December 11, 2019
Prides of lion, prancing springbuck, unabashedly-staring kudu and the grey ghosts that are the elephants.
November 28, 2019
A few international birding enthusiasts were rewarded with a unique and extremely rare sighting of Ross’s Turaco 35 kilometres west of Rundu.
September 5, 2019
To explain something that you yourself do not understand can be extremely heart-warming. It can become so warm that even cold hard facts cannot put the matter to rest. I have been trying to sort out larks, as in identify, classify and file in the correct folder, for many years.
August 27, 2019
If this story will not motivate you to start birding you can just as well die and never be able to enjoy life to its fullest. If you are an anti-social animal, birding is for you. If you are a party animal and crowd pleaser you will even like it that much more, entertaining your guest with another wonderful sighting of your first 50 birds (mossies?).
March 5, 2019
September 20, 2018
Arriving in Namibia many moons ago as a free man, not on any anti-depressants but with lots of hair and muscles, weekends were open for enjoyment. As a novice birder (2 months), I decided that Etosha should be the first place to conquer with my new-found knowledge and enthusiasm for the world of birds. Since I had been in the country for just one month there were a few birds to discover, over 600 to be more precise. Without wanting to bore the reader with the "wel en weë van (ups and downs of) die blou bul birder" this might be of real importance to any novice Namibian and birder.
September 16, 2018
The Nyae Nyae Pans in the east of Namibia were filled up after good autumn rains. Stories abounded of lions that roamed the open grasslands. Of a massive flock of flamingos that had descended on the water. One word: paradise.
July 13, 2018
If there were a lion behind every second bush, or a leopard in every tree, would they be so special? Would photographers want to shoot them (to protect them), would photographers drive off-road or into a no-entry road to get a better angle on their million dollar picture? I have in fact seen people drive all over each other to get a closer look at a lion, to get to the front of the scene of the crime. Imagine, for a lion! Luckily no photographer will ever do that. The point I want to make about starlings is that they are too common. Most of the starlings have a metallic sheen flashing back when the sun touches their feathers, but unfortunately they are not so special because they are just too common. This might be where this terrible word is coming from: ‘common’, like too many seen too often. Possibly it is also because they are robust and gregarious. Let’s rather call them plebeian.
April 25, 2018
Cranes are universally regarded as symbols of peace and good luck. There are 15 species worldwide, with the bulk of the Blue Crane population found in South Africa. A small outlying population in Namibia is described as being among the most mysterious of all cranes.
April 25, 2018
Birding on the Chobe floodplains is like falling into a big bowl of ice-cream, without the negative side effects of eating too much of it. Being a boatman for a bird watcher or bird photographer must be exhausting. Stopping every few metres for yet another bird. Imagine how tiring it must be for the photographer!