[ad_1]
20 January 2024: Day 2, Arrive in Johannesburg, South Africa — Street Scholar Southern Africa Birding Safari. Click on right here to see (usually) the place I’m immediately.
Word: This text was written weeks in the past, based mostly on the tour itinerary. The place I assumed I’d be immediately might not be correct.
Barring one thing sudden, I’ll arrive in Johannesburg immediately at 4:05pm South Africa time (9:05am Pittsburgh time). I’m positive to see a Life Hen proper off the bat, even from the airplane window. There are a handful of birds on the airport that I’ve already seen — rock pigeons, cattle egrets, widespread mynas (seen in Hawaii) and home sparrows — however all the remainder are new to me. Crossing an ocean and altering hemispheres ensures that just about each fowl is a Life Hen.
O.R. Tambo Worldwide Airport is an eBird hotspot, maybe as a result of so many (compulsive?) birders go by means of right here. Listed below are 5 birds that everybody sees on the airport — birds of the Previous World, not the New World, so even when they resemble a North American fowl they’re not in the identical genus.
Laughing doves (Spilopelia senegalensis) resemble mourning doves (Zenaida macroura) however their throats are fancier once they puff them in courtship and, as a substitute of mourning, they snicker.
Little swifts (Apus affinis) are much like our chimney swifts (Chaetura pelagica) although barely smaller with white throats and rumps. The white options should not straightforward to see towards the sky.
You may inform that the pied crow (Corvus albus) is a crow however he appears to be like mighty completely different. He wears a white vest and is heavier then our American crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos).
We don’t have the southern masked weaver (Ploceus velatus) in North America. His magnificence and measurement put the home sparrow to disgrace.
Home sparrows had been imported to South Africa simply as they had been to North America. Why did somebody hassle to usher in home sparrows when the South Africa has a extra stunning native, the Cape sparrow (Passer melanurus) additionally referred to as “mossie.”
By the point I’m on the street to the lodge I’ll have seen not less than 5 Life Birds.
p.s. See a few of my Life Birds for your self on the feeders in Pretoria, South Africa on the Allen Birdcam. Pretoria is 57km (35 miles) north of Johannesburg. (Due to Fran for sending me the Allen cam hyperlink.)
(pictures from Wikimedia Commons; click on on the captions to see the originals)
[ad_2]