City of Cape Town 5 October 2012 A bird never before officially recorded in Africa, the black skimmer, was sighted at Table Bay Nature Reserve’s Rietvlei Section on Thursday 4 October 2012. The black skimmer (Rynchops niger) was photographed by a member of the public during a birding outing to the Rietvlei Section of the nature reserve. It was first thought that the bird was an African skimmer. When a photograph was shown to the Reserve Manager, the Environmental Resource Management … [Read more...]

The Blue Crane (Anthropoides paradisea), also known as the Stanley Crane and the Paradise Crane, is a tall, ground-dwelling bird of the crane family which stands a little over a metre high and is pale blue-gray in colour with a white crown, a pink bill, and long, dark gray wingtip feathers which trail to the ground. It eats seeds, insects and reptiles. Blue cranes lay their eggs in the bare veld, often close to water. They are quite common in the Karoo, but are also seen in the grasslands of … [Read more...]

By Eric Barnes Clovelly, 1 May 2012 Sitting on the deck of a house overlooking an estuary some distance from Cape Town in the early afternoon of a warm calm summer’s day, we became aware of a variety of soft churring and grating sounds nearby. They were emanating from various species of birds moving about in an agitated manner in a milkwood tree. The reason for the disturbance was the presence of a handsome black and yellow tree snake or boomslang as it is usually called. After a … [Read more...]

By Eric Barnes Clovelly 18 April 2012  Now that the main excitement of the birding world for 2012 has subsided after the departure from Clovelly wetlands of the Little crake, our normal day-to-day observations have resumed. Not to say that there are no more interesting birds. About a month ago in early March a friend reported seeing 5 Orange-throated or Cape longclaws at the model plane landing strip at Silverglades. This species has, I think, not been here on a regular basis for many … [Read more...]

You are living near a research area for a SANParks approved research project on birds, land use and climate change. Your observations can really help us understand how birds may be vulnerable to this change. The project marks fynbos birds with small color rings and numbered metal rings like these, to help us study their movements, behavior and survival. If you see a color-marked bird, please write down: What species did you see? What date was it? Where did you see it? What was … [Read more...]

By Eric Barnes Clovelly  On Wednesday 21 March 2012 at about 6pm Clovelly was about to enter South African birding history. While on her way home from a holiday afternoon outing, our daughter Gillian stopped at the Silvermine River wetlands to look for birds. On the water below the upper gabion she saw what looked like a small crake foraging along the edge of the reeds. Not able to identify it immediately, she and I decided to go early the following morning to have a better look. Together … [Read more...]

By Eric Barnes Clovelly More Summer/Autumn days 2012 TAP – TAP –TAP pause TAP-TAP –TAP. While once again sitting out on the deck surveying the hillside scene on a very pleasant late afternoon in early March, the urgent tapping sound betrayed the presence of  a handsome male Cardinal woodpecker as it busily searched the dead branches of an avocado pear tree for woodborer grubs for supper. The tree germinated from a pip many years ago by my late mother-in-law but through no fault of … [Read more...]

By Eric Barnes, Clovelly 1 March 2012  Over the years there have been many changes in various bird populations that we see in this valley stretching from Fish Hoek bay to Kommetjie. There are are probably a number of reasons for this and high on the list must be urban sprawl. We used to see flocks of Cattle egrets flying back and forth on their daily commute between their nightly roost somewhere at or near Rondevlei and their feeding grounds at the dairy which became Sun Valley houses. … [Read more...]

By Eric Barnes Clovelly 22 February 2012  There have often been questions (FAQs = Frequently asked questions) about Cape sparrows in the valley. I don’t think they have ever been plentiful here as one might find them in places in the Little Karoo but there certainly have been scattered family groups and individuals. In recent times they may have suffered predation by Pied crows but in suburbia their nests are sometimes located in in accessible places around buildings. Such sites are … [Read more...]

Eric Barnes Clovelly, February 2012 After lamenting/mourning the loss of the striped mice in our garden , a couple of weeks ago our granddaughter was passing the area known to us as Cobra Corner when she noticed the sloughed skin of a fairly large Cape cobra, approximately 1.7 metres in length. A few days later we were pleased to see a healthy- looking mouse running round the garden. It has been around ever since. I think the two incidents are quite unrelated! While we were away on … [Read more...]