Photo Jormo Tenovuo, Spain 2005
Lesser Kestrel
Lost Feathers from a Magic Carpet
Lesser Kestrel: Photo Jormo Tenovuo, www.jtenovuo.com
Before humanity's insatiable needs lay waste the farthest corners of our world a few more will be born who'll follow 'the way of birds'. And although they have only ever been a tiny percentage in any one human generation these birders, or ornithologists, will have helped document man's deepest disaster. Planetary degradation. Even though today's birders, like people everywhere, must register unwelcome change from a standpoint, or benchmark, made in the halcyon days when they themselves are young.
Out of all the great bird orders of our world one - the falconiformes or raptors - has probably suffered most from mankind's ecological ambivalence. As hunters of flesh raptors are seen as competitors for 'our' resources; simultaneously admired or hated right down the ages. However out of all the raptors, one species the Lesser Kestrel (Falco naumanni
Palearctic birds in Africa
A significant proportion of the population of each of half a dozen Western Palearctic bird species, that could easily become extinct within thirty or forty years, spend a sizeable part of their annual cycle in Tanzania.
The six species of particular concern are: (Endangered) Basra Reed Warbler; (Vulnerable) Lesser Kestrel; (Near threatened) Pallid Harrier, Corncrake, Black-tailed Godwit and European Roller.
