The Quick Twitch

Well, what can I say? On Thursday 6th I braved the protest marchers and potential traffic delays to go and view the latest rarity to South Africa. A Collared Flycatcher was seen by a local birder and ringer, Malcolm Wilson, in his Robindale garden in Randburg Gauteng and he quickly put the news out for all the twitchers come and see. Some European birders are probably wondering what all the fuss is all about but this was only the 9th recorded sighting of this species in South Africa. It was first sighted on Tuesday 4th and by Thursday an estimated 400 birders had been through his garden and surrounding suburb to see and photograph the bird.

I left home at 15h30 and I reached the turnoff on the highway at the same time that I reached the back end of the protest march and with a bit of detours arrived at the house at around 16h16. Luckily when I got there, there were only a few birders and I could move around and photograph to my hearts content. The bird kept his distance and left me wishing I had a longer lens again!! Any sponsors out there wanting to get rid of a 400mm f2.8 Canon lens with a converter or two??

Anyway here of the results of my attempts. Not very good I'm afraid as the lighting was poor, I didn't take my tri-pod (silly me) and the distance was too great...



Collared Flycatcher (6)


I am also seriously thinking of changing my blog name from The Lazy Birder to The Busy Birder because I always have to be somewhere else when I have a gap to go birding! Rush, rush, rush....