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Birding Newsletter No 1 - Oct 2006In this edition (Click to jump to the article)
Pretoria-Johannesburg Birding Hots up in October - tips for the month. October in the Pretoria-Johannesburg region is usually a somewhat unpredictable time bird-wise. Sure there are plenty of migrants arriving, but it is often quite dry and birding activity may be less than what one might expect from the spring burst in ones garden! News on the migrant front is that species like European Bee-eater, African Cuckoo and Grey-hooded Kingfisher have returned in force. The latter two species are active and calling at Borakolalo Game Reserve - take the road past the Moretele Tented Camp and continue past the Gadinonyane hides (Where painted snipe was showing well last week - 10/10)..... until you get into the sandy area where there are big Burkea trees. There are several large loops through the woodland (which is now greening up nicely), and this whole area is good for species such as woodpeckers and African Scops Owl. The picnic area is where the Grey-hooded Kingfishers usually return every year. If they are not there, then retrace about 200m from the picnic spot turn-off and spend some time there. There is also a pair of Wahlberg's Eagle nest-building close by. Other October birding highlights include: 1. Firebreaks and burns. Firebreaks, such as those at Suikerbosrand can be brilliant for birds at this time of year, as many birds come onto them to forage, and the lack of cover allows for good views. Most species are also still relatively confiding as breeding is generally not yet in full swing (although there are exceptions). The Suikerbosrand firebreaks are good for Grey-winged and Red-winged Francolin, Eastern Long-billed Lark and many others. Double-banded Courser, a special in this region was also recently seen there. 2. White-bellied Korhaans. This is a very good time of year for this species, as they are active, calling and not as shy as a little later, once they have started breeding. A good reliable spot recently has been in Benoni, but these birds are apparently no longer there. The best locality I know of for this species is the "Mabusa back Road" where several birds were present two weeks ago. This is north of Bronkhorstspruit on the R25 towards Groblersdal. The turn-off is best reached by travelling northwards on the R25 until you pass the village of Verena. 8.5km beyond Verena a dirt road turns to the left, along a game fence (on your right hand side). This game fence is the Mabusa NP and White-bellied Korhaan are common in this area for the first 3km of this road. Look out too for Denham's Bustard, Secretarybird, Jackall Buzzard and a variety of francolins here. 3. Flufftails in green vleis. We have  one common flufftail in our region, and October is probably the best time of the year to actually SEE this species. This is because the species is aggressive and territorial, and most of the good localities still have relatively sparse vegetation. Many vleis were burned not too long ago and there is often a concentration of flufftails in the ones that are good. The trick is to find a vlei that has a path through it. If you know a landowner with good habitat, he may even let you cut your own flufftail viewing path into a reedbed. The path should be no more than 15 inches wide and go through an area where flufftails are known to be active. With moderate and circumspect use of a tape one can then entice male birds to move across the path in search of the "competitor". On the Guy Gibbons tape there are two calls, the first deep hooting seems to be a milder territorial/courtship call, while the second, higher pitched and more frenetic call seems to be some sort of threat call and can evoke and aggressive response from a fired up flufftail - male or female! Do not over-use these calls in one area as it can be stressful for the birds. 3. Warblers While Willow Warbler is becoming common, species like Garden Warbler often arrive in our area in October, and because their hormones are still running high from the northern summer, they call a lot more now than later in our summer, and are often easier to find and to locate. Be on the "listen out" for their regular, rich warbling, which may be heard anywhere in suburbia or in the more woody birding areas anywhere across our region. Ezemvelo weekend course promises great LBJ's (Places still available)For the third year in a row, I am running a weekend "field-course" on LBJ's at Ezemvelo Nature Reserve. This reserve offers a really unique array of birding attractions. In particular, it is very good for Larks, Cisticola's and Pipits. The surrounding areas are also excellent and a days birding in the area can easily produce 8 cisticolas, 7 Larks and 4 Pipits species. We will also no doubt enjoy the attentions of Freckled and Rufous-cheeked Nightjars