BIRDING BOTSWANA

Birding alert, communication & multimedia

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Bird books related to Botswana:

Birds of Southern Africa, Kenneth Newman - several editions

Roberts' Birds of Southern Africa by G. Maclean, 1993, 6th Ed. The 7th Ed. is due 2005 and will be THE book to get on birds of this region as it will include much biological and behavioural information which the smaller, lighter field guides cannot include. Roberts is a household name in Southern Africa, and has long been the regional general reference bird book.

Sasol Birds of Southern Africa by I. Sinclair, P. Hokey and W. Tarboton. 2002. Preferred field guide.

The Complete Book of Southern Africa Birds compiled by P.Ginn, W. McIlleron & P. le S. Milstein, 1990, pub.by Struik. Large, "coffee table" vol. May be out of print.

Sasol Birds of Prey of Southern Africa & its Islands by A.& M. Kemp, 1998.

Collins Illustrated Checklist of Birds of Southern Africa. by Ber Van Perlo., 1999.

Atlas of Southern African Birds , various editors, pub. by BirdLife South Africa, 1997.

Bird Atlas of Botswana by H. Penry, 1994, pub. by Univ. of Natal.

Birds of Africa, various authors, pub. by Academic Press over several years. Multi-vol. reference work. You won't be carrying any of these vols. to Africa!

Recommendations for field guides: Sasol or Newman's Birds of Southern Africa.

Also: Roberts Multi-Media Birds of Southen Africa: CD ROM. 2002/3, and hand-held palm-tops Roberts E-Birds and Sasol E-Birds.

Bird films related to Botswana:

- Year of the flamebird, Tim Liversedge - Great story of flamingoes of Makgadikgadi Salt Pans

