A leaf warbler fly-by

Willow warbler as featured image

The leaf warblers form the only genus belonging to the family Phylloscopidae, introduced in 2006, prior to which it was placed in the Old World warbler family Sylviidae that has undergone much revision of the past couple of decades. The Phylloscopidae contains 81 species of tree-loving warblers that occur primarily in Eurasia and Africa, with one species making it as far east as Alaska.

8 different types of birds’ nests

Birds’ nests are so diverse. The tiniest birds can build the most intricately woven nests that are well concealed and camouflaged and yet the large raptors can just pile together a lot of twigs out in the open in a tree or rock ledge for all to see. The amount of skill and instinct that […]

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

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 […]

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 […]

Diederik cuckoo – observations and photos of mating rituals and nest intrusions

Diederik cuckoo, male

The unmistakeable, loud deed-deed-deed-deed-er-ick call of the diederik cuckoo, Chrysococcyx caprius, is a characteristic of the spring and summer landscape of southern Africa. The species is an intra-African migrant, tending to follow the rains, returning to southern Africa in September-October (mainly October, thought to be timed for the breeding season of its Ploceidae hosts). It […]

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