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And so, I went on the American Birding Association Safari to SouthAfrica. That was easily fixed by adding a post-Safari trip to Eastern SouthAfrica, led by dashing Rockjumper guide Clayton Burne, to my itinerary. The small group was a good counterpart to the large, convivial ABA Safari group of 98 birders.
Birdlife SouthAfrica has previously done two of these types of trips before, previously called Flock to Sea – Namibia in 2013 and Flock to Nowhere in 2017, in partnership with MSC Cruises. About half of all breeding Wandering Albatross nest on the Prince Edward Islands. Which makes it a haven for seabirds….and and seabirders.
Marabous have also learnt another trick, and that is to follow vultures and scavenge off the remains of Lion and other large predator kills. They have even been known to kill children who have been incautious enough to approach too closely. The Saddle-billed Stork has a similar Africa-wide distribution as the Marabou.
I grew up in one of the most beautiful cities in the world – Cape Town, SouthAfrica. In fact, there is no other region in Africa that offers such a fantastic level of endemism in such an accessible location. It is when they are breeding that African Penguins are at their most endearing.
Image by Adam Riley Of the 115 African species now listed as Endangered or Critically Endangered, nearly half occur on the islands surrounding Africa or are non-breeding migrants to Africa. In this blogpost I will discuss ten of the 60 endangered species that are resident on the African continent.
mi (almost exactly the same size as Indiana), it is one of the smaller provinces of SouthAfrica, but is the second most densely populated with over 10 million inhabitants. They discovered Gurney’s Sugarbird during their time in SouthAfrica. I live in a city called Pietermaritzburg, the capital of KwaZulu-Natal province.
The Cherokee nation called them “Peace Eagles” owing to the fact that they never killed a living thing – and also that they tended to show up in numbers after battled when peace treaties were being signed, though admittedly that may have been for a slightly more macabre reason. White-backed Vultures, photo by Adam Riley.
So, it sometimes comes to SouthAfrica to relax and enjoy relative anonymity. Others are being killed for use in traditional medicine. Let’s hope it can find some relatively unfragmented habitat for breeding – studies show that the failure rate of nests is much higher in fragmented habitats.
While the species is listed as Least Concern, there are some papers suggesting it may not be as common as assumed, at least in SouthAfrica. The helper birds play an important role in the survival of the chicks as well as assisting in excavating a suitable cavity for the breeding pair. This was an unpleasant surprise for a Ph.D.
The bulk of my lifers were on a trip to India in October/November but all the birds were surpassed by watching and photographing a Snow Leopard hunting and killing a Blue Sheep , so none of them are real contenders for BBOTY. The bird in question is one of the world’s most beautiful, rarest and least known seabirds, Barau’s Petrel.
The Lilac-breasted Roller is the national bird of Kenya, but of course, this does not help it pay its bills in SouthAfrica. These hornbills have the well-tried breeding strategy of enclosing the female in a tree hole. .” The Latin species name caudatus does not really mean much – just that it has a tail.
What the Owl Knows is organized into nine chapters: introduction, adaptation (including vision and flight), research and researchers, vocalization, courtship and breeding, roosting and migration, cognition, and two chapters on owls and humans–captive owls (not zoos, educational owls) and owls in our cultural history.
Penguins are also bellweathers of climate change; dwellers of remote areas you’ve (probably) never heard of; creatures who have developed unique, innovative ways of adapting to the harsh environments where they breed and rear chicks and the water environments in which they feed and swim.
Hopefully, the winter time in Shanghai gives the Black-faced Buntings some time to relax from the challenges of the breeding season. As it is critically endangered (there are only about 100 left), I think it can be forgiven for killing the occasional Pale Thrush (which is listed as Least Concern).
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