You are browsing the archives of South Africa.

“There is, perhaps, no better place in the world for birds than this country. Even in the tropics there are few birds that excel some of our own in elegance and beauty of plumage and we have an unusually large number of species considering the smallness of the area they inhabit.” (Woodward brothers, “Natal Birds”, [...]

My home country of South Africa can only be described as a birding paradise! Although in raw numbers (843 species recorded to date) it doesn’t compete with tropical countries to the north or on other continents (especially South America), South Africa makes up for this in several ways: • the highest number of endemics on [...]

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 [...]

I must be home-sick because last weekend I found myself browsing through my “SASOL Birds of Southern Africa”. This prompted me to compile a list of my Top 10 birds from home. Initially I came up with a list of 64 favorite birds, certainly not a Top 10, and no matter how hard I tried [...]

The Burhinidae family of Thick-knees (also known as Stone-curlews or Dikkops) consists of 9 species in 2 genera, Burhinus and Esacus. They are cryptically plumaged birds whose camouflage helps them to blend in with their often arid environments.  In southern Africa, there are two species. The Water Thick-knee’s, Burhinus vermiculatus, preference for moist areas may [...]

Last year I was fortunate enough to visit Ursula Franke of the South African Crane Working Group (SACWG) at the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT), who took me on a fantastic tour of Chrissiesmeer, a hugely important wetland site in Mpumalanga with some 270 lakes and pans located with­in a 20 km radius of the village. [...]

The Blue Crane Grus paradisea is truly a magnificent creature and worthy of being South Africa’s national bird.  It is also known as the Stanley Crane ,the Paradise Crane and some taxonomies consider its scientific name Anthropoides paradiseus.  Sadly, because of its small and declining population BirdLife International classifies the Blue Crane as Vulnerable. A dancing Blue [...]