a Kenyan pilgrimage to the ringing mecca of Ngulia, November 2019

I was besides myself looking forward to this trip. Not only had it been a few years since I'd been, but that Charlotte was coming out too!
We set off from Nairobi to the coast to go stay with Colin Jackson at his wonderful Arocha site at Watamu, but first we stopped off at a concession in Tsavo East for a night to break the journey. On the way we caught an Eastern-chanting Goshawk, a bird I'd wanted to catch for years! So much like their Dark and Pale cousins, but also quite different.
At Tsavo, we were greeted by a pair of quite large male lions sitting in the track! In the morning we had a drive around and saw a few nice birds, in particular QUAIL-PLOVER!! a bird Ive wanted to see!! and also a very good record (eg, Colin has never seen one!).
At the coast it was great to se Colin, Roni and young Kai, but the rain!!! The weather was against us and we only managed to put nets up one morning and caught a few local species. We went to Mida Creek, (I'd not been here for 35 years!) a famous site for wader ringing and saw a good high tide flock of mixed waders, including a flock of CRAB PLOVERS!!
Back to Tsavo East for a week, before Ngulia, and through the eastern gate. There had been some really good early rains and the savannah was alive with displaying Golden Pipits, Chestnut-headed Sparrowlarks, displaying Hartlaub's Bustards, Somali Bee-eaters, Von der Decken's Hornbills, Taita Fiscal,  Martial, Tawny, Steppe, Lesser-spotted Eagles and many ringtail Harriers.
It was nice to see one of the strangest antelope in Africa, the Gerenuk, such a wonderful looking beast!! Vultures were thin on the ground, but we did see 2 Egyptian, some Lappet-faced and Ruppell's. But the best sighting was seeing a Striped Hyena trotting along the track in front of us!
Back at our lodge we found a Verreaux's Eagle-owl in a tree and dropped a trap for it with an instant response and caught it. When getting the bird off the trap, it made a good lot of bill clacking, which in turn brought into the tree; 2 other Verreaux's Eagle owls (mum and juv) a Wahlberg's eagle and last but not east, a Martial!!! Crazy tree full of huge raptors! unfortunately before i could get the trap out agin, the birds disappeared. Charlotte was very happy, the one owl she wanted to catch more than anything!! We next got a Pygmy Falcon, such a wonderful little raptor, and in very different habitat from Southern Africa.
Ngulia.
On arrival at the gate, it was so good to see Ian Kerton and Phil Jones and to finally meet Martin Cade. Conditions for this session looked so good, great mists, even in the day!! but the birds were few and our best night was just shy of 3000 birds ringed, mostly Thrush Nightingale, Marsh Warbler and Whitethroat. The final tally was just shy of 10,000 bird ringed at the end of the November session, not the best of catches, (Ive been here when we have caught 28,000 birds in 10 days!). Other friends arrived, Richard Charles, Paul Roper and Keith Dean whom we all got raptors for. Charlotte and I road trapped and got another favourite of Charlotte's, Auger Buzzard, including a massive female of 1.5kg! We managed to get in total, 9 Eastern-chanting Goshawks, 2 Wahlberg's Eagles, 2 Brown Snake Eagles, 2 Pygmy Falcons and 4 Auger Buzzards.

the first Eastern-chanting Goshawk

on the way to the coast!

Road block!

1.85kg, adult male VEO

those eyelids!

Pygmy Falcon, adult male

Quail-Plover!

Paul with his Wahlberg's Eagle

A cardiologist with an ECG!

Auger Buzzard, adult 

Steppe, Gtr-spotted and Lesser Spotted Eagles on the termites

Huge Auger Buzzard

Ngulia is in a very beautiful park

Chestnut Sparrow

young Brown Snake Eagle

End of a great trip!

