Nature Blog Network

I don’t know if you’ve headed over to check out the toplist recently, but there’s a heck of a lot of blogs over there.  That’s obviously great for the NBN, but it makes it a little tougher on your humble blogger here in that I’m probably more likely to accidentally leave people out in this weekly space.  It’s certainly not my intention, so I’m asking that if I do forget somebody, please let me know!  I know what it’s like to toil in relative obscurity and I don’t want to miss the opportunity to give an able blogger a break of sorts.  So keep me on my toes, yeah?

Of all the places birders dream about, South America usually comes first on the list.  It doesn’t have a monopoly on colorful species by any means, but the general diversity is incredible, and a visitor can clean up on some pretty highly sought after birds.  This, in addition to the relative paucity of other large warm-blooded animals (with some wild exceptions.  Anteater, anyone?) has led naturalists to name South America “The Bird Continent”.  But focusing on birds (as I’m wont to do) shortchanges its other natural wonders including phenomenal numbers of plants, insects, herps, and everything else.

Fortunately for the NBN, there are a number of interesting South American bloggers dedicated to covering this extreme beat.  Unfortunately for most North Americans and Europeans, most of them are in Spanish or Portuguese.  But is this not the 21st century?  Mere issues of language can’t stop us!  There’s translating software to assist us.  I suggest Google Translate, but only because I hope to get some search engine optimization love out of it.  C’mon Google, I scratch your back…

Yes, I know there’s more to South America than the Amazon, but the river’s influence runs both deep and wide.  Let’s jump in.

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- A quick shout out to the Brazilian tree blogs I mentioned last week.

- The Scienceblogs juggernaut goes international with several Brazilian nature blogs.  Caapora is run by a Brazilian biologist with a bias towards birds but with content on everything natural.

- Tropical Biodiversity is the home of Steven, an American living in Brazil who comes up with all sorts of interesting things, including some observations of really cool bugs.

- A relatively new blog, here’s hoping Brazilian Pioneer Birding lives up to the intriguing promise of its name.

- Based in Peru, Neotropical Nature and Culture and it’s sister blog Neotropical Photos, not only offer lovely photos of birds and insects of Peru, but some insight into coffee and wine of the region.

- An excellent blog aimed at conservation issues surrounding threatened South American plants and trees is Rafeal Serathuik.  This one is packed with information and well worth taking the time to translate.

- Last but undoubtedly not least is a blog readers of the NBNB may already be familiar with, Gunnar Engblom’s A birding blog from Peru.  Gunnar not only covers the fascinating birdlife of Peru, but has some ideas on how nature blogging can be used to protect the birds that people travel to South America to see. Good stuff.

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Once you get past the language barrier, these blogs are really enjoyable.  A good internet translator will open up the world of the NBN!