by Carmel Rickard
In some ways this is a sad time of year. The migrant birds that we have come to love have started their long trek to the other side of the world.
I’m thinking in particular of the kestrels, the Lesser Kestrel and the Amur or Eastern Red Footed Falcon. This has been one of the best kestrel summers since I moved to Smithfield – they have been everywhere. On the telephone lines, on the rocks – and, best of all, in the sky.
deur Manie Swarts
Ek het dié foto’s gedurende Desember 2008 geneem, toe die Dikkop in ons agterplaas gebroei het.
Ek het die nes in ‘n oop ruimte tussen perdemis gesien. Die voëls lê twee eiers, wat dan na ± 24 dae uitbroei. Ek het die nes behoorlik opgepas, in afwagting op die koms van die kuikens! Groot was my teleurstelling, want gedurende dié tyd het daar een middag ‘n harde bui reën met hael geval, wat die nes oorstroom het met yswater. Ek het probeer om die water weg van die nes te ly, maar net een kuiken het uitgebroei. Dit was baie moeilik om die kleintjie te sien, omdat hy so goed gekamoefleer is.
Apart from the rain and the resulting green veld, one of the most spectacular sights in Smithfield at the moment, is the cloud of Lesser Kestrels circling over the village in the evenings.
The kestrels used to roost in a stand of bluegums on the other side of the mountain, and then for a couple of years we didn’t see them at all. At the end of last season, Lynden and I watched a few dozen fly in and out of some trees near my house – but then they flew away again. This year we’ve been delighted that they not only came back, but they brought a whole lot of their friends with them.
by Carmel Rickard
DROWNING is a major cause of unnatural deaths in birds of prey. One of South Africa’s top bird specialists, Mark Anderson, says that a bird of prey with waterlogged feathers has little chance of getting out of a farm reservoir, especially if the dam is only partly full, because it cannot scramble up the sheer sides and it cannot fly up from the water if its feathers are too wet.
The normally unmarked blue skies are filled with Lesser Kestrels.
They sweep like the strokes of a master artist, collecting and communicating for their evening roost.
A sight to behold, for sure
by Carmel Rickard
A helper holds the eagle saved from drowning.
Willie Swanepoel and his son Pierre are this month’s birding heroes. When they checked one of their cement dams recently, they found a young Verreauxs’ eagle waterlogged, exhausted and almost drowned.
This eagle, also known as the African Black Eagle or Witkruisarend, is a specialist dassie hunter and a magnificent bird to watch soaring over cliffs and mountain edges where its prey tends to live.
With distinctive patterning on the back and rump (forming the ‘wit kruis’ of its name) it’s unmistakeable. And it’s a large bird by anyone’s standards, with a wingspan of 2.5m.
There’s a pair that we sometimes see flying around Burnet’s Kop on the road to Beersheba and several farmers in the area record seeing birds from time to time.
The Swanepoels rescued the bird and released it when its feathers were dry. Before that though, they brought it round to show me – imagine seeing this creature of the highest sky held like a puppy on my verandah!
by Carmel Rickard
Have you been to see the flamingos at Kimberley’s Kamfers Dam yet? If you have not, you’d better get there quickly: even though this is one of the great birding sights of the world with potential to become a major tourist attraction, the local municipality has happily approved a new development project in the area that will scare off all the birds.
News of the proposed Northgate development reached the rest of the world last month when Carte Blanche ran footage of a public meeting on the issue followed by an interview with the then executive mayor of Sol Plaatje municipality (Kimberley), Patrick Lenyibi.
The mayor was understandably keen for the city to host a development that would see work and houses for many people, but he could not accept that there was a problem about siting it on the shores of Kamfers Dam where tens of thousands of Lesser Flamingos are breeding for the first time.
by Carmel Rickard
Most people keep a skeleton in their cupboard. Not me: I have an owl in my deep freeze.
Carmel Rickard was more than a little surprised this morning 2008 06 16 to find a dead owl in a Rhus tree outside her house.
Top View: It appears to have dived from above?
View from the ground:
The bold brown and rufus markings were very clear.
Even the underside was brown and rufus colour.
The bright dark orange ring around the iris was very evident.
Another photo for size.
Photos by Lynden Lund
by Carmel Rickard
Birding history is being made in South Africa at the moment – and now in Aliwal North as well. A major project is underway, officially entitled the South African Bird Atlasing Project No 2 (SaBap, for short). The last time birders made an “atlas” of South Africa was 15 or 16 years ago, when everyone was involved in an official record trying to trace where which birds occur in this country.
