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WONDERFUL WEAVERS There are many different Weavers in the world and as far as I can tell they share the skill of masterful nest building… unlike the shabby unstable creations of, say, Mourning Doves. By the way, I’ve tried to ID everyone appropriately but if you have any corrections please say so in the comments. [...]

The family Picathartidae consists of two very unusual birds; White-necked or Yellow-headed Picathartes, endemic to the Upper Guinea forests of West Africa; and Gray-necked or Red-headed, restricted to Lower Guinea forests of Central Africa. Their strange appearance and habit of communally nesting in rock overhangs and caves has given them their alternative name of rockfowl, [...]

Paging through a fieldguide, it’s always with a sense of dismay and sadness that I come across reference to an extinct species. This is particularly poignant if the bird has disappeared during the course of my birding days or “on my watch” as I like to think of it. Islands, for various reasons, experience more [...]

I don’t think I’ve ever done a post on my home patch of Cape Town, South Africa. This place is such an epic birding location that one cannot possibly do the city and its surrounds justice in one post. So I’m going to feature one of my very favorite locations, just 45 minutes drive from [...]

We humans have a very deep and powerful urge to assemble individual data points into some sort of larger construct — to label and categorize them and understand how they relate to other things we know. Which is why, upon meeting new people, we want to know where they’re from, who their family is, what [...]

Tanzania is without a doubt the quintessential African safari nation. Nowhere else in Africa do the preconceived ideas of the continent really exist in such living detail; tall, red-robed Maasai herding their skinny cattle, endless grasslands studded with flat-topped Acacia trees and grazed by herds of zebras and wildebeest, and dramatic volcanic calderas brimming with [...]

Friends, birders, and globe-trotters, lend me your ears. Better yet, offer up your eyeballs because we have a powerhouse post here that deserves, nay demands your full attention. Adam Riley, owner and managing director of Rockjumper Birding Tours, is a world birder if ever there was one, but has a special place in his heart for [...]