- The fascinating world of birding, Ken Oake - DVD series

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Birding Botswana News - December 2007 Lake Ngami received quite a bit of water from the Okavango Delta this year and recently reached 18 km in extent, although the water is now receding in the summer heat, evaporation exceeding the diminishing inflow. The lake has attracted many thousands of birds – ducks, waders, herons & egrets, Little Grebes, coots, Whiskered Terns, pelicans, flamingos. There is much aquatic species breeding in the various types of  vegetation in the lake. Lesser Moorhens and Painted Snipes will soon arrive there. On 29 June Richard Randall and some birding companions saw two great rarities for the region: an immature Egyptian Vulture and 6 Burchell’s Coursers. They were spotted at the southern dry, end of the present-day lake bed, near the village of Sehitwa. Getting around the lake is not easy, with vehicle access only feasible from the western side, near Sehitwa, but as the waters recede with the progress of summer, Lake Ngami ranks as arguably southern Africa’s most exciting and vibrant wetland. Migrant species continue to pour into Botswana and may be seen in the principal birding areas – the Okavango Delta, Moremi, Chobe National Park, the Central Kalahari areas and the Makgadikgadi Pans. With the emergence of termites following the rains raptor species such as lesser Spotted and Steppe Eagles, and Amur and Red-footed Falcons can be seen actively feeding on the insects, the eagles pecking them off the ground chicken-like, and the falcons hawking them from the air. Barn Swallows, Common Swifts and Woolly-necked Storks also participate in this annual bonanza. Recently, a Denham’s Bustard (uncommon) was seen and photographed in the Savuti “Marsh”.  Many birders enjoyed the spectacular breeding colonies at the heronries in Gcadikwe Lagoon in the eastern Okavango Delta. Most in evidence were Yellow-Billed Storks, but there were also Marabous, Sacred and Hadeda Ibises, various egrets and a couple of Pink-backed Pelicans. Most chicks have now fledged (early Dec. 2007), but there are some late breeders and still quite a few birds in the area. It’s well worth a visit and the boat ride out there, from Xakanaxa in Moremi, may well produce gems like Greater Swamp Warbler, Wattled Cranes, Pygmy Geese, Black Coucal, Carmine Bee-eaters and Slaty Egrets. Alert News! 06.10.2004: Lake Ngami, attracting breathtaking numbers of birds, presently lays fair claim to being the most dynamic and exciting wetland in southern Africa. Richard Randall reports (6th October, 2004): "I went with some local birders to Lake Ngami on 5th Oct, the first time he had been there  in several weeks. Access to the better areas remains tricky (few tracks going to the now  overgrown shoreline), and we had to do a certain amount of wading. I was amazed at the change since my last visit. There is substantial water in the lake, generally shallow (favouring a range aquatic species) and flooding into acacia thickets. The flooding of the lake has prompted breeding everywhere - we saw a great many nests of Little Grebes, Bl.-Cr. Night-Herons, Glossy Ibises, various species of ducks, Common Moorhens, Coots, Whiskered Terns, to name some of them. (The Whiskered Terns, in fact, were nesting even though they had only just started to assume breeding plumage). There is a lot of opportunistic breeding going on at the lake. This re-inforces the view that there is no strict breeding seasonality with many of Botswana's birds: if the conditions are right, they breed, any time. There were good numbers of Great White Pelicans and Greater Flamingos, though they did not seem to be breeding. I was particularly struck by the groups of 40+ White- backed ducks and the great numbers of Comb Ducks. Lining the banks of the main inlet were many flattened and broken acacias, testimony to the crushing weight of the staggering numbers of Queleas that alighted on them. There are at least tens of thousands of birds enjoying the ideal breeding conditions and abundant food at the lake. The last flooding of the lake was over 20 years ago. I have been in the country about that long and was beginning to doubt that I would ever see it with a large expanse of water. We were able to access the main body of water by boat, but this will soon not be possible as the water level of the main channel feeding the lake is dropping fairly quickly. As the summer progresses, the bird numbers and variety should increase and the lake will undoubtedly hold water well into next year. If the Okavango Delta receives a good flood again in 2005 and there is another major outflow from it to the lake, then the surface area of the lake will increase, though it would probably take several seasons of good flooding for Ngami to fill up to maximum extent.  Lake Ngami, attracting breathtaking numbers of birds, presently lays fair claim to being the most dynamic and exciting wetland in southern Africa".   Alert News! 04.10.2004: NEW BIRD FOR BOTSWANA SPECIES: Common Name: ANGOLA SWALLOW                   Scientific Name: Hirundo angolensis I was on a boat cruise on the Kwando River with two Canadian guests, a few km northwest of Lagoon Camp in the Kwando Concession, when I noticed a small group of swallows (4) flying over and in the vicinity of the river. I did not immediately identify them as the boat was moving, so I stopped the boat and observed the birds for some twenty minutes, during which time I was able - with persistence - to record the features described below. The birds were seen at varying distances, sometimes right over the boat, a few metres away, sometimes over the floodplain up to 200 m away. It took me some time to see the main features of the swallows as they flew around hawking insects at varying distances and altitudes, but I was eventually able to obtain satisfactory views as they flew towards me, away from me, sideways on, and banking with fanned tail. There were other swallow spp. in the vicinity, but the swallows being described did not seem to be in any close association with these and they kept separate from them. The swallows flew both on the Botswana and the Namibia side of the river, penetrating about 200m into Botswana.      DESCRIPTION, based on field notes: - upperparts glossy blue-black - white “windows” in fanned, shallowly-forked tail - extensive rufous-chestnut throat, bordered by indistinct, blue-black breast band, broader at sides than in centre. This rufous-chestnut colouration was noticeably more extensive – both deeper and wider – than that of the Barn Swallow which this species perhaps most closely resembles; it extended to the upper breast. The breast band was clearly narrower than that of the Barn Swallow, so common in later summer in northern Botswana. (I was in the area for eleven days and did not see one Barn Swallow). - small rufous-chestnut forehead patch (not an easily seen feature; I only got a glimpse of it a couple of times) - pale greyish underparts - underwings blackish with the remiges noticeably darker than the greyish-brown coverts. - dark eye Given the above-mentioned features, I conclude that the birds in question must be Angola Swallows. Richard Randall Alert News! 17.09.2004; Re: Lake Ngami. After more than 20 years Lake Ngami is filling up again! This lake is situated at the southernmost corner of the famous Okavango Delta from which it is receiving substantial flood water. The lake attracted the great explorer David Livingstone there in 1849 when he made his first voyage deep into tropical Africa. In those days it was a vast sheet of water with a circumference of some 120 km and took several days to circumnavigate. As recently as the 1970s, before the lake dried up, hundreds of thousands of ducks and thousands of flamingos, pelicans and waders flocked to the nutritious shallow waters of Ngami, making it one of southern Africa's most spectacular birding wetlands. As it fills, the Lake is already attracting many aquatic species and in the next few weeks there is every reason to expect the return of the former fabulous variety and quantity of bird species and we will be closely monitoring this exciting phenomenon. Recently immense numbers of  Red-billed Queleas in huge, drifting, smoke-like flocks (some containing several million birds) have been a daily feature of the lake area. These awesome flocks constitute one of the world's great ornithological spectacles. In the past Lake Ngami has yielded a mega rarity: the migrant Pintail. Who knows what rarity will turn up this year?