It has almost been one month since departing Sydney ... and yes I agree; time obviously goes faster on the opposite side of earth! Currently I am in Bialowieza, Poland, in the heart of old growth forest that has been dated back to the retreat of the Baltic Glaciation. The treestands I will see tomorrow, on my way to track a European Lynx wearing a GPS collar, haven't changed much since 2000 BC - and human traces date back to neolithic times around 100-300 AD when inhabited by the Goths, just before the Eastern and Western Slavic Tribes moved in around 600 AD. If I'm lucky, I may also see some European bison.
The current blog, however, is about my time in the UK at the University of Oxford Wildlife Conservation Research Unit http://www.wildcru.org/ and my day trip to visit Shaun Ellis, the man who lived with wolves, at The Wolf Centre http://www.thewolfcentre.co.uk/!
Once again, pictures say a thousand words so I have written captions to a select few below, and I have made another video, that can be viewed here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=015eUZ2Zzwo
Enjoy!
bp
Bayswater, London
The Thames River doing its best impersonation of Cedar Ford in the Blue Mountains
Murphy. Inigo's and Chloe's dog.
Professor David Macdonald. The brain behind the braun of WildCRU, Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Just in case you missed it in the news because of the Murdoch media trial, the British Government have decided to cull 150,000 badgers to stop the spread of tuberculosis to cattle, despite David explaining and showing scientific evidence that a cull of this nature would exacerbate the problem.
Professor Claudio Sillero. Ethiopian wolf man. Bill Travers Fellow for Wildlife Conservation. Chair of the IUCN Canid Specialist Group. The man who coined the term 'border patrol' and inspired me to delve deep into my GPS data from dingoes.
A tree in a paddock on my way to The Blue Boar, traditional English Pub dating from 1606. Blows Australia off the map.
Inigo and Chloe, on their way to organise their wedding in Spain, provided me with an old thatched roof, a dog to walk and a bed. Many thanks.
The coast at Combe Martin (pron. coom)
Combe Martin. Incredibly quaint.
It wasn't free.
Shaun Ellis explaining the behaviour of feeding wolves.
Much of it is in the way the ears were spread.
Wolf-dog hybrid.
Some random bunch of rocks that Laura wanted to visit.
Laura came for a drive to Combe Martin with me after her Contiki Tour of Europe.
On the way to stay at Stephen Dunleavy's place in Bristol. He gave me a copy of the DVD Komodo: Secrets of the dragon that he produced for the BBC. I helped him find and film lace monitors when he visited Australia, and if anybody watches the documentary, I saw the lace monitor and possum fight LIVE! And for those that have been there, it was filmed just behind the Yerranderie Police Station.
Entering Bristol at 21:20.
Last view in London.
Stay tuned for the Bialowieza!
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