Samson has been interested in the natural world since childhood and, after completing his schooling, he worked for a while as a caretaker on a farm in the western Soutpansberg, Limpopo. There his employer, Mark Harman, noticed Samson’s interest in nature, and birds in particular, and gave him an old pair of binoculars and a field guide. In 2004 Mark nominated Samson to Sarah Venter, the then manager of the Soutpansberg– Limpopo Birding Routes, to join a beginner’s bird-identification course she was organising. The same year Samson was selected to attend a bird-guiding course presented by BirdLife South Africa at Wakkerstroom in Mpumalanga. The Ben de Boer Trust was also pivotal in helping Samson to hone his skills as a top bird guide further by inviting him to participate in various advanced birding and guiding courses, as well as by providing some logistical support to kick-start his guiding career. The rest is history.
Esta historia es de la edición May - June 2017 de African Birdlife.
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Esta historia es de la edición May - June 2017 de African Birdlife.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
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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.
