Appeal to fishermen to not discard fishing line. The discovery of an entangled Water Thick-knee at the end of July 2025 on the beach at Mtunzini (KZN) has prompted me to once again appeal to fishermen to be careful and not to discard fishing line, or to at least pick up and remove any line that they may...
By someone who’s made every birding blunder so you don’t have to. I started birding because my wife, Sarah, kept looking up while I was looking down. We’re both nature lovers and often find ourselves in wild places across southern Africa. But on our first trips to the Kruger National Park and Hluhluwe–iMfolozi Park as...
2 July 2025, Johannesburg — In a rare conservation success story, the White-winged Flufftail, one of Africa’s most elusive and threatened birds, has been downlisted from Critically Endangered to Endangered in South Africa, thanks to over a decade of innovative research and fieldwork led by BirdLife South Africa with support from the Middelpunt Wetland Trust. Feature image of a White-winged...
Blouberg Nature Reserve, Limpopo – July 2025 An education initiative led by vulture conservation organisation Vulpro is showing promising signs of success in curbing the illegal killing of vultures for traditional medicine practices around Blouberg Nature Reserve in Limpopo. The reserve hosts South Africa’s largest breeding colony of Cape Vultures, a species under severe threat....
…we’ve trained our lenses on birds behaving badly and beautifully. The latest African Birdlife magazine is out on Friday 20 June, and it’s ruffled more than a few feathers—in the best way. We’ve packed this issue with top-tier photography that gets you closer to the action than ever before. Secretarybirds go talon-to-talon, vultures dodge scavengers of the...
Window collisions and cats kill more birds than wind farms do, but ornithologists say turbine impacts must be taken seriously. Scientists are testing a range of technologies to reduce bird strikes — from painting stripes to using artificial intelligence — to keep birds safe.By Adam Welz This story was originally published by Yale Environment 360. Wind energy is...
A group of innovative young Rwandan naturalists—led by 19-year-old tourism graduate Joseph Desiré Dufitumukiza—has harnessed a free mobile app to record bird sounds and monitor species across the country. Since launching the Rugezi Ornithology Center in 2022, Dufitumukiza and his student volunteers have gathered over 120,000 bird-call recordings, which are stored at the University of...
A major breakthrough in global bird taxonomy has been announced with the launch of AviList, a unified checklist Containing 11,131 species, 19,879 subspecies, 2,376 genera, 252 families and 46 orders. Developed by leading institutions including BirdLife International, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and the International Ornithologists’ Union, AviList brings together previously conflicting lists into a...
Lesser flamingos, already under pressure due to limited breeding grounds, have lost one of their only four breeding sites in Africa. Kamfers Dam, situated 6km north of Kimberly in South Africa, once a haven for tens of thousands of these striking birds, has been severely affected by years of sewage pollution. What was once a...
Southern Africa’s most outstanding field guides are set to be celebrated at the 2025 Safari Guide of the Year (SGOTY) Awards, with five top finalists announced for this year’s prestigious event. Founded in 2011 by Mike Karantonis in partnership with the Field Guides Association of Southern Africa (FGASA), the SGOTY Awards recognise excellence in field...
