South Africa
August 

A week long trip with clients and a very excited daughter Kara-Mae aged 10!

This was mostly raptors, Kara wouldn't of had it any other way! We dod well with 11 Raptors caught of 6 species. Brown Snake Eagle x 2 Long-crested Eagle x 3 African Hawk Eagle x 2 Jackal Buzzard x 1 Lizard Buzzard x 2 and a Dark-chanting Goshawk.

We were in the escarpment mist-belt forests and then up into the dry Limpopo valley. Saddest moment was loosing an adult Martial Eagle off of a trap just as i got my fingertips to it...

Kara with a LC Eagle

juv Jackal Buzzard

Happy with a Lizard Buzzard

Brown Snake Eagle with
the remains of its reptile meal

juv A Hawk Eagle

Dark Chanting Goshawk

Dai with an adult Brown SE

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!

Verreaux's Eagle Owl

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Capped Wheatear 

Buffy Pipit 

Black Crake

grumpy Pearl-spotted Owlet

Grassbird

juv Jackal Buzzard 

Long-crested Eagle

the control Forest Buzzard

Barratt's Warbler

the Kieths with a double header Brown Snake Eagles

2nd year female Lanner

Great Sparrow

Prirrit Batis

Southern White-faces Scops Owl

Burchell's Sandgrouse

male and female Pygmy Falcons

Uganda June 

This was an impromptu visit to go and plan a strategy for Sunbird Hill, a wonderful piece of land of forest edge abutting Kibale Forest National Park. We stay here for 5 days on the regular Uganda trips, and it never fails to disappoint!

Red-headed Bluebill adult male

Of course I took nets!

Here were some of the great birds we caught.

the accommodation

Bocage's Bush Shrike

Male Klaas's Cuckoo

a 7 year old retrap Green Hylia

Slender-billed Greenbul

Yellow-spotted Barbet 

Grey-headed Negrita

CANADA
May 2018

I have now been to Canada every May to see my Charlotte. This time we decided to see if we could catch a few Broad-winged Hawks, a lovely little Neo-tropical migrant Buteo! We had caught just 2 the previous year and thought it would be great if we could maybe get several more.

Well, we didn't expect beyond our wildest dreams that we would catch 43!!!! We had to search hard for them, but in early May, they are hungry and extremely aggressive toward rodents in traps! One even had to swoop round Charlotte to get at the trap it was so focused! Amazing little raptors.

We also got a Barred Owl a few American Kestrels. As a base, we stayed in a lovely cottage in the springtime woodlands and managed a few birds in the nets too.

my fave, male Blackburnian Warbler

adult male American Kestrel

adult Broad-winged Hawk

Barred Owl

Charlotte with a double header

Black-billed Cuckoo 

American Redstart

my Charlotte!

Broad-winged hawk

American Woodcock

April 2018

Since the last post form March 2018 its been busy!
APRIL 2018

In between trips I managed to do a few small trips to the Limpopo with my two girls, we did ok for raptors to say the least! In April we got a late adult male Wahlberg's Eagle, 2 adult African Hawk-eagles and 3 adult Black-breasted Snake Eagles and a Pearl-spotted Owlet!

 

I then did a trip at the end of April to the Drakensberg Mountains in SA, to try get a few of the big mountain Jackal Buzzards there. I got 4 in all, biggest was 1.3kgs, (ive had 1.4kgs before). But the best was finding a great little spot of a 2 shelf net and with the call on, got a dozen Drakensberg Siskin, an endemic to the Lesotho region. Also the spring traps did well for a family of Sentinel Rock Thrush. Almost had a flock of the endemic Ground Woodpeckers and the Drakensberg Rock Jumpers, but I know where they are now!