The Dry North-West and the Kalahari

After a month in the UK, much as I love an autumn nest full of Blackcaps Chiffs and Whitethroats, I was ready for some African bush birds again. So with Graeme, Graham and Roly, we set off on a different trip to what I normally do, to the west and the Kalahari in the Northern Cape.
We made our way via a couple of really nice bush lodges, and caught a good variety of species, a Klaas's Cuckoo was notable for winter as an afro-tropical migrant, either a very early bird, or one that stayed over?
We were extremely lucky to find a few flowering Jamesbrittenia bergae which were discovered in 2002 only here on this small range of hills!
Heading West, we stayed at a camp near the Botswana border, so dry, the dam at the camp, that we had nets round, was very low and well attended by a few White Rhino, which made net checks interesting!
Lark-like Buntings had arrived, and we caught a few of these nomadic and irruptive birds. 
It was so dry we were not seeing many raptors, other than a few Pale-chanting Goshawks of which we caught a few.nWe managed to catch 2 Rufous-cheeked Nightjars in camp, these are an afro-tropical migrant and had clearly arrived already!
At our next camp, we netted at a waterhole for Burchell's Sandgrouse and got several of these cool birds as well as a little Pearl-spotted Owlet one night. There were a few Fawn-coloured Larks singing which responded very well to playback and we caught an individual which was a first for me!
On the way to the Kalahari and our next camp, we were lucky to find a Martial Eagle sitting on a pole at 0800. We got a trap down and the bird was soon on the trap and was caught soon after! It was an adult female at 4.3kg's and a bird Graeme would not forget in a hurry!
After having caught Africa's largest Eagle, we then caught Africa's smallest raptor, a Pygmy Falcon! 
We lost quite a bit of netting time to the strong wind that was constantly blowing, so a day in the park was had where we saw lions and a Caracal catching sandgrouse at a waterhole!
On the way back, we stopped off at a big dam to see if we could catch some arriving waders from the palearctic, and whilst there were a few Curlew Sandpipers, Greenshank and Ringed Plover present, there were not enough to take big catches and just caught White-fronted, Kittlitz's and Blacksmith Plovers.

the crazy looking White-crowned Helmet-shrike!

Jamesbrittenia bergae

always sassy, Magpie Shrike

Klaas's Cuckoo, adult female

Acacia Pied Barbet

Violet-eared Waxbill

Lark-like Bunting

Rhino and the nets opposite!

a Puffy!

Fawn-coloured Lark

Burchell's Sandgrouse

Rufous-cheeked Nightjar

endemic Southern Pied Babbler

the business end!

the Martial!

Pygmy Falcon

Kittlitz's Plover

White-fronted Plover

Winter weekends July-August 2019

The first of the weekends, I took my girls up to Magoebaskloof, a mountainous area of natural afro-montane mist belt forest, but nowadays, more pine plantation. The aim was to catch Forest Buzzards, a poorly know endemic migrant.
But first we stopped off at Wonderboom, a site on the top of a big ridge overlooking Pretoria with Pieter and Natasha Saunders. The task was to climb a 70m tower to ring a baby Verreaux's Eagle!

a long way up

worth the climb!

just the one juv Forest Buzzard

little feet!

view of Pretoria from the top of the tower

Forest Buzzard 

The next weekend I went back up with the lads, Bruce, Wille and Jaco. We didn't get any Forest Buzzards, (saw a few, and re-sighted the one we caught last week) but we did get a good few other raptors. We got 3 Long-crested Eagles, 4 Jackal Buzzards, and a Lizard Buzzard. One spectacular catch was getting an adult JB off the top a mast on top of a very big hill, it was a very long way off as you can see in the picture!!

Woodbush Forest

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Malawi, July dry winter ringing

After Rwanda, I was asked by Operation Wallacea to go and do some ringing fieldwork at a site just outside Llilongwe.
Being winter, there were no migrants around, but a good selection of local species, considering the pressure on the habitat from local villagers. We found a Dickinson's Kestrel which was a good record for the area, but sadly no mice to catch it with!
Everywhere in the surrounding bush, there was burning and wood cutting, we had a small section of riverine woodland to ring in and so with my assistant, Bryn Webber, who normally has ringed on Hawaii! we conducted a series of demonstrations and talks on what we can gain from bird ringing.
We ended up ringing 148 birds of 48 species! Schalow's Turacos were common, but too high for our nets!

a trio of Little Bee-eaters

female Chin-spot Batis

Male Scarlet-chested Sunbird

Red-winged Warbler

the ringing camp

Grey-headed Bush-shrike

Bryn with an Emerald-spotted Wood Dove

Bryn learning the hard way about Black-collared Barbets!

Black-collared Barbet

male Red-throated Twinspot

a new one for me Southern Citril!

female Black-throated Wattle-eye

Students at the ringing table