During a visit to the Mata Mata camp site in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park we observed a pair of Fork-tailed Drongos feeding an African Cuckoo fledgling. The drongo is the only known host of the African Cuckoo and we were interested to record the prey items fed to the young bird.
Unlike the parasitic cuckoo, drongos aren’t specialist caterpillar feeders, so African Cuckoo offspring have to deal with the dominant prey that drongos are able to catch and deemed (by the drongos) to be the most suitable for their own offspring. African Cuckoo chicks are nest-evictors after hatching, they physically remove whatever host nestlings and eggs are already in the nest. This leaves the parasite nestling free to grow at its own pace and to feed on all the prey items delivered by the hosts without competition from other nestlings.
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Esta historia es de la edición May/June 2021 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.
