Week 30 - Rietvlei Dam Centurion

After a busy squash season, I finally have some time to catch up with some blogging!!

What could be better than a day off work to take a drive through the Rietvlei Dam Nature Reserve just south of Pretoria. Nothing to do except bird, no time restraints, no deadlines and no one to bother me!! Rietvlei was still in the grips of winter and patches of frost covered the ground especially near the water. Skies were clear and the water was a flat and glassy as a mill pond. I first stopped at the hide at Coots corner but it was still too cold for the birds with nothing much around. Rietvlei is 3600 hectares so there was lots of ground to cover and plenty other hides to check. Being a grassland biome, the little brown jobs are all over the place with the Cape Longclaw being the most often encountered and fairly open to a bit of photography.




Cape Longclaw

  Winter is a good time to practice your skill at identifying the numerous non-breeding euplectes species in the reserve with Long-tailed, Red-collared and White-winged Widows, Red and Yellow-crowned Bishops and Masked Weavers  being present in large numbers. Rietvlei is also good for pipits with African, Plain-backed and Long-billed Pipits present in the reserve.



Non-breeding Long-tailed Widow


By the time I reached the picnic area, the air had warmed up a bit and the birds had started to come to life. Here some of the birds I located were Spurwing Goose, Egyptian Goose, Levaillants Cisticola, Pied and Malachite Kingfisher, Lesser Swamp Warbler, Cape Robin-chat, Arrow-marked Babblers, Fiscal Flycaycher, Common Fiscal and African Stonechats which are very common in the reserve.



Arrow-marked Babblers




Egyptian Goose


From the picnic hide I travelled the vlei route to the fountain hide which was pretty quiet as it always is in winter. Ostrich are common and found along most of the roads in the reserve.




Male Ostrich





Waterbuck seen along the vlei route


By far the most productive hide photography wise is the fairly new Island hide which is located near an island which contains a heronry. The young birds tend to use the dead tree perches around the hide for preening and taking a rest after the first flight from the island. Terns and ducks often come close for a quick pic as well.




Immature Little Grebe





Immature White-breasted Cormorant




Young Reed Cormorants




African Darter




Yellow-billed Duck


Another feature of this reserve in winter are huge floats of Red-knobbed Coots which swim about feeding. While I was watching a float drift by they suddenly took fright and ran off across the water. The reason being a large Fish Eagle which made an unsuccessful attempt to grab one off the water. Perhaps the chaos of all these birds splashing and flapping across the water was enough to confuse his aim and cause the miss? He later took a fish off the surface of the water...




Red-knobbed Coots in panic mode




African Fish-eagle with fish


I must have spent over 2 hrs in the island hide, attempting, unsuccessfully to photograph birds in flight. So all-in-all a very relaxing day out of the office!!

Week 28 - A Special Visitor to the Garden

When we first moved into our house in 1994, I would often hear a Greater Honeyguide calling from a stand of exotic eucalyptes trees on the other side of the highway from where we live, a distance of about 1km. The call is very distinct and can be described as victorrr, victorrr or whitpurr called repeatedly for long periods. (Follow this link to hear the call for yourself http://www.xeno-canto.org/XCspeciesprofiles.php?species_nr2=6090.00&pagenumber=&order=taxonomy&view=3)

Over the past year there has been some Greater Honeyguide activity around the garden. I first heard one calling on 23 August 2010 and spotted him in the White Stinkwood tree behind the house.




Adult Male Greater Honeyguide

 

This caused some excitement initially but when we did not hear him again assumed he was just passing through. Then a week later I found another or possibly the same bird at the bird bath having a drink.





Adult Male - Greater Honeyguide

 

These birds are parasitic (they lay their eggs in another birds nest) and target Hoopoes and Wood-hoopoes as their host species. The males are also known to use the same calling posts year after year in the breeding season which stretches from September to January in our area. He will call incessantly to let females know where he is and then once she is ready to lay comes to him for fertilisation. This must have happened close to where we are because this year I spotted a juvenile bird at the small dam in our garden.





Juvenile Greater Honeyguide


There seems to be more bees around as well, especially drinking at the dam, which possibly indicates a hive nearby. This species is known to lead people and badgers to a hive where once the hive has been robbed they descend to feed on the grubs and bee larvae. The Zulu people believe that a hunter should always leave a bit of the hive behind for the honeyguide, if he has lead them there, or else the next time the honeyguide will lead the hunter to a poisonous snake or something equally dangerous!

It will be great to see these birds more often around the garden as it adds a bit more variety to the more common ones. Hopefully they have set up a territory encompassing our garden!!

Week 25 - Glossy Starlings in the Garden

Week 25 showed an influx of Cape Glossy Starlings into the garden. We normally have a pair that visit regularly but this week I counted 7 of them around the feeder at once. I am always fascinated by their colours and the way the light catches them. I hope that I have been able to capture some of that beauty in the following photos!



