Olive Sunbird and Grey Sunbird digiscoped

Sunbirds are these crazy crazy creatures that spend their lives flying about behind a ridiculously long decurved bill. I suppose they are what results when a songbird decides it wants to look like a curlew or whimbrel (only prettier).

One of the birds that I really loved as a young birdwatcher and ringer was the Eastern Olive Sunbird (Nectarinia olivacea aka Cyanomitra olivacea; Olivnektarvogel). I know it as a coastal or scarp forest bird species, typically liking open sunny forest clearings, and drifting in to gardens and wandering up and down riparian forest watercourses.

As sunbirds go, the Olive Sunbird is rather drab, sporting matt green plumage. But it is when the males get excited that they start to stand out. They have these little bushels of bright yellow feathers that they poke out of their shoulders in territorial disputes or when a predator - like the African Goshawk - is about.

Olive sunbird in a Common Coral Tree aka Lucky Bean Tree (Erythrina lysistemon) digiscoped using Swarovski Optik STM80HD spotting scope, 25-50x zoom eyepiece, Swarovski UCA digiscoping adapter, Canon's baby DSLR the 1000D.

But the absolute bestest thing about the Olive Sunbird is its call (play xeno canto recording by Patrik Åberg here). It might not be the most incredible call, but this is what my home forests sound like to me. It is like drinking from a fountain of joy and youth to hear it whistling away in the forest.

A closely related and equally non-flamboyant sunbird species is the Grey Sunbird (Nektarinia veroxii aka Cyanomitra veroxii aka Mouse-coloured Sunbird; Graunektarvogel). The grey sunbird lives in much the same habitat and has a similar southern African distribution to the Eastern Olive Sunbird, although I generally found it somewhat less common. However, it could well be that the grey sunbird just does not sing as much as the olive sunbird, but this is just speculation on my part.

While the Olive Sunbird has the bright yellow "I'm all excited" flashlights, the Grey Sunbird has bright red shoulder tufts which it flaunts in the face of competition. But it seems less likely to show these off than the olive sunbirds.

peeky boo said the grey sunbird

Despite having those ridiculously long bills, sunbirds actually get a whole lot of their dietary requirements from insects; caught mainly on the wing. The flowers give the sugars and fast-energy fuel; while the insects provide the necessary proteins and long-term support for reproduction and body maintenance.

Sunbird really are lovely, I should post a few more photos of them...

Happy birding,

Dale Forbes

African Wildlife - Cheetah

Joan of SAPhotographs is a massive fan of cheetahs, so it wasnt that hard to get her to agree to write a guest post here on Alpine Birds about these incredible animals. To accompany her words, I have added some of my favourite cheetah digiscoping photos. If you like these photos, you might like some of the other digiscoping African wildlife posts.

Cheetahs have been kept in captivity for some 5,000 years and were favoured by the early Egyptian Pharaohs and Queens. It is the only one of all the wild cats who become properly domestic and never turn on their owners.

The cheetah’s small streamlined head; long, light limbs; powerful hind legs; flexible shoulders and spine; long muscular tail; semi-retractable claws; enlarged liver and heart; and wide nostrils and increased lung capacity all combine to make it the fastest mammalian sprinter on earth. Covering up to 9 metres in a stride at almost 4 strides per second, the cheetah can reach a speed of 110km/h or more. For more than half of every stride, the cheetah is airborne.

The average life span in captivity is 10-12 years though cheetahs can live as long as 20 years. In the wild, few survive more than 8 years though they can live up to 10 or 12 years. Cub mortality is extremely high for the species in both the wild and captivity. They are most vulnerable from 6 weeks to 4 months and in open habitat like the Serengeti plains, less than 5% reach adulthood. Predation by lions and hyenas accounts for over 70% of mortality.

Cheetahs prefer savanna and arid, open grasslands with available bushland (to hide when stalking prey) for their habitat. They prey on all sorts of mammals including gazelles, impala, wildebeest, and antelopes, and smaller prey such as hares, ground birds, and warthogs. Females prefer a solitary life unless it is mating season, and males prefer to live in groups of two to four, called "coalitions." The female gives birth to one to eight cubs after a gestation period of 90 to 95 days. The cubs depend on the mother for about three months and are very vulnerable to predators like lions and hyenas.

Cheetahs use places of elevation—rocks, termite mounds and play trees (sloping trees with large horizontal limbs) as observation points and scent posts. A variety of vocalizations include chirping like a bird, churring or stutter-calling, moaning in distress and growling, snarling and hissing in anger or fright. Cheetahs purr just like a domestic cat when content.