again this year! The weekend is divided between some formal lectures and study work (detailed course packs are provided), and field excursions to different habitats. During the latter, we look in detail at the habitat requirements for the different species - which are particularly important as far as the Cisticolas are concerned. The weekend is kept small (less than 16 people) and there are still a few place left. If you would like to participate in the weekend, please contact me by cellphone on 082-898-6998. Participate in our Gauteng Birders Survey and win a days customised birding with Indicator BirdingLike many other parts of Southern Africa, the Pretoria-Johannesburg region has it's own bird specials. Species that come to mind include Tinkling Cisticola, Orange-river Francolin, Melodious Lark and Grass Owl - all of which can be seen at relatively accessible sites in the region. In the first attempt to quantify which are the most wanted and most difficult-to-see birds in our region, we are running a birders survey. The survey aims to understand more about the specials, how long it takes most birders to see them and which are the most reliably frustrating bogey birds!! The Pretoria-Johannesburg region (also referred to as the wider Gauteng Region) is defined broadly as within 100km from either Johannesburg and Pretoria, and most sites are within an hour of these two major centres. Prizes In order to encourage participation in this survey, Indicator Birding is offering the following "lucky-dip" prizes which can be won by anyone taking part in our survey:
VRYSTAAT !! A short report and images from a 5 day Free State trip.The diversity and beauty of our wonderful country never ceases to amaze me. Living in Gauteng as we do, we often forget just how  priveleged we are to have over 600 species available within 4 hours of us. One of the less explored regions is the Free-state, which has the reputation of being flat and boring. Nothing could be further from the truth, and last week, together with Pat Adams from the UK, I had the pleasure of sampling just a few of the delights of this less famous birding province.Starting out in high altitude grasslands near Harrismith, we then headed up into the high Drakensburg at Witsieshoek. On to the Maluti Mountains at Golden Gate National park for more montane birding, we then crossed over northern Free-state from east to west, our destination being the Sandveld Nature Reserve on the banks of the Vaal River which offers very different habitat and birds. On the last day we ventured out of the Free-State and headed up to Barberspan, where a productive few hours were spent in the area. Good birds seen on the trip included, Blue Crane (70+) Grey Crowned Crane, Southern Bald Ibis, Blue Korhaan, Drakensburg Rockjumper, Buff-streaked Chat, Botha's Lark, African Black Swift, Ground Woodpecker, Bearded Vulture, Cape Vulture, Lanner, Secretarybird, Fairy Flycatcher, Northern Black Korhaan, Eastern Clapper Lark, Fawn-coloured Lark, Sociable Weaver, Pririt Batis, Tinkling Cisticola, Barred Wren Warbler, Yellow-bellied Eremomela, Red-crested Korhaan, Doubled-banded Courser, Orange-river Francolin, Scimitarbill, Goliath Heron, South African Shelduck, Whiskered and White-winged Tern, Common Ringed Plover, Quail Finch, Cape Teal, Greater Flamingo, Yellow Bishop and Rufous-eared Warbler. Overall we recorded 208 species. For the full trip report, images and trip list, please visit: http://www.birding.co.za/news37.htm Gearing up - try the Ipod! I recently made a move from my trusty IPAQ to an Apple Ipod Nano. This does involve a bit of work to prepare ones sound "archive" but has a number of advantages over the IPAQ. Firstly it is small and handy. It is also easy to navigate using only one hand, with leaves the other free to focus your scope or hold binoculars! Thirdly it is tough and comes in a small leather case with a magnetic disk which sticks to the car bonnet. It can easily be clipped onto a shirt pocket, or even onto ones binocular strap. A downside is that one needs a portable speaker, but I found that this is not a problem as I have always carried one anyway. The other handy advantage of the IPOD is that one can organise ones sound files via the very good PC software package, ITUNES. This is a very user friendly way of doing bird sound, as long as one can think laterally and use the categories applied to music to organise your bird-sound. Itunes works according to Playlists, artists, albums, songs, Genres and composers. Playlists can be defined as "regions", if only to reduce the number of birds in each category. I have devised my own subset of bird groupings for the nice all Gauteng sounds in a Gauteng playlist. I use artists as groups of birds. My unit has 1GB of memory space and cost me R1500 including a nice leather carry case (with magnet and clip), which is more than enough for a lot of MP3 