Southern Black Korhaan Eupodotis afra
West Coast National Park, western Cape, South Africa

I have a genuine soft spot for korhaans, those typically shy ‘mini-bustards’ that usually occur in small family parties in secluded areas of grassland or semi-desert. For a start you have to make a real effort to see them - you won’t find them in gardens or city parks; and when you do manage to find them they are truly beautiful, with complex plumages and remarkably broad wings that transform them when they fly from relatively slight into far heavier-looking birds.

Langebaan Lagoon and strandveld from the R27

One of the most range-restricted koorhaans in Africa, the Southern Black Korhaan Eupodotis afra is found only the extreme south of South Africa, in coastal fynbos, strandveld, and karoo scrub. Split from the very similar Northern Black Korhaan E. afroides principally on the basis of its all-dark flight feathers (the Northern has white inner-webs to its primaries [see last photo]), these gorgeous birds are relatively easy to see from the R27 or in the West Coast National Park on the western Cape (particularly in Oct- Dec - the southern hemisphere’s spring - when they display and call more often).

There is marked sexual dimporhism in most species, with the females being particularly cryptically coloured to camouflage them when brooding, as can be seen in the photographs below (all of which - except the Northen Black Korhaan - were taken on the same day in May 2008).

Male Southern Black Korhaans

 

Female Southern Black Korhaans

 

Southern Black Korhaan

Male Northern Black Korhaan, Gauteng, October: note striking white webs of the primaries.

All photos copyright Charlie Moores.

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