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September 1, 2022
Visiting Etosha National Park in early May this year we encountered what might be a once-in-a-lifetime experience: watching a flock, or rather flocks, of Red-billed Queleas at Goas waterhole one morning coming in for their daily drink. Apparently this usually happens twice a day, but my fellow waterhole visitors in the car got a bit fed up with the once-in-a-lifetime experience after a few hours and I had to leave the birds on their own for the rest of the day, to my utter dismay.
June 29, 2022
These thousands of birds on the water in the middle of nowhere are standing in the shallow water of the pan in the Naye Naye Conservancy close to the north-eastern border with Botswana.
June 1, 2022
I wonder if any of those pioneers in the early 1900s ever saw Barlow’s
Lark (Calendulauda barlowi) at Pomona, or the Dune Lark (C.
erythrochlamys) in the dunes near Lüderitz? Looking at the barren
‘killing fields’ those diamond hunters left behind as memories for
later generations, I doubt it very much. I suppose the diamond’s
blinding effect on your eyes has the same effect on your mind. In
the end, it’s the larks that are still around, and not those diamond
hunters.
June 1, 2022
According to unconfirmed reports the Namibian blue crane population is seriously threatened because of poaching.
March 20, 2022
Corgis are highly alert dogs, they react to any sound by barking. They are fearless, aggressive and excellent watch dogs, reacting by sounding the alarm for almost everything. Unfortunately it barks at almost anything, which can get annoying. They also become destructive, chew on furniture or other forbidden things. Separation anxiety can occur when not saying goodbye, and barking all day, getting on everybody's nerves, is a well known trait. Not unlike the Lapwing...
March 4, 2022
Rièth van Schalkwyk followed the whim of a family member to break the tradition of Christmas at the seaside, packed the camper for two weeks of slow travel and camped on the banks of the Kavango, Zambezi, Chobe and Kwando to discover the magic of looking closer and staying longer.
December 1, 2021
I think the only bird which has been named and featured in a movie is Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Bird on a wire by Leonard Cohen is the song most covered by other artists – about 400 different artists, I think. If this is because it is such a beautiful song or if it is about the bird I do not know. What is important is that I do not know what bird it was, but I think it has been sitting on the same wire for the last 50 years.
November 1, 2021
One of our favourite activities every year is the annual vulture tagging. We have been participating since 2016, at which point one child was two and the other five. The first time we joined this outing we hadn’t yet met everyone involved, but had made telephonic arrangements to meet the team at Sesriem.
November 1, 2021
Namibia is a large country, size does indeed matter, so driving and being on the road will be part and parcel of travelling (and bird watching) in this vast and beautiful country. To get to the different hotspots for birding you need to do the travel thing (remember slowness), be it by car, boat or on foot, although I must confess Namibians are not known for the foot thing.
October 29, 2021
[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/6″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text] They taught us the speed of light, but they never taught us the speed of darkness. – Sarajevo Marlboro by Miljenko Jergovic [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/6″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Fire […]
March 10, 2021
It might sound like a bit of a cliché to mention the importance of trees for birds and vice versa, although there are unfortunately people who still cannot see that importance, and probably not the importance of trees for humans either – so how in hell would they ever see the importance of trees at all.
April 2, 2020
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Text and Photographs Pompie Burger I don’t like snakes, and I am scared of snakes. The fact that I know Dr Christo Buys, the snake […]
January 8, 2020
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Text and Photographs Pompie Burger [/vc_column_text][vc_column_text] As if game drives in a vehicle aren’t bad enough, someone has invented boat trips. The worst part of […]
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.