bird-calls. Favourite birding stay-overs - Phuduphudu Camp, Borakolalo.Borakolalo is a great birding reserve, with excellent variety, some really top birds and it always offers a surprise. However I have had the opportunity to stay at Phuduphudu tented camp a few times and I must say it is a really excellent spot. Accomodation is in safari tents - with an external ablution block. The camp has only five tents, but it is usually nicer if one can get it to yourself (often a possibility during the week). It has a fully equipped kitchen, dining area and nice lapa. It also has a pool and watered lawns. Best of all, it has it's own water hole, which is regularly visited by Rhino's and at dusk; Double-banded Sandgrouse. Typical camp birds include Meyer's Parrot, Grey-headed Bush-shrike, Little Sparrowhawk and Red-headed Weaver. A little known track at the back of the camp, takes one into pristine woodland (depicted in this photo) and is only open to residents of the camp. This is one of the best spots for woodland birding in our region and often delivers species like Pale Flycatcher, Bushveld Pipit, White-helmet Shrike. On the hill are resident Short-toed Rock Thrush, and this is one the most regular spots for Grey Penduline-Tit in our region. Brown Snake-eagle, Gymnogene and Wahlberg's Eagle (summer)are regular. I have also seen two Western Honey-buzzards here in summer!
Garden Birding - the beauty of WATER!Birds are amazingly good at finding water, and also very fond of a good, reliable water supply. If you, like me, could not be bothered to feed the birds to attract birds in your garden, consider setting up a really good birdbath, with reliable water supply, and you will be amazed at the visitors it attracts. My own birdbath turned into quite a major project after the old cast concrete bowl was broken while attempting to move it. I was at the same time busy with a rockery (which took several months to complete in between birding trips!), and my eye fell on a 90kg slab of rock, which had been removed in the excavation process (we live mostly on solid rock). The slab was about 5 inches thick and 1 metre by 60cm in size, and I had to figure out a way of hollowing it out. Several months later, as a result mainly of hard grind, the rock had been hollowed out, to a depth of about 2 inches at one end, with a nice slope to a shallow end. Overall it holds about 6 litres of water.Now my wife was not impressed at the idea of this rock being balanced somewhere, and set down the standard that the bird-bath should be strong enough for children to climb on without the risk of breaking! I decided to build a stone column, with a concrete core, and in order to do this, made a framework of steel poles. In several stages, the walls were built up and the innards filled with concrete. At the last stage, the rock slab was attached to the top, with metal anchors that had been affixed to the base of slab being buried in the concrete in the centre of the column.  I connected a water supply, with a small 3mm pipe which runs into a stone "dripper" in one corner, and is adjusted so that there is a regular drip into the bath. The results have been excellent, and many birds use the bath. It is strong and sturdy enough to have 5 Olive Pigeon's on it at one time, and even the Hadedah's perch on the bath. The most common bather is the Karoo Thrush, and I would love to know how many different birds use the bath in day. Grey Go-away birds often visit, but by far the most special visitor is our Little Sparrowhawks, which may well bathe as often as daily - but I wouldn't know since I have never had the privelege of watching the bath for a day! 2007 Birding Adventure to Mozambique.The 2006 Mozambique trip was a huge success, with everyone seeing a fantastic array of birds. A huge amount of research and planning went into making this trip a success and this is the reason that you will pay more for the privelege of joining my trip, than if you link up with a group of birders for a do-it-yourself effort. Next years trip takes place from 29 June - 14 July and takes the more interesting route from Letaba rest camp, via the new border post to Massingir Dam and then onto the Limpopo floodplain, which offers excellent birding. We visit Panda, Morrungula, Rio Save Game Reserve before getting into the legendary central Mozambique area encompassing Rio Savanne, Chinizua, Catapu and Gorongosa. The trip ends up with a two night stay in the Bvumba - which still offers some of the best forest birding anywhere.You can see the trip report, photos and list of birds seen on my web-site at http://www.birding.co.za/news35.htm Getting to Grips with PipitsFor a long time, birders tended to ignore LBJ's as far as possible, and how often has one heard jokes about "tearing those pages out"? Many people only really start grappling with the more difficult larks, pipits and cisticolas when one has "ticked-off" most of the rest of the birds occurring in our region. Pipit's of Southern Africa, by Faansie Peacock will undoubtedly change a lot of this, and has quickly become the top birding item on many birders shopping list. Not only is it the only book which covers this group of birds in any depth at all, but it is an excellent read, and discusses a wide range of issues from River Warblers, to "Gizz", to Grassland Conservation. This book is an attractive addition to any birders bookshelf and is well illustrated. I really enjoy the "discursive" style in which the book has been written - it shuns glib and easy answers to complex questions. At the same time the book makes few assumptions regarding the previous knowledge of the reader and will for many beginner and novice birders serve not only as a guide to pipits, but somewhat of a guide to birding as well. To me the book is a landmark work in a number of respects; it demonstrates the value of "amateur ornithology" in the sense that Faansie completed this work in his spare time, while a student. It was also entirely self-published and serves as an example to other budding authors that successful books can be produced without the support of big-name publishing houses. Having said that, there is nothing amateurish about the finished product, yet more than any other birding book pertaining to our region it captures the joys, frustration and maddening fascination of real birding! For more on the book, or to order your copy, visit the "official website" of Pipits of Southern Africa at www.pipits.co.za BBD TipsAs you may know, I have been involved competitively with the national Bird Race event for over 10 years, and in 2005 we finally cracked it - "it" being both first place, and the 4 minute mile of BBD, 300 species. As far as we know this is an un-official world record for a national Birding Big Day type of event, although a team in Peru did record more species (319) in 24 hours in a smaller area than we covered.The 2005 effort was the culmination of many years of refinement as regards birding techniques, planning and logistics, and there are many factors which go into it. In this newsletter I'd like to share one tip, which I believe few BBD teams are aware of: 360 Degree coverage, or to be more specific, 360 X 90 X 20 coverage. You may have noticed that when a group of people are birding together, it is often the person who is looking in the opposite direction, who spots something surprising. That is simply because when people bird together, they are mostly looking in the same direction - namely towards a bird that someone has spotted. Most of the time when people are birding together, they are all expecting birds in the same area and so all look "towards the trees", "towards the open water" or some other obvious feature. How many birds do we miss every time we go out birding? Well given that your field of sharp vision is actually only a few degrees and ones "Scanning" field is about 30º. Yet very often birds enter ones field of view in an obvious way for only a few seconds at a time, and then dissapear. Even large obvious birds (such as Denham's Bustard) can quite easily fly past a group of birders unnoticed if they are looking the other way! Raiders of the Lost Lark adopted the concept of 360 X 90 X 20 coverage to try and maximise coverage all along our route. Each birder in our team of four, had a standard 90 degree quadrant to scan at all times, and the 90º signifies the need to regularly scan from the horizon to above ones head - in your specfic quadrant. The quadrants were relative to the position our vehicle was standing in, with two facing ahead left and right, and the same behind. When a bird was seen by one team member, the other team members would immediately shift attention from their quadrant to the bird requiring confirmation, and as soon as they had confirmed the bird, they would be back on quadrant watch. The factor of 20 was in our case the number of hours that we had to keep up the 360 coverage for! Dates for 2007Limpopo Weekend Birding (Mapungubwe NP) (4 Days) 8 - 11 February 2007 REQUEST details/pricing Warblers and Wetlands Special (3 Days) 15-17 March 2007 REQUEST details/pricing Mozambique Birding Adventure (14 Days) 29 June - 14 July 2007 REQUEST details/pricing About this NewsletterThis newsletter is written by Etienne Marais and aims to bring the readers a regular byte of quality birding information. At the same time it provides an avenue for marketing our birding events, particularly those designed for Southern African birders. Comments and feedback are welcome, as are contributions, photos, birding puzzles and the like. Please contact Etienne Marais at [email protected] with any suggestions you may have. All images and content are © Indicator Birding 2006 and may not be used without the express permission of the author or Indicator Birding. |