Text & photos by Andy Ruffle
Attendees: Liz Blomeyer, Stan & Val Culley, Mike Fagan, Rusty & Sue Lupton, Kate Reese, Andy Ruffle, Ron Whitham. (9 attendees).
It was a glorious morning for ringing at Andrew & Ivan Pickles home. After welcoming Sue & Rusty Lupton from Zululand and Kate Reese from Gauteng, we eagerly awaited the first bird out of the bag.
They say the early bird catches the worm, well we surely came up trumps with this one...a stunning and very unexpected Spotted Ground-Thrush - a sign that the winter migrants are arriving.
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| Spotted Ground-Thrush |
Coming a very close second, in the wow factor league, was a female Cape Batis.
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| Cape Batis female |
Certainly a candidate for the mystery bird competition was this juvenile Cape Robin-Chat.
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| juvenile Cape Robin-Chat |
These ringing sessions provide you with the opportunity to appreciate aspects of birds not readily seen in the field.
A good example of this being the Grey Sunbird. Just look at those iridescent feathers!!
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| Grey Sunbird |
For more photos of this session and some stunning photos of Crowned Eagles frolicking see Andrew's blog here.
The next ringing session will be 20th May. Snooze or lose.
Birds ringed: Spotted Ground-Thrush, Cape Batis, Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird, Green-backed Camaroptera, Olive Sunbird, Collared Sunbird, Cape Robin-chat, Grey Sunbird, Yellow-fronted Canary, African Firefinch.
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