Green Holidays

Travelling to big cities can be as green as you want it to be.

Take New York for example; a city of shopping and high-rise.  But it is also a place where public transport is very well organised and everything you need is right on your doorstep!

If you plan your green holidays New York style, then you won’t be disappointed with the results.  Whether it shopping you want; a taste of the culture or just a city with a difference – you would be going to the right place.

I recently added a trip to New York as part of a road trip around  North America – and I wanted to make it as eco friendly as possible while still enjoying the city for what it is.  I mean living with a green conscience doesn’t have to mean never leaving your small-holding and only wearing repaired clothes.

Yes, I enjoy wandering around the stores looking at everything new and useful, but I also enjoy people-watching and how different people and places can be even when they are all using the same space and doing the same things.  I get a lot of inspiration from other people for both activities and products I’d like to try as well as for photography and story-telling.

I love the way other people will try things that I perhaps would have overlooked – yet seeing them with it changes my mind, and I want to learn more.  Similarly with foods; I won’t buy a whole meal of something new, but tapas and the like can allow me to explore a new lifestyle, a new experience, a new me even.

Cities are good in general for a lot of things – like an interesting mix of cultures and technology.  Yes, much of it is imported in – but the innovative qualities are still there, and it is nice to see how people and businesses apply it.   And the vibrant mix of people can really make a corner coffee house a really interesting yet relaxing place to spend a few hours.

There is also plenty of ‘green space’ in the city for those of you who need to see green at least once a day.  Central Park is ginormous and you can see as much wildlife as you would in any park in any town or city – and a short journey out of town can lead you to a few wild areas, zoos and botanical gardens.

Cities like New York are a delight to visit as part of any vacation and I would recommend at least one visit in your lifetime – if only to see how pleasant and ‘easy-to-use’ a metropolis can be.

Have fun exploring…..

Take a step back in time when you go to South America – it is worth it’s weight in Gold!

Travelling to places because of their current beauty is a great choice for a vacation; and taking a holiday to a location rich in history is another great idea. So why not choose a place where both of these are plenty?

Peru holidays have it all wrapped up.

They have colonial towns, snow-capped mountains, ancient mountain cities, stone-paved Andean pathways, strange petroglyphs, beautiful people and of course – centuries of Inca Gold!

photo credit: timsnell

Wherever you go in Peru, you can’t help but wonder at the history of the place. How and why the people of this land made such wonderful buildings, temples and pathways in the mountains? How so much of it is preserved today, and how did they build Macchu Pichu without horses and wheels?

The wildlife in these mountains is also worth taking a closer look at – like the huge variety of hummingbirds that feed on the colourful cloud forest flowers. The native Chinchillas are all over the place as well as a variety of birds enough to keep even the non-twitchers happy.

Why Peru?
If you are going to take a vacation – you may a well make the most of it while you are there.

Seeing as most visitors would have had to travel by plane to get to South America in the first place, you should really make the effort to make the stay a long and busy one – cramming in a little bit of everything while you can.

Why take 2 short trips to one place when it makes eco sense to take a longer, slower trip in the first place.

Not only will you save on the fuel needed to get there, but you will get a feel of the culture better over a longer period; try all the foods on offer; get to know more about the local people as well as learn and practice a new language.

Talk about a new meaning for All Inclusive holidays!

Let’s get down to the serious birds.

As promised here are some great tips for identifying some of the UK’s most common and widespread birds of prey.

These don’t include the owls who will have their own post later in the series, but cover some of our most well known raptors; some hunt live prey (mainly other birds) while others are mainly scavengers, searching along roadsides for their next meal.

It is always a pleasure to see a raptor soaring overhead as they have a certain menace and beauty to them at the same time. And their silhoutettes let you know that they don’t mind being seen – they don’t hide away like most garden birds…..

So let’s get started with the only hovering bird in the UK.

Kestrel:
These smaller birds of prey are often seen at roadsides and along field edges – magically floating in the air. They are the most likely of the 5 birds in this article to be seen on your commute to work!

photo credit: jim kelly3

They are reddish in colour on their back with black tips to their almost pointed wings. They fly with a long, straight tail – also with a black tip – however when hovering over it’s prey – usually small mammals – the tail feathers will be spread open in a fan.

