Birds bathing at Jack Muller Park
A storm pipe running into a stream at Jack Muller Park, Bellville, Cape Town, provided two points where local birds could bathe (15 Sept 2020). Fi...
Author: Dieter
Dieter is a qualified Bird Ringer and trainer, registered bird guide, and Weaver expert. Dieter is able to act as a bird guide for day trips in Cape Town, and is able to customise birds tours in South Africa and beyond.
Antarctic seabirds
Two seabirds were rehabilitated at SANCCOB, Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds, in Cape Town, and I was asked to ring them today ...
Weaver nests on man-made sites
Weavers usually nest on trees, in reeds or grass. Increasingly, some weaver species are also nesting on man-made structures. Some of the main structures ...
Gymnogene predation
Gymnogenes (African Harrier-Hawks) have remarkable adaptations to find prey. Their legs can bend partly backwards to get their claws into difficult to reach cre...
Starlings and syringas
The leaves, berries, and wood of the syringa tree (or Persian Lilac) Melia azedarach are poisonous to mammals (including humans). It is found naturally i...
Snake predation on weaver nests
Weaver nests are often very conspicuous, as males (in polygynous species) try to attract more females. This means that the nests are also more visible to predat...
Weavers bathing
Many birds bathe to help clean their feathers, but some species do not seem to bathe. Species that often bathe include thrushes, bulbuls, babblers, finch...
Strandfontein during lockdown
Nature reserves in Cape Town opened on 17 July, during lockdown level 3, so we visited Strandfontein the next afternoon to see and enjoy some birds! It was grea...
Anting in weavers
Anting is when birds apply ants to their plumage. Birds select ants in the subfamily Formicinae, which produce formic acid when disturbed. Formic acid is toxic ...
Colony sizes of weavers
Oschadleus HD 2020 Variation in colony sizes of weavers from a citizen science project. Ostrich online Download a pdf of the paper here (limited to 50 copies,...