20 January 2024: Day 2, Arrive in Johannesburg, South Africa — Highway Scholar Southern Africa Birding Safari. Click on right here to see (typically) the place I’m at the moment.
Notice: This text was written weeks in the past, primarily based on the tour itinerary. The place I assumed I’d be at the moment will not be correct.
Barring one thing surprising, I’ll arrive in Johannesburg at the moment at 4:05pm South Africa time (9:05am Pittsburgh time). I’m certain to see a Life Chook 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 chicken is a Life Chook.
O.R. Tambo Worldwide Airport is an eBird hotspot, maybe as a result of so many (compulsive?) birders cross by right here. Listed here 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 chicken 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 giggle.
Little swifts (Apus affinis) are just like our chimney swifts (Chaetura pelagica) although barely smaller with white throats and rumps. The white options aren’t simple to see in opposition to the sky.
You may inform that the pied crow (Corvus albus) is a crow however he seems 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 herald home sparrows when the South Africa has a extra stunning native, the Cape sparrow (Passer melanurus) additionally known as “mossie.”
By the point I’m on the highway to the resort I’ll have seen a minimum of 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. (Because of Fran for sending me the Allen cam hyperlink.)
(images from Wikimedia Commons; click on on the captions to see the originals)
