Animals-and-Pets
African Birdlife
Altogether Now!
Living in groups makes you clever
3 min |
July/August 2021
African Birdlife
Hidden Pleasure
Birding the Baviaanskloof
8 min |
July/August 2021
African Birdlife
Birds To Watch
American Cliff Swallow
3 min |
July/August 2021
African Birdlife
Home & Away
COVID-19 WREAKED havoc worldwide and no more so than in the travel industry, where I make my living.
2 min |
July/August 2021
African Birdlife
Ice And Memory
Peregrine Falcon migration
2 min |
July/August 2021
African Birdlife
rara avis
It’s a blustery day at Rondevlei outside Cape Town and a few hardy bird club members have come for the monthly bird outing. Peter Steyn has been birding since before the reserve was founded in 1952, yet he still returns and is as enthusiastic about seeing a Little Bittern skid across the water in front of us as the woman next to me, for whom it is a lifer. Later, as I register an African Spoonbill on my atlas checklist, Peter and I discuss his 1957 record of the first breeding colony of spoonbills in the Western Cape.
6 min |
July/August 2021
African Birdlife
Home Invader
Diederik Cuckoo
6 min |
May/June 2021
African Birdlife
Jackpot Birding
Observing Striped Crakes
4 min |
May/June 2021
African Birdlife
Mixed Messages
Deciphering South Africa’s first Crested Honey Buzzard
6 min |
May/June 2021
African Birdlife
It's A Calling
Warwick Tarboton is a true naturalist and respected as one of the country’s foremost natural history authors and bird photographers. There is little doubt that he has influenced many people to take their interest in birds in particular to the next level.
9 min |
May/June 2021
African Birdlife
The Birds And The Beast
Addo’s bird/mammal associations
6 min |
May/June 2021
African Birdlife
Sightings In The Subregion: Mid-January To Mid-March 2021
After a midsummer that was so busy with rarities, one might have thought that things would calm down somewhat, but the later part of the season continued to deliver a dazzling list of mouthwatering records. Twitchers were kept fully entertained and on their toes!
8 min |
May/June 2021
African Birdlife
Juvenile African Cuckoo Diet
Juvenile African Cuckoo Diet
2 min |
May/June 2021
African Birdlife
Redefining Plett Rage
The call I received from my friend Alastair at 06h00 on a Friday at the start of our year-end holiday was inevitable during the advancing second wave of Covid-19 cases, but it was one I had hoped to avoid. His entire family had just tested positive for the virus and we had just given his son, Alec, a lift from Cape Town to Plettenberg Bay to join us for a few days of holiday. Alec qualified uncomfortably as a close contact, having spent eight hours in the car with us and then slept in the same dorm room as all my kids for two nights.
6 min |
May/June 2021
African Birdlife
A Wahlberg's Summer
Wahlberg’s Eagles have always been close to my heart and when the opportunity arose to photograph a breeding pair at the nest, I grabbed it with both hands. It all started when Marius, my future son-in-law, told me early in 2019 about an eagle’s nest in a thorn tree near the Sand River on the farm where he lives in Limpopo. He sent me a photograph of the two eagles at the nest and I immediately recognised them as a pair of Wahlberg’s. To add to my excitement, one of them was a pale morph.
7 min |
May/June 2021
African Birdlife
action stations
Natural fish traps in the Okavango
5 min |
May/June 2021
African Birdlife
What's In A Name?
Introducing the Blue-billed Teal and Fynbos Buttonquail
5 min |
March/April 2021
African Birdlife
The Place Of Wonder
Birding in iSimangaliso Wetland Park and St Lucia
8 min |
March/April 2021
African Birdlife
The Magic Beaks Of Stone Birds
Discovering an ancient avian superpower
4 min |
March/April 2021
African Birdlife
Madagascar What's So Special?
A typical person knows nothing about Madagascar beyond an awareness of the animated movies of that name and a resulting conviction that the country gives refuge to penguins. Africans do slightly better.
9 min |
March/April 2021
African Birdlife
Hidden Treasure Verreaux's Eagle-Owl
Despite being the largest owl species in the region and sporting characteristic bright pink eyelids, Verreaux’s Eagle-Owls Bubo lacteus can be surprisingly difficult to find in the wild. It was a colleague of mine, Callum Evans, who first pointed out an eagle-owl nest to me on 1 August 2020 in Mawana Game Reserve in northern KwaZulu-Natal. I had seen an adult and a sub-adult in the vicinity a few days before and had thought there might be a nest somewhere, but I hadn’t been able to locate it.
5 min |
March/April 2021
African Birdlife
true reflection
Canon’s R6 and R5 camera bodies
10+ min |
March/April 2021
African Birdlife
FORCE of nature
During the past five or so years, Cape-based photographer Peter Chadwick has focused his conservation work on supporting counter-poaching efforts, developing conservation and re-introduction strategies for high-risk and endangered species and cultivating marine and terrestrial conservation teams. While doing this work throughout the African continent and the Western Indian Ocean, Peter has used his conservation photojournalism to raise awareness and garner support for the various causes he works on. A multiaward-winning cameraman, he is a Senior Fellow and Executive Member of the International League of Conservation Photographers.
7 min |
March/April 2021
African Birdlife
coral frenzy
Coral trees (Erythrina species) are found in tropical and subtropical areas around the world, including in southern Africa where nine species occur.
5 min |
March/April 2021
African Birdlife
proudly SOUTH AFRICAN
Founded in February 2020, the South Africa Listers’ Club is a community of birders who have recorded 300 or more species within the borders of South Africa. As a protector of the country’s birds, BirdLife South Africa is enthusiastic about encouraging a #ProudlySouthAfrican approach to birding.
2 min |
March/April 2021
African Birdlife
close quarters
Accipiters and Cape Buzzards breeding on the Cape Peninsula
8 min |
March/April 2021
African Birdlife
Where Kalahari Meets Congo
For many people, the far north-west of Zambia is both the source of the mighty Zambezi and the ‘land of pineapples’. For the country’s own naturalists this region is important for tens of other reasons – reasons that give them goosebumps and set them drooling. The districts of Mwinilunga and Ikelenge, for example, were known to be incredibly biodiverse, yet for years were barely visited on account of their extreme remoteness. A recent renaissance in exploration is confirming that there is still much to be discovered about the wealth of this little-known paradise.
7 min |
January - February 2021
African Birdlife
Do Not Disturb
The stealth factor in photographing birds
4 min |
January - February 2021
African Birdlife
Sex & The Single Plover
Life on earth managed without sex for more than two billion years, but it was only after sex evolved some 1.2 billion years ago that we saw the rapid diversification of life forms.
7 min |
January - February 2021
African Birdlife
A Finger On The Pulse Of Penguins
Marine ecosystems are highly dynamic and frequently experience changes resulting from natural and human-induced processes. Some of the most productive ones are the four upwelling systems situated at the eastern edges of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
4 min |