Northern Kruger. The name alone is enough to make many birders get that faraway look in their eyes. But what lies north of the north? If you were to cross the mighty Limpopo River you may come across one of its tributaries, the Bubye. This seasonal watercourse separates the provinces of Masvingo and Matabeleland South in South Africa's neighbour, Zimbabwe. Carry on up the Bubye and your path would take you under the road that runs from the Beit Bridge border post to the capital city of Harare. Here, the once-grand Lion & Elephant Hotel still stands. West of this, in the upper reaches of Zimbabwe's lowveld, is the largely pristine wilderness of the Bubye Valley Conservancy.
For the two years between 2017 and 2019 this was my office: a lowveld oasis of 340 000 hectares in southern Zimbabwe where I worked as a wildlife researcher. For a young birder from the Eastern Cape, it was a paradise of diversity I was unaccustomed to, in terms of both novelty and breadth. The unfamiliar soon became familiar: dawn choruses led stridently by Crested Francolins and Swainson’s Spurfowl, the local Whitebrowed Robin-chat delivering pitch- perfect mimicry of its neighbours…
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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.