In 1900, there were over 100,000 cheetahs across their historic range. Today, an estimated 9,000 to 12,000 cheetahs remain in the wild in Africa. In the early 1970’s they were listed on CITES as an endangered species however due to huge conservations efforts and breeding programs, the species have now recovered.

Thank you Joan!

Dale

Wildlife up close - cheetah

It's really hard to sum up what a cheetah is. Sleek. Elegant. Powerful. Like a bird.

huh? did I just say that? like a bird? well, they chirp like a bird (cheetah cannot roar or purr, just chirp). but it is more than that; there is an elegance and energy about them that most closely matches that of a falcon. well, at least I think so.

Although I love cheetah, I feel somewhat unqualified to really express what a cheetah is so I think I am going to go across to SAPhotographs and ask Joan to guest write something (she is a BIG fan of cheetah and has lots of experience with them). I have a whole series of cool cheetah photos, so if she obliges then I'll post her insights with those photos.

Back to the close-ups. So much of what makes a cheetah special are its feet (and permanently exposed claws), hence there is lots of that here:

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If you have not seen any of the "Wildlife up close" digiscoping series, then here is a bit of an intro (from the first Cape Buffalo post):
So one of the great things about digiscoping is that one has a huge focal length to play with, so one can really get up close and personal with some pretty impressive creatures. In my time in Southern Africa, I was able to get a whole pile of close-up macro-style images of a variety of wildlife.
What I would like to do is to create a collection of the best "Wildlife up close" images but I would like you to help me out. Each post will feature a different species of African wildlife and I would like to vote for your favorite (or against your least favorite).

So far, we have had:

Cape Buffalo

White Rhino

African Elephant

Lion

Burchell's Zebra

Primates

Wildlife fur/skin collection - still not solved

Please vote for your favorite, and at the end of the series, I will randomly choose a winner from each post in the series and send them the original full-sized image they chose. In two weeks I will randomly choose a winner from all those that voted in a particular post!

Have a wonderful day,

Dale

Wildlife up close - wildlife fur/skin edition

So I really enjoyed the "Wildlife Up Close" digiscoping series - I loved taking the photos and I loved sharing the photos with my blog friends. So far I have posted six posts in the series, which pretty much gets me to the end of the decent super-up-close photos that I took while in southern Africa this last (austral) winter. I wish I had taken more, and although I had four great encounters with Leopard (and have leopard digiscoping photos here and a digiscoping/no digiscoping comparison of a leopard here), I never managed to get any really good close-ups of leopards (to complete my Big 5 close-up ambitions). But you will never catch me close to complaining about the spectacular experiences I have shared with the leopards of the bushveld...

this penultimate wildlife up close post is a little different: you need to guess what mammals you are looking at (you can identify the birds as well if you want, but they are not the focus) and then choose your favorite one.

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If you have not seen any of the "Wildlife up close" digiscoping series, then here is a bit of an intro (from the first Cape Buffalo post):
So one of the great things about digiscoping is that one has a huge focal length to play with, so one can really get up close and personal with some pretty impressive creatures. In my time in Southern Africa, I was able to get a whole pile of close-up macro-style images of a variety of wildlife.
What I would like to do is to create a collection of the best "Wildlife up close" images but I would like you to help me out. Each post will feature a different species of African wildlife and I would like to vote for your favorite (or against your least favorite).

So far, we have had:

Cape Buffalo

White Rhino

African Elephant

Lion

Burchell's Zebra

Primates

the final Wildlife Up Close post will be on Cheetahs - and I have some great shots of them!

Please vote for your favorite, and at the end of the series, I will randomly choose a winner from each post in the series and send them the original full-sized image they chose. In two weeks I will randomly choose a winner from all those that voted in a particular post!

Have a wonderful day!

Dale Forbes

Wildlife up close - primates

Primates are - to European tastes at least - very very exotic creatures. South Africa has three large primates, the Vervet Monkey, the Samango Monkey, and the Chacma Baboon. This post doesnt really fit with the rules of the "Wildlife up close" digiscoping series, but I will put it in there because it is somehow related.

Young Vervet Monkey

Samango Monkeys

Young Chacma Baboon drinking at sunset

Adult male Chacma Baboon

If you have not seen any of the "Wildlife up close" digiscoping series, then here is a bit of an intro (from the first Cape Buffalo post):
So one of the great things about digiscoping is that one has a huge focal length to play with, so one can really get up close and personal with some pretty impressive creatures. In my time in Southern Africa, I was able to get a whole pile of close-up macro-style images of a variety of wildlife.
What I would like to do is to create a collection of the best "Wildlife up close" images but I would like you to help me out. Each post will feature a different species of African wildlife and I would like to vote for your favorite (or against your least favorite).

