JamesBorrell:
Took a detour on the way to work, to walk through a sunny Tower Hamlets Cemetary Park. Sounds morbid, but it's the only proper woodland inside zone 2. They may be our most common bird, but the singing wrens made it worth it. Back to science. #conservation
JamesBorrell:
Made the pilgrimage to NHM Tring, spotted a few of the lovely bird species that are making a comeback in the UK #rewilding #conservation.
JamesBorrell:
A photo of The Drinker caterpillar next to what it will become. #wildlife #moths
JamesBorrell:
For my birthday I got little tern, a singing nightingale and thunderstorms. Good to get out and enjoy wildlife without trying to count it, record it or conserve it! #RSPB #conservation
JamesBorrell:
Making the most of the countryside before flying back to London! #forest #nature
JamesBorrell:
Got out early to explore the forests in Estonia this morning - can anyone confirm that these are Beaver marks? Huge fallen tree near a dammed river was also a clue! #beaver #mammals #Estonia #forest#nature #wildlife
JamesBorrell:
Quick swim in the Baltic Sea. Cold. #nature
JamesBorrell:
John Blashford Snell telling a particularly entertaining story about an amorous gorilla. Great to meet so many interesting people at this year's Explorer Awards. #ses #explore
JamesBorrell:
Big thank-you to @nigelwinser @shanewinser for this decisive volume on this history of Amazon exploration. Paradise indeed, and enough to make anyone a naturalist for life. Hope it's not too long before adventures take me to the greatest rainforest on ear
JamesBorrell:
Amazing new exhibit in the David Attenborough building, Cambridge. A vast board with the name of every critically endangered species. Immensely powerful. For conservationists, it's a bit like a giant to-do list. Make sure you visit if in the area. #cons
JamesBorrell:
Thom surveys the scene the morning after the storm. We had barely even arrived before the forest tried to test us! The Malagasy say that whenever foreigners or government officials visit the area a great storm rolls in. It's easy to dismiss as superstit
JamesBorrell:
It's a terrible photograph, but the most memorable often are. This was our first camp, perched right on the edge of the forest. We arrived tired after a long hike, and with the light beginning to fade, didn't have time to choose our permanent base camp i
JamesBorrell:
I'm really excited about the footage we collected out in Madagascar. Later this year we should have something really special to share, but in the mean time here's a daft outtake in the middle of a piece to camera ;) #nature #filming #expedition #rainfore
JamesBorrell:
Here's the obligatory rainforest mist photograph. I'd love to say it was as picturesque as this every morning, but it was normally overcast and raining. But nevertheless, look at it - it's just magical. On a clear morning there is nowhere better to be
JamesBorrell:
This is Serge. He lives in a local village and agreed to join the expedition as one of our camp cooks. Serge was a reassuring sight when we would come back soaking and tired from fieldwork, always ready with an enormous steaming bowl of rice and strong
JamesBorrell:
This is what three million ariary's worth of food looks like, to last a team of 14 for five weeks! We picked up an extra 30kg of beans, 30kg of flour and 60kg of rice en route - a big thank you to Lawrence for making sure we were all fed well. An expedit
JamesBorrell:
Moscow botanic gardens, escaping the snow outside and stepping into the tropics. Always love to search these places out. #Russia #Moscow #botany
JamesBorrell:
So what does a forest fragment look like? Often they're not the nice neat blocks on a flat plain that you might imagine from reading text books... Instead, it's common for fragments to have survived on account of being inaccessible, clinging on to the st
JamesBorrell:
This is a Calumma brevicorne, or short-horned chameleon, and a particularly large and grumpy one at that. We spotted this individual on a night survey and brought him back to basecamp to ID and photograph. Of all the chameleons we caught on the expeditio
JamesBorrell:
Getting your eye in is hard. It's amazing to think how many weird and wonderful creatures we walked past without even realising, especially in the leaf litter or up in the canopy. Can you spot the frog in this photo? It's one of the reasons that rainfore
JamesBorrell:
On the first day, it rained so hard for so long that the track through the village became a river, so we had to wait it out. On the second day, despite having woken at 5am, finding and preparing loads for a small army of porters meant that it was late mo
JamesBorrell:
This was Christmas Day in the rainforest, our one proper rest day in four weeks of fieldwork - all we really wanted was chocolate and a day without rain! We got one of those things... #Madagascar #fieldwork #rainforests #christmas
JamesBorrell:
This is Beandrarezona, the closest village to our research site, and the springboard for our journey into the forest. It's certainly not easy to get to, with the last Kilometre taking a casual three hours! Forest only clings on in the most inaccessible a
JamesBorrell:
I wish I could say that the typical landscape of Northern Madagascar was rainforest, but alas this is the kind of scenery you are most likely to see. Pretty in its own way, but scarcely a shadow of what once was. Could it ever be covered in forest again
JamesBorrell:
There's always tons of kit and supplies to remember on expeditions, and there's always one small key item that gets misplaced or forgotten. On Expedition Angano, we were determined that it wouldn't be the supply of coffee. Hand ground in the village, dou
JamesBorrell:
Fieldwork can sometimes make you go a little crazy. This is Mark on Christmas Eve I think, after too many hours holed up in the science tent. As the expedition gathered pace, we would run anything up to about 12 transect a day, and often return to basec
JamesBorrell:
Sometimes I give talks and despite putting an optimistic spin on things, people seem to assume there's going to be a happy conclusion. Yes there has been incredible progress, and lots of small victories in conservation, but the end of the story hasn't be
JamesBorrell:
Quick break from thesis writing to get a lung full of fresh (ish) air. #greenspace #london
JamesBorrell:
This was our office in the rainforest. We used our 'best tarp' and a home made table to make a place to gather and organise the data coming in. Invariably it was covered in clipboards, forceps, ethanol, datasheets, specimen bags and occasionally an escape
JamesBorrell:
One thing that sucks about deforestation is the dry sun baked landscapes that it leaves behind. The downsides are obvious, and lots have people have written about erosion, poor crops, lack of biodiversity and so on. But the other, more selfish downside
