Birds make themselves heard above wind farm noise
Wind farms are rapidly becoming prominent features of landscapes around the world. This is good news for the environment, because each turbine represents one small step towards renewable energy replacing coal-fired power stations and other fossil-fuel technologies that contribute directly to global warming. But wind energy is not free of environmental impacts and it has long been known that the farms can pose a significant hazard to birds (and bats) flying in the vicinity of the turbines.
Wind farms erected before much was known about the dangers they pose have, in some cases, proved to be very bad news for birds. California’s now-infamous Altamont Pass wind farm killed several thousand birds a year, many of which were raptors. Even in South Africa, where the environmental impact assessment process for wind farms has been guided by lessons learnt at Altamont Pass and elsewhere, the past few years have seen mortalities involving several threatened species, including recent Cape Vulture deaths in the Eastern Cape.
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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.
