Drakensberg Mountains Trip 20th to 27th April 2012

It was time to spend a week away and a trip to the mountains was long overdue, here are a few of the 600+ photos that I took during the week.

What a view!! Imagine waking up to this everyday?

the best form of rodent control you could wish to have. Spotted Eagle Owl. Why do people still use poisons?

Bird of the Year

African Fish Eagle. Just love this photo for its artistic value

Greater Double Collared Sunbird. The colours are just amazing

Although common the Egyptian Goose is still an attractive bird

Burchells Zebra. Two families would visit on a daily basis

Bird Ringing 8th April

What a great morning for ringing and the first bird out of the nets was a special bird, yes the winter migrants are arriving. The Spotted Ground Thrush migrates to KwaZulu Natal from the Cape for winter.



immature Spotted Ground Thrush

There was also a host of other great birds that were caught including Redcapped (Natal) RobinChat, Olive Sunbird, Yellowrumped Tinkerbird



young female Cape Batis

The Cape Batis can be differentiated from the similar Chinspot Batis by its rufous colouring on the flanks. The female aso has a rufous patch on the chin whereas the male has a black patch.



male African (Bluebilled) Firefinch

This male African Firefinch despite being common in our are still got great comments from everyone due to his brilliant colour. Another great bird was that was caught was the Grey Sunbird which only occurs in a thin strip down the east coast of South Africa.



Grey Sunbird

Crowned Eagle's having fun

What a morning when this pair of Crowned Eagles were flying overhead, the vervet Monkeys hid very low down just in case the Eagles were hungry. they fif not have to worry as the Crowned Eagles were only having fun. I was able to get a few pictures of the birds flying overhead but as most people will tell you it is far from easy to get decent pictures of a bird in flight.

Pair of Crowned Eagles flying overhead



Hit the Air Brakes

Immagine the power in that leg and Talon

Bird Ringing at Umzumbe Floodplain 11.03.2012

What a great few hours of ringing before the wind got too strong and almost blew over a net, a good job we packed up then as just after we left it started to rain and 127mm of rain came down in the next 10 hours.
Anyway the ringing was good with 43 birds being ringed and 4 recaptures, 2 of which were Great Reed Warblers that I ringed in January 2012 and the other 2 were Yellow Weavers of which one was ringed as an adult female on 11th October 2003, this is now the longevity record for this species, just shows the importance of a constant ringing site.

Birds ringed included 7 juvenile African (Bluebilled) Firefinch's you can clearly see the nodules instead of the gape.

juvenile African Firefinch

A few Warblers were ringed including Great Reed and African Reed as well as 2 Dark-capped Yellow Warblers

young Dark-capped Yellow Warbler

Another special bird was a Redfaced Cisticola, only the second one that I have ringed so this was a very special bird indeed.

Redfaced Cisticola

Numerous other birds were caught and ringed but they are all very common at this spot and have been discussed in other posts

Orangebreasted Waxbill

While catching Barn Swallows at the Umzumbe Swallow Roost I was lucky to get this little stunner in the net. This male Orangebreasted Waxbill is such a stunner and he seems to know it. Looking at it you can understand why it is such a sought after aviary bird, but it is still better to see them in the wild where they belong.

Ringing Report

What a terrible day with the weather for ringing, although rain was forecast it only started once the nets were erected, gave me a short amount of time to catch a few birds then started to rain. The nets came down and the rain stopped, Never mind it was well worth the effort to catch 4 birds previously ringed at the same spot, these included a Yellowrumped Tinkerbird from just over 3 years ago.

Yellowrumped Tinkerbird

Greenbacked Camaroptera

Amongst the newly ringed birds were an adult and immature Redcapped Robin-chat

 

immature Redcapped Robin-chat

I also caught 4 young Olive Thrush, this is the maximum number of eggs recorded in one clutch, so the adults did well to raise all 4 of them.

immature Olive Thrush

Rare Birds caught at Umzumbe Barn Swallow Roost

This week has already given 1 major surprise at the Umzumbe Barn Swallow Roost, yesterday evening the first bird caught was not a swallow but a Quail, and Harlequin Quail at that. This is a KZN rarity so of course now the extra work of filling in all the forms required begins, luckily I have a few photo's as proof like the following two pictures.

male Harlequin Quail

Then the previous evening I caught a young Redheaded Quelea, although not a rarity it is regarded in most circles as a nonbreeding winter visitor to our coast, despite the fact that I often catch adults in full breeding plumage as well as immature and juvenile birds like this.

juvenile Redheaded Quelea