Out on the broken plains of Bushmanland, the winding milk-chocolate flow of the Orange (or Gariep) River suddenly splits, narrows and accelerates. The main channel compresses millions of litres per second of turbid water into a torrent that surges through a smoothed bottleneck and roars out into a vast, dimly lit chasm. The water’s angry voice and the vapour born of its expressed energy fill the echoing cathedral it has spent millions of years carving from hard-baked rock. In a landscape of austerity and heat, the waterfall is an endless celebration of the vitality of the river, while the deep devastation of the gorge below is a monument to its enduring power.
Augrabies Falls National Park is located in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa and is naturally focused on its eponymous waterfall and the subsequent course of the Orange River. The park also extends to include a significant area of rugged terrain and mainly stunted succulent vegetation that sustains a modest diversity of dry-country fauna and flora. The landscape surrounding the river is flattish but undulating and complex, beset with exposed geology and dark, craggy rock formations, topped by ancient quiver trees frozen in angular poses.
The birdlife, while not prolific, features a surprisingly rich mix of Kalahari, Karoo, riparian woodland and wetland species, so that in a morning spent driving the sparse network of roads or wandering around the camp and its surrounds the diligent birder can easily compile a list of 40 to 50 species, ranging from Golden-tailed Woodpecker and Crested Barbet to Karoo Long-billed Lark and Cinnamon-breasted Warbler, Orange River White-eye and Namaqua Warbler, Rosy-faced Lovebird and Pygmy Falcon, and African Black Duck and Little Bittern. But for me these habitats and species are just curtain-raisers for the main event – the awesome spectacle of the gorge and the special birds that live in it.
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Esta historia es de la edición March - April 2020 de African Birdlife.
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EXPLORING NEW HORIZONS
Keith Barnes, co-author of the new Field Guide to Birds of Greater Southern Africa, chats about the long-neglected birding regions just north of the Kunene and Zambezi, getting back to watching birds and the vulture that changed his life.
footloose IN FYNBOS
The Walker Bay Diversity Trail is a leisurely hike with a multitude of flowers, feathers and flavours along the way.
Living forwards
How photographing birds helps me face adversity
CAPE crusade
The Cape Bird Club/City of Cape Town Birding Big Year Challenge
water & WINGS
WATER IS LIFE. As wildlife photographer Greg du Toit knows better than most.
winter wanderer
as summer becomes a memory in the south, the skies are a little quieter as the migrants have returned to the warming north. But one bird endemic to the southern African region takes its own little winter journey.
when perfect isn't enough
Egg signatures and forgeries in the cuckoo-drongo arms race
Southern SIGHTINGS
The late summer period naturally started quietening down after the midsummer excitement, but there were still some classy rarities on offer for birders all over the subregion. As always, none of the records included here have been adjudicated by any of the subregion's Rarities Committees.
flood impact on wetland birds
One of the features of a warming planet is increasingly erratic rainfall; years of drought followed by devastating floods. Fortunately, many waterbirds are pre-adapted to cope with such extremes, especially in southern Africa where they have evolved to exploit episodic rainfall events in semi-arid and arid regions. But how do waterbirds respond to floods in areas where rainfall - and access to water - is more predictable? Peter Ryan explores the consequences of recent floods on the birds of the Western Cape's Olifants River valley.
a star is born
It’s every producer’s dream to plan a wildlife television series and pick the right characters before filming.
