Winter Birding in South Africa

Aug 23

Glen Valentine recently returned from Rockjumper’s very popular winter South Africa tour – and what an immensely successful tour it proved to be! The trip scored an impressive 436 species of birds and 59 mammals! These tallies included an array of wonderful creatures (many of which are endemic to South...

Bald Ibis

Aug 15

The world’s 28 Ibis species form the bulk of the family Threskiornithidae (Ibises and Spoonbills), and comprise an interesting group of long-legged, long-beaked, wetland, grassland and forest species. Some are on the brink of extinction (for example Crested, Sao Tome and Giant Ibis), yet others have taken to the modified human world...

Africa’s Barbets

Jul 25

Barbets are a group of medium sized, chunky, generally colorful, frugivorous, hole-nesting near-passerines, that are popular targets for anyone birding in the tropics. They occur in three biogeographic regions: the Neotropic, Afrotropic and Indo-Malaya ecozones, basically tropical South and Central America, Africa – south of the Sahara and tropical Asia....

The Russian Far East – exploration of a new frontier

Jul 10

(This article first appeared on focusingonwildlife.com) It has been said that our generation lives at the optimal time of the world’s history for birding and wildlife watching. Although vast parts of our natural heritage have been destroyed over the recent few centuries (sadly most rapidly during the last few decades),...

A brief history of KwaZulu-Natal birding

Jun 21

(This blog first appeared in 10000birds.com) “There is, perhaps, no better place in the world for birds than this country. Even in the tropics there are few birds that excel some of our own in elegance and beauty of plumage and we have an unusually large number of species considering the...