Animals-and-Pets
African Birdlife
Sightings in the Subregion
Mid-November 2021 to mid-January 2022 -Summer delivered some top-shelf birds and fortunately a number of the best ones stayed sufficiently long to be twitchable for many birders throughout the region.
5 min |
March/April 2022
African Birdlife
Spread-eagled
Brown Snake Eagle’s epic tussle
4 min |
March/April 2022
African Birdlife
On track
The Bar-tailed Godwit is re-nowned for having one of the most extreme migrations, flying non-stop from Alaska to winter in New Zealand.
2 min |
March/April 2022
African Birdlife
Spectacular!
The recovery of the Spectacled Petrel population
7 min |
March/April 2022
African Birdlife
Field of Dreams
Harriers quartering the Devon grasslands
9 min |
March/April 2022
African Birdlife
Strike Force
Gannets are supremely adapted for plunge-diving. They lack external nostrils and have air sacs under their skin to cushion the impact of striking the water.
4 min |
March/April 2022
African Birdlife
The Eyes Have It
Iris coloration in birds (particularly passerines) is a topic that has intrigued me ever since I started observing the behaviour of different starling species.
7 min |
March/April 2022
African Birdlife
The Young & the Restless Peregrine Falcons
It is 04h30 and I am woken from fitful sleep by a clamour of screeching, seemingly right next to my head. It takes a second for me to orientate myself and process what is happening. I am sleeping on a lumpy fold-out chair on the fifth floor of the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in Rondebosch, Cape Town, and I realise that about a metre above my head is one of the breeding boxes for the hospital’s well known Peregrine Falcons. The juveniles are up early and in a demanding mood.
5 min |
March/April 2022
African Birdlife
With This Ring... The Birding Ties That Bind
Most tales that involve a convoluted plot with unlikely twists and turns and a contrived ending are usually found in a Jane Harper novel or an M. Night Shyamalan movie, but this one is real and involves two Russian Western Ospreys.
6 min |
March/April 2022
African Birdlife
Tern Around
"The Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve, established in 1939, forms a key component of the Table Mountain National Park."
3 min |
January/February 2022
African Birdlife
Free for All
"In august 2020 the results of the critical vulture nesting survey held annually in Zululand, northern KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), were sobering."
3 min |
January/February 2022
African Birdlife
Clear and Present Dangers
"Like many seabirds, Cape Gan-nets breed only on offshore is-lands, where they are safe from terrestrial predators."
4 min |
January/February 2022
African Birdlife
Throwing shade
The challenges of photographing in a forest
6 min |
January/February 2022
African Birdlife
Twitter FEED
August sees the greatest flurry of birds at our feeders.
3 min |
January/February 2022
African Birdlife
Urban Perils - House Sparrows on the decline
Supertramps are species that have spread around the world in association with humans and they include rats, house mice and a host of weedy plant species.
5 min |
January/February 2022
African Birdlife
TOXIC OVERLOAD You are what you eat
Many marine organisms ingest plastic litter at sea, either directly through indiscriminate foraging behavior or indirectly through contaminated prey.
4 min |
January/February 2022
African Birdlife
Sharp shooting
Canon’s RF 100–500mm zoom lens
5 min |
January/February 2022
African Birdlife
SHAPE-SHIFTING Birds responding to heat stress
Museum collections have always been an essential re-source for ornithological research.
2 min |
January/February 2022
African Birdlife
Far & wild
Road-tripping in Namibia
10 min |
January/February 2022
African Birdlife
Ringing IN THE Changes
Sandwich Terns in South Africa
8 min |
January/February 2022
African Birdlife
Kicking off
In October last year we were fortunate to pay our fifth visit to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.
3 min |
January/February 2022
African Birdlife
Time out
VIEW FROM A HIDE
10 min |
November/December 2021
African Birdlife
It's complicated
PROS AND CONS OF FEEDING VULTURES
5 min |
November/December 2021
African Birdlife
GET EVEN closer
Celestron NexYZ Smartphone Adapter
3 min |
November/December 2021
African Birdlife
THE dark side
Do dark upperwings improve flight performance?
2 min |
November/December 2021
African Birdlife
Stay OR go?
Migration as an evolutionary driver
10+ min |
November/December 2021
African Birdlife
Green & gold
Birds of the oases and desert in Chad
6 min |
November/December 2021
African Birdlife
Resetting THE system
The FitzPatrick Institute’s mandate is to conduct cutting-edge research while educating the next generation of ornithological researchers and conservation leaders.
4 min |
November/December 2021
African Birdlife
Coastal REFLECTIONS
CLOSE TO where I live on the Cape Peninsula, a broad white beach sweeps south to meet the mouth of a small river. The outlet greets the sea at the base of a mussel-encrusted, rocky point, while the back of the beach sometimes features an expansive tidal lagoon, a combination of elements that creates a haven for coastal wildlife.
3 min |
November/December 2021
African Birdlife
By any other name...
Bird names are a perennial hot topic. Why do they keep changing? Who decides, and how? And no, it’s not a ruse by the authors of bird books so that they can keep on producing ‘updated’ editions!
5 min |