Merlin:
Smaller than the kestrel and not so easy to see unless you are in the thick of the countryside. Rather than roadsides and fields, these birds are more likely to be over woodlands, coasts and heathland chasing their avian prey!

They have sharply pointed wings and a long barred tail – perfect for fast pursuits through the air chasing birds. However they are dull browns and greys with no really distinct features, so you have to identify them on their behaviour (fast swooping flight) and where you see them – or get a good look and rule out Hobbies and Perigrines which both have a white chin and throat.

Sparrowhawk:
As its name suggests, this bird is also a bird-eater – but does so in urban areas too – so you have a good chance of seeing one in your garden or walking through town. However, they fly so fast that you might not actually see them very clearly at all, but this behaviour alone is enough to identify them. I have witnessed many a garden bird attack without having even seen the bird approaching as they tend to fly low as they get closer and then surprise their prey (and me).

photo credit: Chester Zoo

ID wise, their pale breasts sport a concentrated pattern of horizontal stipes and their backs are very plain grey in colour if seen perched – if in flight you may spot the very long banded tail and the stripy underside with relatively blunt wings held slightly bent.

Common Buzzard:
These birds are becoming more and more numerous in the countryside and just on the outskirts of towns too. They are large birds in flight and tend to fly with their broad long wings held outstretched – you may only ever see them gliding.

photo credit: Lip Kee

Usually seen in pairs, they scout the landscape from on high looking for carrion – and as a result are commonly seen being harrassed by crows – who they loosely compete with for this food source. If you get a closer look, you will notice the single primary feathers sticking out of the wingtip (the fingers) as well as a noticable change in patterning between the main body and ‘forearms’ and the longer primary and secondary feathers.

There are plenty of other large birds in the UK with these 2 key features, but without binoculars you can never tell and so always assume it was the most likely suspect rather than a Golden Eagle! With binoculars look out for the black outline to the wings and the paler band across the coverts!

Red Kite:
One of the most majestic of ‘common’ birds of prey in the UK – and so large and brightly coloured that you won’t mistake it once you have seen it.

Even if it is high in the sky and you have only the naked eye – once it has fanned its tail and you have seen that unmistakable deep fork – there is nothing else it could be.

photo credit: Noel Reynolds

With a wingspan of over 1 and a half metres and with a reddish appearance this bird a real joy to find – and that isn’t always so difficult these days with red kites being spotted over most of the UK – I even saw one in an industrial estate car park on the ground. However they aren’t so common in the south-east yet – but they do make the odd appearance!

So, how many of these have you already seen and can now identify almost everytime? There are of course 11 other raptors in the UK which share some of their features and can look very similar to the novice bird watcher – like the rare Hobby and the elusive Goshawk – but it is very unlikely that you will see one in the first place. But even if you did – experts probably wouldn’t believe you anyway; I mean do you know what a carpel or a supercilium is? How about an alula or a tertial tip?

How about Seagulls next time? Surely they are a lot easier…..

See you soon…..

Would you rather plan several small parties – or one big one?

We all know how difficult it is to get loads of your friends or family in one place at the same time. Planning that office party, family trip or surprise ‘passed your driving test’ party is never easy – and to be honest – not very green either!

We seem to find ourselves trying to ‘big up’ virtually everything these days – and mini celebrations are cropping up all over the place.

It’s nice to be invited to BBQ’s and afternoon teas all the time, but isn’t it rather a waste of resources to just keep celebrating quite normal things?

I don’t want to be a party pooper, but these celebrations are becoming big business, and can cost quite a lot of money to set up – not to mention the things that we buy for these parties are normally not so green either.

Shiny banners, balloons and disposible party accoutrements are not top of the list for their green credentials – nor is a pile of processed food, crisps and cakes!

Think Big:
So, why not stop planning for the tiny things and think of something immpressive, like renting a huge property in the woods, in the countryside or even in a lighthouse?

