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When I visit Johannesburg, Gauteng (South Africa) one of the birds I most look forward to seeing is the Long-tailed Widowbird Euplectes progne, a member of the Bishop family. Sexually dimporphic, female widowbirds are all rather similar and tricky to separate (though Long-taileds are the largest widowbirds) and outside of the breeding season male Long-tailed [...]

I’m off to one of my favourite birding destinations tomorrow - South Africa. I’m only there for a couple of days before coming home, but I’m planning to rent a car as usual and go and have a look at some truly superb sites like Suikerbosrand, Marievale, the Zaagkuildift Road etc etc. I’ll also take [...]

A couple of days ago I posted a short trip report on a visit I made to one of my favourite spots on earth - Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve in South Africa. Writing the post reminded me of just how many birds I’ve seen at this one small site, and I thought I might put a [...]

Greater Striped Swallow Cecropis/Hirundo cucullata
Suikerbosrand, South Africa. May 2008
 
The Greater Striped Swallow Cecropis/Hirundo cucullata is a large swallow breeding in South Africa, Namibia and southern Zimbabwe. It is migratory wintering further north in Angola, Tanzania and southern Zaire. A bird of dry open country (such as the highveld grassland at Suikerbosrand where these photos were [...]

After a few hours birding on the morning of May 15th at the excellent Marievale Bird Sanctuary I headed over to one of my favourite places anywhere - the Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve. Just a thirty minute drive from Marievale, Suikerbosrand NR protects a superb area of the highveld sandwiched between farmland and townships, an undulating, [...]

I photographed this non-breeding plumaged cisticola on the circuit through the upper part of Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve, south of Johannesburg. It was giving a very high, thin whispery sub-song which consisted of various, different “tsee” notes both from the ground and on the grass stem it flew up to. It didn’t call in the air [...]

Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve, 11 January 2006.
 

Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve

 
After a few hours in the morning spent at the Ramsar-designated wetlands of Marievale, the rest of the day was spent driving slowly around Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve, a beautiful and peaceful 13000ha island of protected highveld grassland and thornveld just off the N3 - one of the [...]