March 18, 2012 - "We spend more time road trapping the raptors. We are seeing lots of Amur Falcon and Lesser Kestrels. Steppe buzzards are not responding well to our trapping techniques. We caught and banded two, but lots more around as they are nearly ready to start their northward migration and will probably stop eating.

New species are not just discovered in the wild; sometimes it happens that a rare find is made in a depot of a long lost and forgotten specimen. This happened with a very rare member of the enigmatic family of "splitjaw snakes", Latin name: Bolyeriidae.

This blog leads - again - to Mauritius. The reason for my repeated mind travel to this country lies in the fact that so many unusual species have evolved there. No matter where you look, the species of the Mascarenes all have their own peculiarities.

On January 14, 2012, AFC's annual exhibit travelled to Tucson, Arizona to open at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Art Museum. The opening day broke all-time attendance records for an art exhibit opening at the museum. Susan Fisher, Director of the ASDM Art Institute commented: "Wow! What a turnout we had. There was a record number of attendees topping all previous records for Gallery receptions here at the museum. Visitors were very impressed with the quality of the show and really seemed to enjoy looking at the works...