Nature & Wildlife
Go on a safari in Africa and you’ll hear plenty about the “Big 5.” The term originally referred to the top five species that hunters sought on their bucket list but has now evolved to mean the top five big mammals in Africa—those being the lion, elephant, Cape buffalo, leopard and rhino.
Nature & Wildlife
“Being inside a kaleidoscope!” That is how I describe the feeling of standing amongst millions and millions of butterflies in the sanctuaries outside of Mexico City during the great migration. You can even hear the sound of their wings beating.
Latin America
Butterflies seem to be one of the most fragile of all creatures. Yet the stately monarch butterfly embarks on an annual migration of 2,000-3,000 miles from locations in the United States and southern Canada all the way to the highlands of central Mexico.
Nature & Wildlife
After missing for more than eight years, Petunia, an American Staffordshire terrier, was found. She had disappeared from her home in Virginia sometime around Thanksgiving 2003. Last weekend, she was located in an animal shelter in California, more than 3,000 miles away. How do we know the dog is truly Petunia?
Nature & Wildlife
If you dread overseas flights because you always land intolerably tired and exceedingly hungry, I have some facts that might help you put such ordeals into perspective. It was recently discovered that a female bar-tailed godwit flew 7,145 miles from Alaska to New Zealand—without taking a single break for food or drink.
Nature & Wildlife
If you’ve been watching National Geographic Channel’s “Great Migrations” documentary, you’re learning a lot about one of the most amazing phenomena in the natural realm. But there’s nothing like being there to witness migrating wildlife firsthand. We’ve got some suggestions for you!
Travel Tales
The Mud Hen was a great little steamboat—a one-of-a-kind, respectable, lake-worthy craft. When I was about eight years old, my uncle Verne, a carpenter and a lover of steam engines, built her out of wood and marine plywood with his own hands.
Travel Tips
I’m usually too busy to watch television, so it’s perhaps not surprising I didn’t know who Samantha Brown was, when a friend told me she had her dream job.
Nature & Wildlife
I know this is going to sound weird, but a month ago I got up at 3:00 a.m. to drive almost 150 miles north of here. I did this just for the opportunity to sit in silence in a plywood box—no bigger than four feet by five feet—for three hours on a below-freezing April morning.
