“Who’s on board the twitch bus?”, a query asked a few times this past week in our local whatsapp birding group. A newcomer to the group, I had assumed any mention of a twitch bus was purely in jest; there surely couldn’t be a twitch bus. That was until Garth Shaw sent me a message: […]
Differentiating Little Egret and Snowy Egret
In South Africa we encounter countless amounts of Little Egrets out in the field. They are a common bird which are typically found in shallow areas of water, both salt and fresh water. When compared to our other Egrets; it’s a fairly straight forward identification process. With that said, when one throws into the mix […]
Improving Your Bird Identification
Being able to identify the bird you’re looking at is probably the most core aspect of birding, it is also one that doesn’t come without effort. Like with most things in life, what you put in is what you get out and if you continue trying to learn, you’re going to improve. If you become […]
Chasing Targets – Rooi Els, Rooisand and Elgin
With my provincial list now requiring me to travel a fair amount in order to see new birds, and petrol being at near all time highs, this past weekend saw Monique and myself set some fairly easy target birds for her list. Having just started listing in February of this year, she still has a […]
Knob-Billed Duck at Strandfontein Sewage Works
Earlier this past week we twitched the African Crake at Strandfontein, only to get home and receive another rare bird alert minutes later saying that a Knob-Billed Duck had been spotted just a couple hundred meters away from the Crake. The report came in the late afternoon and we wouldn’t be able to make it […]