There are a huge number of absolutely stunning and amazing properties that you can rent out for the weekend or fortnight that will be a lot better than the corner of the office canteen or a few seats in a local pub.

photo credit: Kenski1970

Now don’t let the £2000 a week price tag put you off either, as these places usually have around 10 rooms or more, so that is going to be less than £200 each for a week board and lodgings in a place so unique that you wouldn’t be able to stay in it by yourself.

Not to mention it probably has tennis courts, sun rooms, terraces, a beautiful garden, secret rooms, spiral staircases, cellars and roof terraces. Now, you won’t get them down the social club!

It All Adds Up:
By planning something big like this for your family or friends means that you probably won’t need to book another holiday that year – have this one at home.

You can all car share, buy and eat in bulk and generally spend more time talking and playing with each other that you don’t drain on other resources elsewhere.

Perfect for that green holiday you have been thinking of – and a perfect way to have a green adventure!

And it saves time, money and tinfoil for all those cakes and cards!

Cod & Chips; Tuna & Sweetcorn and Salmon and Cucumber sandwiches – Just STOP!

Of course, as humans in a developed nation – we can eat whatever we choose; but should we be a little more picky?

As consumers, we can demand whatever we want from retailers and manufacturers without donning placards, signing a 10,000 people petition or starting any riots.

How? you may ask – How else can you get people to listen to your opinions?

It’s called: Your Choice.

By choosing to buy a certain product, we are also choosing to leave something else behind – and it is what is left behind that forces retailers and manufacturers make big changes.

If 40,000 people all chose not to eat cod this week – there would be plenty of it left on the shelves of shops or in the fridges or restaurants. And this means that they probably won’t order any more of it for a while.

It also means that they are selling out of all the other fish products that you are buying, and so need to buy more of those to suit your needs.

Basically, your shopping choices can help to make big changes – and save threatened species.

Cod, Tuna and Salmon:
Of course you can still chose to eat any of these threatened species if they are available for sale when you eat out on holiday, but it is interesting to know a bit about what makes them so attractive to fishermen.

Firstly, they are big and live in shaols or behave in a way which makes them easy to catch; and due to their size and tasty flesh, they make more money per fish than the same weight of sardines (tuna can weigh up to 200kg and are mostly muscle – but the same weight of sardines would be riddled with bones and guts – even if they are still just as tasty).

The only downside here is that the reason they get so big is because they live for so long – and living a long time generally means that they reach sexual maturity later in life. Ultimately, if we catch more adults than can be replaced by reproduction then we have a serious problem.

A second downside to these ‘higher’ fish, is that they are predatory fish and so have to eat lots of other smaller fishes to get so big themselves. And as happened with Tuna recently, they can accumulate very high levels of toxin (a little bit from each of the smaller fish they ate over the years) and can actually became dangerous to humans if ingested.

The Answer?
We need to do the opposite to what we do now.

By aiming to eat all those little tiny fish we could not only help the larger fish numbers to recover, but we could also eat more sustainably and more healthily!

Smaller fish like herring, kippers and sardines reproduce very fast – so catching the adults doesn’t affect the number of young still in the water; and as they are not predatory fish, they will not accumulate high levels of toxins and heavy metals through their feeding habits.

And, as they are not normally caught by the big trawlers (who want to save all the space on their ships for the larger species), these fish can be caught by more sustainable and small scale fishermen making the most of the oceans along our coasts without affecting fish stocks.

So, next time you pull over in a small village for a travelling lunch – try something different!

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Now, things are hotting up! You should now be able to identify some of the UK’s most common birds, and it is hopefully making you not only look forward to going out and looking for these species – but also making you want to find out what the other ones are….

So let’s not disappoint you with this next bunch of the more noticable birds – and lets have a bit of fun today.

The following 5 birds really can’t be mistaken for anything else as they are unique in their appearance – however, they are rarer than the average bird and can be quite shy:

Kingfisher:
This one is so easy to spot with it’s bright blue colouring in flight.

There is no other bird in the UK that is aquamarine in colour and that you will normally only get a flash of as it darts along a river bank.

When they alight on a branch or twig, you get to see a whole different side of them with their bright orange breasts and patterned heads.

photo credit: neal young.

