The demands of incubating eggs and feeding a brood of chicks results in most birds forming partnerships to breed. In most cases, these are simple male-female pairings, which explains why most birds are at least socially monogamous. By comparison, most mammals are polygynous, with one sex – usually the female – left to rear the offspring alone. But some birds take group living a step further, involving more than two birds in raising the offspring. Such species are termed cooperative breeders and the phenomenon is particularly common among birds breeding in southern Africa and Australia.
Living in groups brings its own challenges, including the need to develop and maintain social bonds. It has long been argued that social interactions are a key driver of the evolution of ‘intelligence’. Correlative studies suggest that social birds and mammals have better cognitive abilities and increased brain capacity compared to solitary species and experimental studies show that brain structure is related to group size in captive monkeys and even fish, but only recently has this been demonstrated in free-living animals.
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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.
