African Affinity Birding

South Africa
Limpopo to the Kalahari July (winter)

This was a trip! Dr Richard Charles, Chairman of the African Bird Club, my old mate Barry Williams, Keith Smith and Keith Dean and Debby Williams from Vancouver!

First off we went out to a burnt grassland site an hour west of Johannesburg, we got Buffy Pipits, Capped Wheatear, Black Crake and Pied Starlings, not a bad variety for a burnt wetland and grassland site.
The plan was then to head up to the eastern Drakensberg mountains and the mist belt forests to try catch the endemic Forest Buzzard. In the past we have had success with Forest Buzzards of young dispersing birds arriving from the breeding grounds in the east and western Cape Provinces. We started out well, lots of Pearl-spotted Owlets out in the day, a usual thing in winter as cold times are lean without the spiders and scorpions for this species to catch.
After seeing a few uncatchable birds we reckoned that there were not that many around, however we did catch something far better, an adult Forest Buzzard control!! What a great bird to have caught, just proving that the movements are not just juvenile dispersal ones.

We got some good birds mist netting in the forest, such as the endemic Grassbird, Barratt's Warbler and Red-backed Mannikin, but for raptors we got Long-crested Eagle and Jackal Buzzard.

We then headed west across the Northen Province and into the Northern Cape. some of the places we stayed at had good waterholes where we set nets and got a variety of good birds.

One site we stayed at we caught several Burchell's Sandgrouse which came into the waterhole and all here we managed to catch a male Verreaux's Eagle Owl! Also a Gabar Goshawk went into he net too. Good to catch a few Rock Kestrels as well. All up we got 38 raptors of 15 species.

But I think the highlight was catching 7 Pygmy Falcons. What a lovely little raptor they are!