July began with a trip (2-18th) to China to establish a bat conservation centre in Guangdong, and to survey bats in SW China. I work with Professor Shuyi Zhang from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Guangdong Institute of Biomedicine and Health. We were joined by Stuart Parsons (Auckland), Steve Rossiter (London) and Walter Metzner (UCLA), and 3 of Shuyi's students. We spent 2 days in Guangdong, and then flew to Chengdu and travelled west towards Tibet. As usual, I was struck by the paucity of wildlife in China - I have not seen a single road kill in 4 trips here.

Follow these links to see bird photographs, mammal photographs, images of bats in Chinese art, invertebrate photos, landscapes, and some people photographs.

Between July 23-30th we went on a family riding holiday to Exmoor. Didn't see many birds in fairly grim weather, except for large numbers of whinchats around Ember Combe, a redstart at Webber's Post, a dipper at Horner, and a Dartford warbler. We stayed near Horner Wood, and a family of fox cubs played near the cottage.

Photos below are of a grey squirrel and a siskin on the birdtable outside our cottage.