A male Mauritius Kestrel with a brightly coloured day-gecko, its primary prey.
Once the world's rarest bird of prey, the Mauritius Kestrel was named the national bird of the Republic of Mauritius on 12 March 2022, the country's 30th anniversary as a republic and 54th as an independent nation. Mauritius was once home to the flightless Dodo, perhaps the best-known icon of human-driven wildlife extinctions. The Mauritius Kestrel, by contrast, is a bird conservation success story in progress, having recovered from a low of just four known wild individuals in 1974 to about 350 today.
'Mauritius will become famous for preventing wildlife extinctions, not just for historical wildlife extinctions, said Vikash Tatayah, conservation director for the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation, which leads conservation efforts in Mauritius and called for the kestreľs designation as the national bird. “The Mauritius Kestrel is a symbol of our republic and it is a symbol of optimism and cooperation. Our work to save this species and many others is not yet done, but we know it is possible to do.'
Esta historia es de la edición May/June 2022 de African Birdlife.
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Esta historia es de la edición May/June 2022 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.
