I'm Jealous!

Jealously is not a good thing and like all human beings I try my best not to succumb to this rather nasty habit. But then I receive an email from a birding friend and atlaser, Etienne Marais, only one short paragraph with two photos attached.

The photos are taken in his garden. The first of a beautiful Little Sparrowhawk, the second of the same bird guarding his bird bath! Apparently a regular appearance. I was lucky to see this bird breeding in a big tree just in front of Etienne's home a few years ago (it was a lifer for my wife) and then I already had to suppress that nasty feeling mentioned above. I get ecstatic when the Red-headed and Cut-throat Finches visit my feeders in my garden or when I heard and saw a Grey-headed Bush-shrike in my garden for the first time a few weeks ago. Raptors - never had one in my garden. Or maybe more correct - not that I know of. The nearest raptor I had in my garden are all the Yellow-billed Kites that fly over my garden in summer. In my garden - not so lucky.

But that is not the end of the story - for in the same email he included a photograph of a Spotted Eagle-Owl that is also a regular visitor to his garden. Something really special to have in you garden - isn't it.

So I will just have to settle for it - some people have all the luck.

By the way Etienne has a really nice website at http://www.birding.co.za/.

We have been informed that the first Yellow-billed Kite's have arrived - so summer is nearly here!

Sometimes I wonder if atlasing is fun

In many of my postings below I have emphasized a number of times what fun it is to do bird atlasing. And that is certainly the case. But I will be the first to admit that sometimes there might be that fleeting moments when even I will wonder if what I am doing can be considered as fun. During Sunday’s outing to the north of Cullinan I had exactly such a moment.

I did a pentad about 10km north of Cullinan – on the Gauteng border. An interesting area with lots of different habitats and some interesting species as for instance Tinkling Cisticola – an uncommon species for the Gauteng area.

But on Sunday after 1 hour of birding and nearly freezing to death I had exactly 8 birds on my list – yes that is correct EIGHT! So you cannot blame me if I did not consider this fun. But I decided to continue and although the eventual number of species came to only 44, I had great FUN and recorded some interesting birds.

The first interesting sighting was an African Harrier-hawk climbing around in trees as only they can do. My second sighting of this species during the last few weeks. Secondly I had a number of Striped Pipits. This is a common species in the pentad – at Little Eden. But I have never seen them outside of Little Eden - although I am sure other birders have. They were recorded on three occasions – sometimes next to the car and always near rocky areas.

Even more interesting was the record of a Red-headed Weaver. Again in some parts of the country a common species – but not so in Gauteng (I might be wrong – if you have more info please let me know by leaving a comment at the end of the posting). In fact it seems that as soon as the record is accepted it will be the first record for this species in Gauteng for SABAP2.

Unfortunately the Tinkling Cisticola was nowhere to be seen. Taking into consideration the weather I cannot blame them!

And yes - I had great fun.