Bird of the Week – Week 114 – Hartlaub’s gull
The Hartlaub’s gull is a fairly small gull, with a length of approximately 36 cm. It is endemic to the west coast of South Africa and Namibia, and the islands that lie off that...
Category: Birding
Bird Ringing at NARREC
Last month we accompanied members of the Namibia Bird Club on a visit to NARREC (Namibia Animal Rehabilitation Research & Education Centre) close to Windhoek. This wonderful sanctuary, nestled in dense thornveld, cares for...
Bird of the Week – Week 113 – South African shelduck
The South African shelduck is a quite a large, goose-like member of the duck family, with a length of approximately 64 cm. The males are slightly bigger than the females and the sexes differ...
Courtship Routine of Hormone-driven Pin-tailed whydahs
We have found that many of the campsites in Namibia turn up something quite unexpected during a visit, and a weekend we spent at the game farm Melrose, just 30 km to the west...
Bird of the Week – Week 112 – Pin-tailed whydah
The Pin-tailed whydah is resident throughout most of Africa south of the Sahara and is quite widespread in southern Africa, absent only from most of Botswana and from the coastal desert of Namibia. Its...
Bird of the Week – Week 111 – Orange River white-eye
The common Afrikaans name for the Orange River white-eye is the “Gariep glasogie”, which translates as the “Gariep glass-eye”. (The Gariep was the original Nama name for the Orange River, a name which is...
The Bird of the Week – Week 110 – Cape crow
The Cape crow is widespread and fairly common throughout the southern African region; the only all black crow that is native to the region. The sexes of these crows are alike in both size...
Bird of the Week – Week 109 – Southern pale chanting goshawk
A very common sight along the quieter roads of Namibia, Botswana and more arid western parts of South Africa, is a slender, mostly grey raptor with a very upright stance perched on a telephone...
The Turtles and the Teal
I was walking slowly along the edge of the large dam at Namibgrens, trying to get close enough to take a photograph of a pair of Dusky sunbirds that were feeding nearby, when a...
Bird of the Week – Week 108 – Greater flamingo
As its name would suggest, the Greater flamingo is the largest of the flamingoes, with a length of around 150 cm. They are very distinctive birds and are unlikely to be confused with any...
Bird of the Week – Week 107 – Arrow-marked babbler
Arrow-marked babblers, like the other babblers in the region, are usually heard before they are seen. Noisy birds, they have a harsh chatter, a bubbling “na, na, na…” often uttered by many birds at...
The Breakfast Club
Over the years we’ve belonged to a number of interesting clubs that have contributed greatly to our interests and hobbies. Hiking clubs, birding and sports clubs and the like, but I think that the...
Bird of the Week – Week 106 – Green-winged pytilia
The Green-winged pytilia is a very attractive little finch with a length of about 13 cm. It is quite common throughout Africa south of the Sahara, although within the southern African region it is...
Bird of the Week – Week 105 – Common ostrich
The Common ostrich is not likely to be confused with any other bird in the southern African region. Weighing in at up to 130 kg and with a length of up to 2,7 m...
Bird of the Week – Week 104 – Mountain wheatear
Let’s concede that “Wheatear” is a strange name for a bird! Very odd. Apparently the name owes its derivation to neither wheat nor ears, but to the Old English words for “white rump”, or...
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