They can sometimes be found near beaches, estuaries and other waterways, but a quiet river with a steep sandy bank is their prefered habitat.

They are a protected species though, so do not disturb them in or around a suspected nest or if they have young present – otherwise they could abandon the nest and you could get into hot water if publishing or sharing any of the images!

Hoopoe:
Not a commonly seen bird – but one that you won’t forget as these birds have got a very unmistakable head crest as well as a bright black and white wing and tail patterning.

photo credit: Alan Manson

They also have a very long curved bill which would only normally be found on wading species – but this bird is rarely ever found near the coast – or infact any water.

They feeds on insects and worms in orchards, agricultural land and vineyards only in the summer (if at all), and are really only seen in passing and alone. They do not breed in the UK.

Puffin:
Do I even need to describe this one?

I think virtually everyone could tell a puffin from any other seabird – and even any other auk – by their crazy patterned beak and comedy face!

photo credit: Joanne Goldby

Golden Oriole:
This bird will make you think you are on holiday in the tropics with it’s rich yellow and black colouring.

photo credit: brian.gratwicke

Although very secretive you can still get a good look at these birds if you know where to look for them; namely poplar plantations in Suffolk, of flying along the south and east coasts on migration around May and August.

These birds are best searched for by song – so get used to their distictive call before you head out looking for them!

Avocet:
This slight black and white wader is the emblem of the RSPB – and for good reason.

It was virtually wiped out in the UK, and the RSPB managed a great conservation project that saw them bounce back. Now you can see them all over the east coast in the summer and down in the south-west over the winter.

They can be mistaken at a distance for gulls, but through your binoculars you will see their noticable black and white markings, their delicate upturned bill and their long blue legs!

photo credit: spencer77

I know these were all a bit less common than some of the other birds covered so far in these guides – but sometimes it is noce to see the most striking of our birds to bolster your interest.

Yes, its great to be able to identify those smaller garden birds that you see regularly – but it is such a thrill to see something so different, bright or elusive!

Next installment will be the most common birds of prey…..

You might be dying to walk the Inca Trail – but you don’t want to actually die!

You might not believe that 1 in 10 serious mountaineers actually die every year from altitude sickness; so if they can be affected by this strange affliction – then what makes you think you won’t?

And as we all know – avoiding dangerous situations in the first place is not only the best way to keep your adventures as eco friendly and as people friendly as possible – but makes for a better holiday than having to call out the emergency services and spending a while in recovery or hospital!

First Steps:
The first thing to think of is whether you are at risk in the first place.

So if you are trekking anywhere under 10,000ft you are probably ‘OK’ – but when you start going above this height (places like the Andes, the Himalayas, Kilamanjaro and Mount Kenya) you should really know the symptoms of mountain sickness in yourself and your climbing friends.

This is expecially true if you are flying into this height from sea level, catching a train into the mountains or driving to very high locations as you haven’t acclimatised yourself to the different physiological challenges of less atmospheric air and the extra strains it puts on the active body.

The main thing to remember at all times is that altitude sickness can strike quite fast, may only have a few seemingly random symptoms, can affect even the most fit and experienced climbers or trekkers, and can and does kill people.

So take it seriously.

photo credit: discosour

How To Avoid It:
The best way to avoid getting ill from mountain sickness is ascending very slowly when at high altitudes – preferably acclimatising slowly on arrival.

Following recommended climbing ‘rates’ is also a good plan – at about 1,000ft a day – or as slow as your slowest walker. And of course this means after you have acclimatised to being at 10,000ft in the first place.

Not planning a ‘rush climb’ is another key factor, as most stories of problems are from people who ignored earlier symptoms as they felt that they ‘had to get to so and so before stopping’. As a result they pushed too hard and their bodies reacted badly.

And make sure you are planning for stops along the way, take frequent breaks and always know where your descents are incase you need to get lower. It is better to arrive healthy in 5 days than have to stop after 3 and get air-lifted to a hospital!

Some of the earlier symptoms of altitude sickness could be mistaken for something else, or ignored if people don’t want to ’cause a scene’ – but if you are at height, you should always assume that it is altitude related and consider stopping for the day or descending slightly until the symptoms disappear.