Please vote for your favorite, and at the end of the series, I will randomly choose a winner from each post in the series and send them the original full-sized image they chose.

Happy voting and good luck!

Dale Forbes

Wildlife up close - zebra

there is so much about the burchell's zebra that just says "Africa".

So, getting back to the "Wildlife up close" digiscoping series, I have a few shots of some zebras taken near Satara camp in Kruger National Park. Winter time is the dry season in the park, and the majority of the zebras and wildebeest (gnus) move up to the Satara area because of its "sweet veld". It is not that the grass is in any way sweeter than in "sourveld", it is just that sourveld areas have a higher average rainfall (usually more than about 600mm per year). This relatively higher rainfall tends to leach the nutrients out of the soils, so although the vegetation grows really well in these areas in the wet, growing season (summer), the nutritional value of the grasses in these areas is in winter very low.

In sweetveld, the lower average annual rainfall (usually less than 450mm)

So what this means for mobile grazers like zebra and wildebeest is that it is best to be in the sweetveld when there is a food crunch, and best to be in the productive sourveld in the growing season.

Here is a happy-snappy tourist shot of some zebras:

(this photo does not count for voting)

If you have not seen any of the "Wildlife up close" digiscoping series, then here is a bit of an intro (from the first Cape Buffalo post):
So one of the great things about digiscoping is that one has a huge focal length to play with, so one can really get up close and personal with some pretty impressive creatures. In my time in Southern Africa, I was able to get a whole pile of close-up macro-style images of a variety of wildlife.
What I would like to do is to create a collection of the best "Wildlife up close" images but I would like you to help me out. Each post will feature a different species of African wildlife and I would like to vote for your favorite (or against your least favorite).

Please vote for your favorite, and at the end of the series, I will randomly choose a winner from each post in the series and send them the original full-sized image they chose.

Happy voting and good luck!

Dale Forbes

Digiscoping Rhinos

Before I get back to the "Digiscoping wildlife up close" series, I thought I would share a couple more white rhino photos. I just really wanted to share them.

All taken with a Swarovski STM80HD scope, a 25-50x wide eyepiece, the Swarovski UCA digiscoping adapter, and a Canon EOS 1000D DSLR camera.

Happy digiscoping,

Dale

Digiscoping Robins

I am going to break the "Wildlife up close" digiscoping series for a short interlude about Robins.

Robins are the greatest birds on earth. ever. you may have heard me say this before about other bird species, but this time I really mean it.

Southern Africa has a real wealth of robin species. well, at least we call them robins, but they are more like the chats and redstarts of the Palearctic. and what the north americans call robins, I'd call a thrush. but that is all just splitting feathers.

Just on this last trip to South Africa, I saw these robins:

White-starred Robin (Krantzkloof NR, KZN)

Brown Scrub-Robin (St Lucia, KZN)

White-browed Scrub Robin (Isimangaliso Wetland Park, KZN)

Kalahari Scrub Robin (near Bloemfontein, FS)

Karoo Scrub-Robin (near Bloemfontein, FS)

Chorister Robin-Chat (Magoebaskloof, LP)

Red-capped Robin-Chat (Berg-en-Dal, KNP & KZN)

Cape Robin-Chat (pretty much everywhere)

White-browed Robin-Chat (Lower Sabie, KNP)

White-throated Robin-Chat (W Swaziland)

and an Orange Ground Thrush (Swartbos, LP) - not a robin but kinda robin-like and a very very cool bird!

That is 10 robin species!

Cape Robin-Chat

White-browed Robin-Chat (aka Heuglin's Robin)

Red-capped Robin-Chat (aka Natal Robin)

Bearded Scrub-Robin

Kalahari Robin-Chat

Happy birding

Dale Forbes

Wildlife up close - lion

the lion

need I say more.

it is one of those creatures completely bound up in our imagination - with images of power, and grace, and fear...

1. the distinctive black behind the ears

2. normally hidden, the claws come out to control their prey (in this case a wildebeest)

3. eye reflecting the car we are hiding in, trying not to get eaten. it gives you an impression of just how far away we are and how big a pseudo-telephoto lens that digiscoping kit is

4. a scratch

5. lions sleep a good 23.5hrs a day. I dare say, many a safari visitor to Africa has only seen something like this - a single lazy paw up in the air, body hidden in the grass. lazy creatures.

6. yummy

Please vote for your favorite, and at the end of the series, I will randomly choose a winner from each post in the series and send them the original full-sized image they chose.

Happy voting and good luck!

Dale Forbes