Risky Beachfront Property
Most of us would love to have a beachfront property. What beats a sea view, the sound of waves crashing at night, the smell of fresh sea air? It sounds idyllic! Well, if you are an African Black Oystercatcher or a White-fronted Plover, you get to live out your dreams… Prime beach real estate doesn’t come better than this, except that you have to share it with dogs and people. That sounds reasonable, but if you are an obsessive compulsive, neurotic conspiracy theorist, which most oystercatchers are, you have a problem.
Oystercatchers and plovers have evolved a very specific approach to breeding, relying on cryptic behaviour and camouflage to nest successfully on beaches. The birds’ natural predators while they are breeding there would include many furry, four-legged mammals, such as mongoose, genet, otter, jackal and caracal, and a few avian predators, for instance gulls, crows and ravens.
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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.
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The Walker Bay Diversity Trail is a leisurely hike with a multitude of flowers, feathers and flavours along the way.
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How photographing birds helps me face adversity
CAPE crusade
The Cape Bird Club/City of Cape Town Birding Big Year Challenge
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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.
