Spotted Eagle Owl - Take 2

I have blogged about the pair of Spotted Eagle Owl's that have been hanging around our place a couple of weeks ago. Since then I have seen them almost every day - including one afternoon when some heavy rain flushed them out in the middle of the day! Unfortunately for various reasons I have not been able to get a decent shot - in fact with winter here and the light gone by the time I get home from work I had pretty much given up much hope of getting a decent shot unless I managed to locate their roost. However as I arrived home today, with the sun already gone and light fading fast I spotted an owl flying onto our roof. I rushed in to grab my camera and managed this shot before the light was gone:



Its a little grainy and taken through some obstructing branches, but I was still super exceited to have finally got a shot of one of my favourite birds. Next step locate the roost ... which must be very close by :-)

Injisuthi - Part 3 (Jackal Buzzard)

I was slightly disappointed at not seeing many raptors at Injisuthi. One the first afternoon we had a brief glimpse of what looked like a Crowned Eagle circling in the mist - but the weather closed in and it was gone. The only other sighting we had was this Jackal Buzzard at Junction Pool as we were leaving:



Although common in mountainous areas Jackal Buzzards and striking and one of my favourite raptors - this one brought back many fond memory's of growing up in the Natal midlands were they were a common site perched on boulders and telephone poles. Unfortunately he did not stick around to long for photographs.

Injisuthi - Part 2 (Campsite Birds)

We had a wide variety of birds around the camp site, some of the ones i managed to get snaps of were the Cape Robin, Common Waxbill, Cape Rock Thrush, African Rock Chat, and the spectacular Red-Collared Widowbird:

Injisuthi - Part 1 (Sunbirds)

This is not exactly Johannesburg, but i thought I'd writeup a short post on a recent camping trip to Injisuthi in the northern KZN Drakensburg. This area forms part of the Ukhahlamba Drakensberg National Park and is one of my favourite regions in South Africa. The birdlife is fantastic - in fact I will need several posts to cover all the wonderful sightings. We were lucky enough to have a large stand of wild dagga plants growing around our campsite with an attendant mail Malachite Sunbird in residence perch on a prominent:



Although he was really beautiful and a pleasure to have around, he was unfortunately really aggressive towards the other sunbirds in the area. I was particularly keen to get a pic of the stunnning Double-Collared sunbird - but Mr Malachite would chase him off the second he landed which made for tricky photograpy. However after much perseverance I managed this picture:



There was also this beautiful bird which at first i thought was another color phase of the Malachite ... but judging by the long tail might actually be a Sugar Bird? Perhaps Gurney's Sugar Bird?: