Christmas Day 1987. The day my parents gave me Newman se Voëls van Suider-Afrika as a present. I was 11 years old. Every night I lay on my bed and paged through the different sections. Some birds would, for whatever reason, capture my imagination more than others and I dreamed of one day seeing them for myself. Much can be said about the quality of the plates back then, but somehow Newman made the birds come alive to me. Even now, looking through that old book, I can see the Maccoa Duck’s tail wiggle on page 90. He painted some of those plates without ever having seen the species himself, instead relying just on descriptions by other birders.
One of the birds that stood out for me was the African Broadbill Smithornis capensis. And why not; it was featured on page 275, with the Spotted Creeper and Angola (now African) Pitta! I took a pencil and made a small dot on the distribution map of where I lived in the Springbokvlakte in Limpopo – these species represented worlds far removed from where I grew up.
Denne historien er fra January/February 2023-utgaven av African Birdlife.
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Denne historien er fra January/February 2023-utgaven av African Birdlife.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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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.
