Interesting 2014….Birds.

Interesting 2014….Birds.

On a birding front we saw many of the normal birds, but tried to present them in new ways.

Orange River White-eye (Zosterops pallidus)

We first showed you a bird from our previous region of residence in the Northern Cape, where these endemic White-eyes come from.

A tough little subject to capture on camera.

The Marabou was another subject, based on a post of a trip by mom to Uganda. These will forever remain fascinating birds to us.

The owl stare-down post was another favorite because these Spotted owls gave us personal contact and something we will forever remember.

The Greater double – collared Sunbirds and this photo with the nectar and tongue, lovely.

We saw them again in August on our trip in the Addo National Park.

Talking about small birds, the Firefinch, first time captured on camera and a great source of pleasure.

 

Another fun sight was the fighting Malachite Sunbirds. Another unique chance – something different.

The fun sighting was the very distant Secretary Birds on their nest, changing guard. It was an absolute lucky find, being so far away and even the long lens struggled, but from birding perspective, priceless.Red-necked Francolin’s offered some wonderful chances for photos.

A major find and capture was the Stanley’s Bustard. Again a lucky find, but so special.

The first ever sighting of the Forest Weaver….thrilling!

One of Boeta’s favorite birds would have been the Masked Weaver.

These kept hanging around the deck of the lodge, and kept him busy for periods.

 Daddy love the capture of the Kelp gull in a row…

And the performance given by the European sparrows also made the little man laugh and gave us a whole morning of fun, catching midges.

We can go on and on, lots of raptors and a nice list of birds we posted about during the year, all listed on the fauna page. We can summarize by saying this, if we just visited natural areas for the wildlife, it would have meant losing out by heaps, because adding birding to the list makes your trips and travels just that more exciting and fun. A last wave goodbye by the African Hoepoe to 2014.