Bearing in mind the headache you get is your brain swelling up, and the cough is due to fluid flooding your lungs – I think anyone in their right mind should think about descending anyway!

No flights, local services and eating out don’t always add up to Green Holidays!

Say you decided to stay in your own country, drive to town with something worth seeing in it and eat ‘local food’ for a few days – sounds like a reasonable plan for a green adventure, doesn’t it?

But what if the actual story was: you drove yourself and your partner 300 miles to a town with a giant themepark close by and ate take-outs?

Not quite so green after all.

But it is what many people do when they stay home for their vacation – whether they meant to be green or just wanted to ‘save’ money.

But the savings are not just in physical money spent – there is an invisible cost too.

The Problem:
The ideal ‘green holiday’ is something that not many people want to actually do with the few precious days off a year – especially if their job is quite hectic.

They don’t want to carry all their clothes on a train to get there in the first place; then after arriving in the nearest town – they don’t want to have to get public transport to their guest house when there are ‘hotel chains’ right outside.

Preparing food would also be a chore – as even if their eco-friendly guest house gave them use of the kitchen, they would have to then go and buy all their food from a local store – check it was all locally grown or organic (no usually the case in smaller or more rural towns) and then carried it back on foot or by bus.

Alternatively, they would have to go out all the time and try to find a suitable eatery for their meals – and I’m sure after a few days in the town – they would have exhausted the eco choices and then have to keep going back and using all the same places.

The Answer:
Well, it is difficult to plan a totally green holiday even close to home – but you can eliminate the worst offenders along the way – like the flight.

That one part of a holiday could account for a huge amount of carbon emissions – so even if you drove your half empty car 1000 miles across the country, you still would have emitted less.

photo credit: woodleywonderworks

You still want pleasures though – otherwise why take a holiday in the first place – so go 50/50. If you love the city – then settle for that not-so eco friendly chain hotel on the high street, 2 seconds from the train station – as you won’t be needing the car in town, so can make eco savings elsewhere.

If you love the countryside, then you can drive to the isolated eco friendly guesthouse with a car full of food as you probably won’t need the car when you arrive as you will be walking everywhere anyway.

The same can be done for other areas of your holiday, think of what you actually want out of your holiday in the first place – what is most important. Then think about green savings around that.

If you want luxury; you might be able to cut back on the distance travelled. If you need a specific location; then look to change your transport or maybe increase the time you are there.

Holidays are meant to be fun – and it doesn’t hurt if they are a shade of green too!

This article will introduce you to 5 of the most common seen ducks around town ponds and wetland sites.

There are plenty of ducks that all look very similar to the naked eye – especially the females, so these descriptions are focused mainly on the males as they are the most likely ones you will pick out in the water. They will be in their display colours as they try to find a mate.

Most of the time in the spring and summer, the females will be close by the males as well for breeding – or will already be closely followed by a herd of ducklings – so you can start to practice the differences in the females once you have mastered their associated males.

However, outside of the breeding season, most male ducks moult into what is known as their ‘eclipse’ plumage, which is quite different to their summer splendour!

They all turn into rather drab birds – looking very similar to their female friends. Well, they don’t want to stand out to predators when they don’t have to!

Anyway, straight to it then with a firm favourite:

Mallard:
We should all know this one purely because it is always about on almost every pond or canal where there are humans – as they know that we will probably feed them!

As a result, they are usually quite bold birds and will waddle over to us for priority feeding if there are other birds like Mute Swans about!

photo credit: Tomi Tapio

Key points of the mallard male is his beautiful green head, pinched in by a white collar but there are several others ducks with that feature too. So you will have to look for other signs: like he will also have a bright yellow bill which seperates him from some of the other similar birds.

Another point is that he will have blue patches on his wings rather than white or green (not visible in this image) – and in flight these show as a blue bands with white edging.

Shelduck:
Here is another one with a green head – but he has some more striking features to tell him apart. Both male and female look the same; bright white birds (very goose-like) with a band of brown across the shoulders, then a thick collar of white before the dark green head and bright orange beak! You won’t be able to miss them once you see them.

