Yellow-billed Stork grooms croc! Sitting close to the water’s edge at Sunset Dam, near Lower Sabie in Kruger Park, my husband and I were treated to a fascinating display of what I initially thought was a “too close for comfort“ situation. After a few minutes however I decided it was more like an example of...
Most of Europe’s birds head south each year around September to escape the northern winter. Some species only migrate as far south as southern Europe. But most cross the Mediterranean Sea to Africa. And many species cross the Sahara Desert to destinations in West Africa such as Nigeria and in East Africa, such as Kenya. Some...
BirdLife South Africa’s 2022 Conservation Hero, renowned bird guide David Letsoalo, talks birds, pizzas, perfect tunes and making friends in Manhattan’s Central Park. What got you started in birding? I was born in the area behind Moria, the Zionist Christian Church (ZCC) in Limpopo, but I grew up in Magoebaskloof and went to Appel Farm...
The lives of people and parrots have been entwined for thousands of years. These colourful, charismatic birds are kept as pets all over the world for companionship and entertainment. However, parrot farming is an ever growing threat. Today, nearly one-third of the 400 parrot species globally face the threat of extinction. Among them is the endangered African Grey Parrot....
From afar, the acacia trees look like they have been decorated with grass pom-poms. The birds have been busy, building shelters of straw and grass. Up close the real shape of the “pom-poms” becomes clear: grass tubes in the form of an upside down “U”, with an opening at each end. These structures are the...
Former Director at BirdLife International, Hazell Shokellu Thompson, says he is retired, but he’s working as hard as ever as a lecturer, conservationist, author, and rice farmer. We chat with him from his home in Freetown, Sierra Leone. What are you up to these days? I’ve just written a book about common birds of Sierra...
The Nuer are a large pastoralist community living in western Ethiopia and South Sudan in east Africa. They rely on livestock keeping and have special beliefs and customs about how to live with nature. Uncommonly for east African pastoralists, the Nuer live in an expansive, low-lying floodplain. This Gambella region is shaped by the convergence of several...
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has recently escalated the status of the African Penguin to Critically Endangered, underscoring the species’ alarming risk of extinction. With a staggering 97% decline in population, this unique penguin could disappear in under 4,000 days without immediate intervention. Competing for Survival in a Changing Environment A key factor...
The vision of birds, particularly those that hunt from the air, such as birds of prey, has not evolved to perceive large, moving structures in their environment, such as wind turbines. This is largely due to birds’ physiological limitations, such as low colour contrast detection abilities, combined with motion smear created by moving, un-patterned turbine...
In arid inland Australia lives one of Australia’s rarest birds: the night parrot. Missing for more than a century, a live population was rediscovered in 2013. But the species remains elusive. Until recently, Australia’s known night parrot population numbered in the tens of birds, scattered across desert in Queensland and Western Australia. But our research...
