My son is now bored with looking for birds and has started drawing pictures of Yoda from his Star Wars book. Clearly it’s time to take a break for lunch. We drive back into the old town where I discover a previously unseen takeaway café, just off the main road. There are two ladies inside: a bubbly, freckled blonde serving at the counter and, behind her, a quietly dignified woman running the kitchen. We mull over the menu and my son says he would like a cheeseburger. The blonde asks, ‘Have you guys tried the Dagwood?’ I tell her we haven’t and she says, ‘You’ve got to have the Dagwood. It’s what’s happening in Devon, baby!’
Not wanting to buck the trend, we take her advice.
A heady aroma of vinegar and griddle-fried meat permeates the Land Rover as we close the doors and head south into the grasslands. I turn left at the Wolwebank sign and pull off the road. The camera comes out of its bag on the back seat and onto my lap. The search continues.
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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.