The main and obvious difference between the sexes is that the male has an extra ‘knobbly’ bit at the top of his bill – as in the image below – a bit like the Mute Swans.

photo credit: Vlaskop

Shoveler:
Another green-headed common bird is the Shoveler – so called because of its very wide black shovel-shaped bill.

It sits lower in the water than a mallard, and has a noticable yellow eye when viewed at close range. It has the same broad white neck as the Shelduck with brown shoulders and sides too, but there the similarity ends. This bird has a very low profile where the Shelduck sits high in the water and is more ‘white’.

photo credit: chapmankj75

Goldeneye:
As its name suggests it has a bright golden eye set bold in its green head – but manages to look nothing like the Shevelor despite this!

It has a much more rounder, pronounced head that looks like it has been stuck onto the body like a giant pom-pom! It also has a bright white cheek patch beside its smaller, pointy bill. The rest of the body is very pale with and almost stripy back where black and white feathers mix as shown below:

photo credit: Graham Racher

Mandarin Duck:
No need to worry about the green head for this one as there is too much else to give it away! This species is one of our most decorative and colourful ducks – if not birds – in the UK and you can see them quite frequently in wetland reserves.

They are difficult to describe as there is so much to say – so look at the picture below to be amazed! They have delicate patterning on their seemingly ‘giant’ cheeks if you look close enough; their long white eye streak goes on forever; and they have the most unusual orange ‘sails’ jutting up from their wings when they are on the water.

And the bright blues and purples……

photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar

Next time you head out to the wetlands – have a look for these males – and try to find their partners hidden among all the other brown looking birds on the water!

See you soon…..

You know how to pack a rucksack properly – but what about save a life?

We all learn to pack our racksacks top heavy, learn which wildfood we can eat, how to get our tents back in their tiny bags, how to purify water and how to run away from a bear.

But what about help another human being?

When was the last time you took a first aid lesson? At school, in your teens or because your workplace told you to go?

Why do we wait – when our friends or family could get injured at any time!

Things that we learn on these courses could save other peoples lives – as well as our own, so why don’t we sign up in droves?
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What are you going to do?
Things change all the time in medicine and first aid – so some things your parents told you or that you learnt over 5 years ago might not still be current – like laying a person who fainted on their back with their legs raised. Wrong.

How about pinching the top of the nose and tipping the head back to stop a nose bleed! Wrong. Putting soothing creams or lotions on a burn – WRONG!

You don’t even check for a pulse anymore – there are better, more effective ways to save a life.

Obviously we all hope that we never have to deal with an emergency – but if you like to travel a lot – especially out in the countryside, emergency first aid could be your only chance of survival.

Call The Emergency Services!
It is all well and good to assume that the emergency services will come and save the day – but if the casualty isn’t breathing or is bleeding heavily – then 10 minutes is too long to wait. And you will probably be out in the countryside or up a mountain!

photo credit: Adam Tinworth

So, you could save someone by starting first aid straight away.

Immediate Action:
I can’t teach you first aid in this article – but I know that making sure that someone is breathing is more important that calling 999 in the first instance. The time it takes you to make the call is more time that they aren’t breathing.

By first checking the airways are clear and listening for breathing you could have done all that was needed to save a life. People who are unconscious and on their backs can suffocate on their own tongue – so by you moving their head to free the tongue – you can help them breathe again. Then, by putting them in the recovery position – and knowing that they can still breathe – you could have just saved their life.

However, if you make the call first; all the while you are trying to describe where you are for the emergency services to find you – they will be getting worse.

First Aid is about dealing with the most critical thing first – like not breathing. There is no point stopping them bleeding if they aren’t breathing, and no point moving them into a more comfortable place if they aren’t breathing either.

And an Emergency First Aid course can help you understand why things are important and when they are not. The course will help you gain confidence in your actions even if they seem rather odd and ‘different’ to what other people are saying.

You would have taken the most up-to-date course (to protect your friends and family) so it will be the best you can do for a stranger too!

And thank you for caring.