Southern SIGHTINGS

MID-JANUARY TO MID-MARCH 2025

- TREVOR HARDAKER

The late summer period continued to provide some fantastic birds across southern Africa and many top-drawer rarities were reported. As always, none of the records included here have been adjudicated by any of the subregion's Rarities Committees.

HEADLINE NEWS

Leading the way for the best record of the review period was southern Africa's sixth Crested Honey Buzzard, seen near Ixopo in KwaZulu-Natal. Unfortunately, it was a once-off sighting and the bird could not be located again. This species has only fairly recently made an appearance in the subregion, the first record coming from Somerset West in January 2021. This was followed by sightings in the Belmont Valley near Makhanda in March 2022, over Witfontein Forest above George in June 2022, in Pilanesberg National Park in December 2023 and at Bonamanzi Game Reserve in March 2024.

Also creating some local excitement was southern Africa's 11th Lesser Yellowlegs, which spent a few days at Bird Paradise bird sanctuary in Walvis Bay. The subregion's first record came from Harare (December 1979), followed by two at the Berg River estuary in Velddrif (August 1983 and December 1999), the Sappi wetlands at Stanger (December 2008), Moremi Game Reserve in Botswana (April 2009), Woodbourne Pan in Knysna (November 2010), Rundu Sewage Works in Namibia (August 2011), two at Geelbek in the West Coast National Park (February 2018 and November 2024) and Mkhombo Dam, Mpumalanga (January 2025).