There, between the ominous storm clouds and furious white horses racing across the Southern Ocean, glided a gigantic male Wandering Albatross. Without a single wing beat, he dipped in and out of the waves, navigating the angry storm with an unstudied calmness until he effortlessly overtook the ship and disappeared into the distance. The short encounter was surreal – the beautiful and graceful creature seemed out of place in such a turbulent environment, but of course this is the natural habitat of the albatross and so many other seabirds.
On Christmas Day 2020, I set sail for Antarctica on the SA Agulhas II. I had been invited by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment to participate in the voyage as a seabird biologist from BirdLife South Africa. I had been tasked with assisting Makhudu Masotla, a seabird scientist from the department, with the annual at-sea seabird ship-based observations and Emperor Penguin and Snow Petrel colony counts. Having dedicated much of my adult life to seabird research, I cannot explain the excitement I felt at visiting seabird colonies in the most pristine yet extreme environment in the world. Although constantly stoking my passion to contribute to seabird conservation and science, the human impacts on our nation’s seabird breeding colonies are evident and concerning. The footprint left behind from human activities is vast and ranges from starving African Penguins washing up on our coastline to albatross chicks being nibbled to death by house mice on Marion Island. A trip to Antarctica promised not only adventure, but a chance to see seabirds in an environment largely untouched by mankind.
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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.
