Stierling’s wren-warbler in South Africa

Stierling's wren-warbler in Hoedspruit Wildlife Estate.

There is a loud, high-pitched, monotonous warbling sound that is heard throughout the bushveld in the Hoedspruit area in summer, particularly in areas with decent size trees. The Robert’s app describes the sound as a piercing biririt, biririt, biririt, biririt. It can be hard to locate the bird as it is small and typically calls from up in the tree. This is the call of the Stierling’s wren-warbler

How does the diederik cuckoo ‘know’ what colour egg to lay

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How does the diederik cuckoo ‘know’ what colour egg to lay? It is summer now, and the “die die diederik” call of the onomatopoeic diederik cuckoo is heard throughout the bushveld. These birds migrate from equatorial regions of Africa in spring, arriving in South Africa starting in October and peaking when the rains come. Their […]

Oxpeckers at Satara

Oxpeckers on a weekend at Satara, Kruger National Park On Saturday morning (Dec 4), I crawled out of bed at 3:30 to be early to Orpen Gate into the Kruger National Park to spend the night at Satara Camp. One of my goals was to get photos of birds that nest in tree cavities (hole […]

Out of the blocks with a bang…

We’re now 2 months into the year, with a pretty explosive start to the rarities scene. On Birding Big Day on 28 November last year, a team in KZN picked up a gull at St Lucia estuary, only reported 5 days later to the disappointment of local birders, who were unable to locate it again. […]

The Rules of Twitching!

Here in Southern Africa, the start of 2021 has been a special twitching season. Over this period a host of good rarities have showed up in many parts of the country, most notably the Cape, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu- Natal. This was the case even before the arrival of Tropical Cyclone Elouise – which added […]

Birding the Wildest Islands of the Caribbean

Almost invisible on a map of the world, the two tiny islands of Trinidad and Tobago are located at the southern end of the Caribbean, just off the northern coast of South America. Its proximity to mainland South America addresses its history; T&T was a part of South America until just about ten thousand years […]

The ruff – our non-binary migrant

Ruff at Marivale in October 2020, possibly a female (non-breeding)

I love ruffs. Part of the reason for this is that they arrive in Gauteng, South Africa from the northern hemisphere during the chill, dusty winds of August and provide the first sign that our winter is almost over. It is especially nice to see them soon after arrival, when some of the few males […]

Basic evolutionary biology for birders

The video contained in this page was a webinar on Learn-the-Birds in October, 2020. Birds have played a critically important role in the origin of the theory of evolution by natural selection, and continue to play a significant role in both our understanding of evolutionary biology and some of its core controversies that continue to […]

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