Crested Barbets - Breeding (Finally)?

When i last blogged about the crested barbets back in September they where busy hollowing out the nesting log I put up. Since then I have not seen much of them. So it was great to see a little head sticking out today:


Observing for a short while, I saw the male arrive with some food and pop into the nest:


I'm not sure if he's feeding the brooding female or if there are chicks in the nest - will hopefully get some time to sit and watch in the next week or two

African Harrier Hawk Shot at Golden Harvest

Sad news from the Urban Raptor Conservation Trust - it seems a juvanile African Harrier Hawk has been shot with an arrow at Golden Harvest - and is flying around impaled:



Sadly this is quite probably the bird i photographed and blogged about here a few weeks ago. I intend to go and have a look for it in its usual haunts as without medical intervention this magnificent bird will surely die - sometimes I despair at human behaviour - all i can say is that i hope to someday get my hands on the culprit!

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.