Umngazi - African Fish Eagles

We recently spent some time at Umngazi in the Transkei, which is a wonderfun birding destination - we saw 62 species in the week we where there. I didn't do much photography, but did get these few snaps of a hunting African Fish Eagle - Unfortunately the critical moment was obscured by someone on the boat standing up in front of me ... grr:





I also observed an Osprey hunting almost daily, which was great. here are one or two other snaps:

Golden Harvest - African Harrier Hawk

It seems the black sparrowhawks have abondoned their nesting site at golden harvest. I made another trip this morning and there was no sign of them - and distressingly the nest seems to have been completely destroyed by one of the recent storms we had!

I did, however, have nice sightigs of the usual ovambo's, and also a young African Harrier Hawk:

Crested Barbet - Excavation continues

The barbets have now hollowed out a big enough space to turn around and come out beak first :)

Garden Bird News

Lately the grey go-away birds have been comming down to my feeder. These birds have become quite bold and sit on the balcony moaning at me if I don't put food out:


In other news, the Crested Barbet's that i blogged about back in march have been working on the sisal log again now that spring is here, as you can see form the second pic bleow they are making good progress:

Burchell's Coucal - Number 47!

Since the garden bird list got into the mid-forties new sightings have been hard to come by. So i was super excited to see a Burchell's Coucal going from tree to tree raiding the local birds nests - that brings the garden bird list to 47! Its a bird I often hear, but have never actually seen in the garden.

Golden Harvest Sparrowhawks - July 2011

I spent an hour this morning checking up on the Golden Harvest Sparrowhawks with my brother who is out from the UK. We arrived pretty early, very early actually, so early the sun had not come up. While waiting for some light i spent some time getting some pics of the moon:


As the first rays of sunlight started catching the tops of the trees the Ovambo Sparrowhawks where sunning themselves in the usual spot:


Sitting quietly we where treated to some awesome aerobatics as the ovambows harassed the local bird life:



Despite several attempts, the Ovambo's where unsuccessful! Moving on to the Black Sparrowhawks previous nesting site we found the nest to be somewhat dilapidated. It is, however, still early in the season so I'll make another trip in August to see if there is any activity. I did however spot a Little Sparrowhawk hanging around the nest, an indication the Black Spars are not around:


One the way out we spotted a youngish looking Ovambo near the parking lot:


All in all it was a lovely morning out - Johannesburg is spectacular at this time of year. Next up I will be visiting the Ovambo Sparrowhawks at Emmarentia and Zoo lake and perhaps the Verreauxs Eagle at the Botanical Gardens - Looking forward to that :-)

The Feathered Nest - Magaliseberg

Blogging has been a bit slow with the arrival of a baby, however I did manage to sneak off for a few hours birding early one morning when we had a "weekend away" at the Feathered Nest in Magaliseberg (about an hour west of my home in Johannesburg) in June. This is a fantastic spot for observing raptors, like this black sparrowhawk i spotted:


I also followed a group of African Harrier Hawks for a while, these birds are much less skittish than sparrowhawks and let you get quite close:


In two hours of birding i managed to get nice sitings of black and little sparrowhawks, a garbar goshawk, african goshawk, african harrier hawks and many other birds - I also had a most frustrating birding\photography moment. I was trying to get closer to the little sparrowhawks (a notoriously skittish species) but the bird kept eluding me. As I approached a large bush I was using for cover I flushed a hoepoe, suddenly a little sparrowhawk shot out of a tall tree i had just walked past and seized the hoepoe in flight ... while I fumbled with my focus/camera settings missing the shot. Fantastic to see, but i would have really liked to get the aciton on film - oh well - maybe next time!

All in all I really enjoyed the stay. The Feathered Nest also has an Owl sanctuary - while its sad to see these magnificent birds injured and maimed, at least they are well cared for. They had barn, marsh, white faced and spotted eagle owls in care.