Tag Archives: irding in Colombia

The cattle egret (Bubulcus ibis) is a cosmopolitan species of heron (family Ardeidae) found in the tropics, subtropics and warm temperate zones. It is the only member of the monotypic genus Bubulcus, although some authorities regard two of its subspecies as full species, the western cattle egret and the eastern cattle egret.

For a long time, urbanization has been one of the defining features of our societies a tendency that has accelerated with the growth of the information economy, with now half the world’s population living in cities.

But some believe that we may have reached a peak, as COVID-19 has not only paused the trend but might come to reverse it. The long months of quarantine turned the perks of solitude and access to greenery into a physical and mental health priority: Some 400,000 New Yorkers left the city during the pandemic, according to Deutsche Welle figures, and many Paris and London residents have done the same.

The need to develop sustainable sources of income in Colombia has taken on a new urgency since the government’s 2016 peace accord with the guerrilla movement known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. If peace has made the country more attractive to international visitors, it has also complicated the chances of survival for some of Colombia’s rarest birds. A half-century of violence uprooted millions of rural Colombians and converted large swathes of the country’s interior into no-go zones. Now, the end of fighting has set off a race to recolonise and exploit rural districts, including protected areas.