Seeing is believing!

The rare yellow form of the Crimson-breasted Shrike (Photo: K Oake)

If you've only ever seen an illustration of the yellow form of the Crimson-breasted Shrike in your bird book and, like many others, even doubted its existence, you'll be happy to know that it is alive and well and living at Kgantsang along the Nhabe River in Ngamiland, northern Botswana. This individual was first seen on 19th July by Andy Moore, Chris McIntyre and Tony Caulfield while out mountain-biking along the river; fortunately they realised the rarity and importance of their sighting and contacted BirdLife Botswana member Ken Oake who photographed it and told other keen birders about it. They were also able to relocate it, confirming its existence! As can be seen from the photograph, the breast of the bird is a rich yellow-orange colour, making it strikingly beautiful. Its mate has the normal crimson breast.

Important date change

Please note that the 2009 BirdLife Botswana annual dinner will be held in Maun on Saturday 15th August this year, not on Saturday 5th September as previously advertised. The dinner will still be at Thamalakane River Lodge and will cost P150.00 per person. We would like those planning to attend, to let Pete Hancock (birdlifemaun@botsnet.bw) know by the end of July please, so that the necessary preparations can be made. After dinner, the guest speaker will be Richard Randall, well known as one of the top birders in Botswana, who will give an illustrated presentation on birding the Okavango.

BirdLife Botswana Board members will be present, so this is also an opportunity to meet them informally and have an enjoyable evening.

Too much of a good thing?

With the Okavango River at its highest flood level for decades at present, there have been great expectations for good birding as water reaches areas that have been dry for a long time. Throughout the Delta, water levels are high, and this has had the somewhat unexpected effect of forcing wading birds into peripheral areas. The result is that the central parts of the Delta are noticeably devoid of birds.

July is the month for the African Waterbird Counts, and long-standing transects that have been counted in the Okavango so far are turning up very few birds. The heronries at Xakanaxa, Gadikwe and Gcobega have been surprisingly quiet, and the same applies to other areas. Water at Lake Ngami is deeper and more extensive than at any other time in the recent past, and waterbirds are conspicuous by their absence.

However, along the fringes of inundated floodplains such as the Khwai and Gomoti, birding is much better. Unusually, sizeable flocks of Wattled Cranes are being seen along the Khwai River, an area previously considered marginal for this flodplain specialist. These are likely to be birds forced out of their normal areas by high water, or they may simply be taking advantage of the improved conditions at Khwai. The Gomoti floodplain is teeming with Slaty Egrets, Glossy and African Sacred ibis and a variety of ducks and geese.
Glossy Ibis probing the shallow floodplain margins (Photo: P Hancock)

Please keep the BirdLife Office in Maun informed of any build-up of waterbird numbers anywhere in the Okavango Delta system.

Interesting sightings from Tachila

Tachila Nature Reserve, near Francistown, is a new privately run wildlife sanctuary that aims to provide opportunities for environmental education for schoolchildren from throughout the country. It is also a worthwhile birding destination, and BirdLife Botswana Board member, Nicky Bousfield (who has been the driving force behind the establishment of the reserve)sent in the following highlights recently:
"The following are some of the interesting sightings from Tachila:
Short-toed Rock-Thrush (eastern race, with uniform slate-blue crown) Monticola brevipes pretoriae
Freckled Nightjar Caprimulgus tristigma (this bird is marginal in eastern Botswana)
Black Stork Ciconia nigra (uncommon in Botswana)
Boulder Chat Pinarornis plumosus (marginal in Botswana)
Bronze-winged Courser Rhinoptilus chalcopterus
Three-banded Courser Rhinoptilus cinctus (marginal in Botswana)
Yellow-billed Egret Egretta intermedia (uncommon in eastern Botswana)
Yellow-billed Egret (Photo: P Hancock)

African-Fish-Eagles are breeding at Tachila for the third year in a row. Other raptors seen from time to time include Bateleur, African Hawk-Eagle, Black-chested Snake-Eagle, White-backed and Lappet-faced vultures".

Latest Birds and People newsletter on website

The latest Birds and People newsletter (#22) is available off the BirdLife Botswana website www.birdlifebotswana.org.bw

There have been some unexpected difficulties mailing it out to subscribers, so if you are in a hurry to receive your copy, please download it from the website.

Ringed Pratincoles at Lake Ngami

One of the ringed pratincoles (Photo: K Oake)

An observant Maun birder, Ken Oake, recently spotted two Collared Pratincoles with rings (bands) at Lake Ngami, and managed to get a clear photo of one of them. Unfortunately the number on the ring is not legible, making this a somewhat tantalising observation as we cannot be certain of the origin of the bird. It is most likely that it was among the 61 Collared Pratincoles ringed at the Lake during an AFRING training course in December, 2005, and if this is the case, it would mean that the pratincoles are returning to this important site. Only 283 Collared Pratincoles have ever been ringed, so it is great to get a resighting of one of them, even if the information is incomplete.

Birders at Lake Ngami should also keep a look out for other bird species with rings - for example, a large number of Kittlitz's Plovers were ringed there during the AFRING course, and none of them have been re-sighted or recovered to date.

A date to diarise

The 2009 BirdLife Botswana annual dinner will be held in Maun this year, at Thamalakane River Lodge, on Saturday 5th September. The dinner costs P150.00 per person, and we would like those planning to attend, to let Pete Hancock (birdlifemaun@botsnet.bw) know by mid-August please. After dinner, the guest speaker will be Richard Randall, well known as one of the top birders in Botswana, who will give an illustrated presentation on birding the Okavango.

BirdLife Botswana Board members will be present, so this is also an opportunity to meet them informally and have an enjoyable evening.

New (overlooked) record for Botswana bird list?

During the Peterhouse School scientific expeditions to Botswana between 1966 and 1970, schoolchildren under the supervision of Peter Ginn (well-known as the editor of ‘A Complete Book of Southern African Birds’) collected bird specimens from the Makgadikgadi area. During one of these outings, a gull that was collected in the Nata area, in the company of Grey-headed Gulls, turned out to be an exciting find. Once the group had returned to Zimbabwe, the gull was tentatively identified by Mr Stuart Irwin from the Natural History Museum as Larus novaehollandiae. This was subsequently confirmed by Messrs CW Benson and PR Colston at the British Museum of Natural History.

When Larus novaehollandiae was later split, the nominate race in Australia retained the name L. novaehollandiae and the southern African birds became L. hartlaubii. This species is restricted as a breeding bird to the coldwater coasts of Namibia and the Western Cape, and sightings inland are quite unusual.

However the interesting thing about this observation is that Larus hartlaubii does not feature on the Botswana bird list. There is no mention of it in the Bird Atlas of Botswana – this ‘bible’ for birds in Botswana included historical data on our birds as well as observations spanning the decade 1980 to 1990. Could this species have been overlooked?

It would be interesting to know the whereabouts of the specimen collected by the Peterhouse expedition, to confirm its identity. Anyone who knows anything about this observation is invited to comment below.