You are browsing the archives of 2006 September.

Harris’ Hawk
Yesterday, the Core Team met up with our friend, Frank and his own growing posse for some hawkwatch excitement. We convened at the Quaker Ridge Hawk Watch at the Audubon Center in Greenwich, Connecticut. The Audubon Center in Greenwich is sensational, a wild space as well managed (and richly endowed) as one could want. [...]

An almanac is an annual publication presenting a calendar for the coming year, one concerned less with Hallmark holidays and alternate side of the street parking regulations than with the cyclical occurrence of natural phenomena. Almanacs track tide tables, moon phases, sunrises and sunsets, and meteorological and astronomical activity of every kind. Studying the influence [...]

The Outdoor Industry Foundation 2006 Outdoor Recreation Participation Study was released in August, but I didn’t know about this study until Mike McDowell blogged about it. This is a very interesting, though disturbing report, especially where it describes U.S. participation in bird watching.
The OIF’s main determination is that participation in bird watching is on the [...]

American Redstart
What goes up must come down. That’s the promise September in New York always keeps. I’ve been knocked out for the past few days by a particularly malevolent cold which really put a cramp in my birding style. But there is no rest for the weary when one is a parent. In my daily [...]

The Tanqua Karoo: Karooport and the R355 towards Calvinia (South Africa)
07 September 2006

(This report was previously posted on Charlie’s Bird Blog)
 

 
What a fantastic day - and what a long one too! I woke up in a very dark room at about 02:30, spent an hour trying to remember which country I was in (South Africa), [...]

Grey-backed Cisticola Cisticola subruficapilla
Karoo, Cape Province, South Africa. September 2006
 
The Grey-backed Cisticola is a SW African endemic, associated with lowland fynbos, karoo scrub, and arid hillsides - typically in drier habitats than the closely related Wailing Cisticola.

These birds were part of a family group photographed moving through acacia bushes alongside a dry stream [...]

Take a look at this bird:

Now look at this one:

And finally, this one:

Which of these birds, if any, are Mallards? Answers will be forthcoming, but for now, I can tell you that they are all members of the mallard complex, a roster of about 20 closely-related Anas-species ducks around the world.
Everyone knows what a male [...]

Cape Spurfowl Pternistis capensis
Kirstenbosch Botanic Gardens, Cape Town
07 September 2006
 
The Cape Spurfowl* is confined to the southern Cape coastal belt area from the Orange River in the north, to Port Elizabeth in the east, extending inland to the southern fringes of the Little Karoo. The largest populations are in the fynbos areas between Gordon’s Bay [...]

Boulders Beach African Penguin Colony Simon’s Town, Cape Peninsula, South Africa
05 September 2006
 

 
There are so many excellent sites in the south-west Cape that choosing where to go when you’re a touch more tired than you want to admit is not as easy as you’d think. Within an easy hour’s drive from where we stay in [...]

Kirstenbosch Botanic Gardens, Cape Town
07 September 2006
 
After my exertions of yesterday in the Karoo, I was in two minds whether to go out again - but, what the heck, I’m not likely to be back here again for a while and there were still a couple of very easily seen endemics I hadn’t caught up [...]