 



Cape Glossy Starlings (3)


The Black-throated Canaries have also started making their daily visits to the small dam my son and I built for the birds. They only seem to visit the dam in winter, probably because of the availability of water during the wet summer months. I find them to be quite shy in our garden but you cant blame them with the sparrow and finch bullies that we have in large gangs dominating the seed feeders.



Black-throated Canary


Some common garden visitors..



Crested Barbet





Grey-headed Sparrow





Grey-headed Sparrow





House Sparrow






Red-headed Finch male

 
It was also during this week that we had a lunar eclipse which was good for photography practice...







Lunar Eclipse - June 2011


We also had an uncommon visitor in the form of an immature Greater Honeyguide but I was not fast enough for a photo. With all the bees drinking water at the dam their must be a hive close by which in turn would attract the Honeyguide!! Last June I photographed an adult male calling from the White Stinkwood right over the dam..perhaps they are to become garden residents!!

Week 23 - Garden Birds

Once again the birds have been flocking to our garden because food is scarce and they get free handouts here. It costs a bit as you can imagine or know through experience but its great to watch all the birds coming and going around the garden.

The odd coloured Barbet has been around quite often and I managed to get some better shots of him. I also photogrpahed a regular Black-collared Barbet just for comparison.



Odd coloured Black-collared Barbet

 


Normal Black-collared Barbet



As soon as I put fruit out in the garden the louries come in and clean up any apples or pawpaw as quickly as possible. They are getting bolder and don't fly away when I come out of the house, as long as I keep a fair distance that is.



Grey Go-away Bird (Lourie)

 
Dark-capped Bulbuls are very common in the garden and love to partake of the fruit on offer. They are also the main prey item of the Ovambo Sparrowhawk which prowls the neighbourhood.



Dark-capped Bulbul


Another regular garden visitor, the Crested Barbet.



Crested Barbet


We are lucky to have all three common sparrow species in the garden. Cape Sparrows being the most common and numerous with a few House Sparrows and Grey-headed Sparrows. I have counted up to 20 Grey-headed Sparrows at one time in the garden.



Male Cape Sparrow




Male House Sparrow




Juvenile Grey-headed Sparrow (note the fleshy yellow gape)


By far the most numerous visitors are the Red-headed Finches. They come into the garden in their hundreds when there is food on offer and do their best to finish all 5kg of seed off in one day...



Male Red-headed Finch with a female and another male looking on




Male Red-headed Finch threatening the younger bird to the right


Finally, what would a group of garden bird photos be without my favourite garden bird the Cape Robin-chat?



Cape Robin-chat (2)


And thats it from week 23, I hope to be heading out again soon as I still plan to visit the Highveld grasslands for the winter visitors..

Week 20 - Garden Birds

With all the activities on the go, the only birding I was sure to get was garden birding. This week didn't produce anything special except a Black-collared Barbet with odd colouring. The migrants have left and the Ovambo Sparrowhawk hasn't been seen since the 24th April when it flew in under the patio after a young dove!




Black-collared Barbet with pinky yellow colouring
instead of the normal bright red!

 The resident Cape Robin was again available for model work for the normal fee of a few meal worms!



Cape Robin-Chat (2)


Cape White-eys are also common in the garden but are not always easy to photograph as they don't sit still for a second!!



Cape White-eye


Another common resident is the Crested Barbet, people have reported that in their gardens the Black-collared Barbets are more dominant and scare off the Crested Barbets quite easily but in our garden things are different. The Crested Barbets are king and the Black-collareds always give way at the feeder when they appear!



Crested Barbet wrestling with a piece of apple skin




Crested Barbet


Well thats all I can report for this week, hopefully there will be more exciting things to see and read next week.

Week 19 - Bloemfontein Squash Trip

I bet you were all thinking "Now why don't he write?". Well with a blog named "The Lazy Birder" you can be sure he's a Lazy Blogger as well. This past few months have been really busy ones, not birding busy unfortunately but family, sport and work busy with a few birding opportunities in between.

The squash league season has started up again and occupies our time for most week nights. My son was once again privileged to be chosen to represent his province for squash and this took us off to Bloemfontein for a weekend of squash spectating with a few quick bird photo opportunities in between games. At the University of the Free State campus I found a large flock of Wattled Starlings flying around and making their usual racket. They were foraging on White Stinkwood berries and with some patience I was able to approach a few younger birds who were more trusting or should I say naive.



Wattled Starlings (4)





I also managed to see some birds that are less common in our area but are very common in Bloemfontein. Two of these were the Orange-River White-eye and the Red-eyed Bulbul.



Orange-River White-Eye





Red-eyed Bulbuls (2)



We also managed to take a drive through the Naval Hill nature area but birds were few and far between and the ones we did see were extremely camera shy. I only managed a fairly decent photo of a very busy Neddicky which preferred to stay behind the leaves.



Neddicky



As I said it was more a squash weekend than a birding weekend so not really anything worthwhile mentioning. Hope you enjoyed the photos anyway! I hope to catch up with some more posts in the next few days now that the pressure is off a bit! I hope you will take the time to come back and have another look!