Yesterday marked the launch of a new e-journal, Ornithological Observations - http://oo.adu.org.za/. This journal is published online, by BirdLife South Africa and the Animal Demography Unit at UCT and is of a semi-scientific nature. It is edited by Arnold van der Westhuizen, PhD student and ardent ADU/BLSA project participant.

Its main aim is for scientists and citizen scientists alike to submit interesting observations of bird related matters (behaviour, nesting activities, foraging behaviour, biometrics, annotated checklists etc.) in a reader-friendly format that is accessible to the public and the scientific community. One regularly encounters interesting bird behaviours, or nesting habits, or movement patterns  and it is these anecdotal observations which often do not get into the broader scientific and popular literature. But by getting these observations published in a short, user-friendly format they contribute valuable information to our bird knowledge base that can be used in future editions of Roberts's Birds of southern Africa.

Submissions for OO are encouraged from southern Africa but articles and short papers can be submitted from anywhere around the world. Getting the article from submission to publication is hoped to be a quick process as papers will not be peer-reviewed but the editorial committee will ensure that a high-standard is maintained. Templates have been provided to make the writing process as streamlined as possible. And even if you do not want to write anything you can visit the site frequently for interesting reads on our birdlife.

For more information please visit the OO website. There are already two articles that can be viewed and downloaded as pdf files. These will give you a nice feel for the style and format that is used for OO submissions.

We look forward to receiving your contributions and making OO a successful media platform for birders and scientists!

One of the most recent recoveries reported to SAFRING was a White-backed Vulture. This bird was found by Themba Nkuna who wrote: “I found a dead White backed Vulture outside our White Lion Boma today (11/08/2008). I am at Hoedspruit at the White Lion Trust farm coordinates. It seems the bird might have died from colliding with our diamond mesh fence two to three days ago after being scared by lions when stealing the meat. The bird had two Yellow tags code: A028 and 027216502621 at the back of the tag. The code on the ring which was on the right foot is G 26512.  Unfortunately I didn't have a tape measure to measure the bill, feet and wing span, I believe you have that.” This vulture was ringed by Andre Botha of the EWT Birds of Prey Working Group at Moholoholo Rehabilitation Centre on 29 January 2007. The vulture moved at least 28 km and this movement may be viewed here.

Not only is this vulture one of the most recent recoveries, the first birds ringed in southern Africa were vultures. 31 Cape Vultures were ringed exactly 62 years previously in August 1948. 

Vulture ring G26512 was recovered less than a month before the International Vulture Awareness day on 4 September 2010. This awareness day will focus the attention on the dire plight of many of the world's vultures and highlight the awareness and regional activities of organisations who participate in vulture conservation. Details are available on the BirdLife SA web.

Ecotone Africa provides a variety of nets, digital scales, calipers and other ringing equipment that is not stocked by SAFRING. (SAFRING stocks rings, pliers, rulers and some standard nets). The Ecotone catalogue has been updated and is available on SAFRINGs order web page - the pdf contains details on ordering Ecotone stock.

Israel is in a critical location for migrant birds and millions of birds pass through Israel every year. Ringing has been active at Eilat, the Jerusalem Bird Observatory, where the scheme is based, as well as at many other sites. There is also an active raptor and vulture ringing program. The Israeli Ringing Center now has its own web blog. You will find photos of many familiar species and some less familiar ones.

Weaver colony sizes vary between species with solitary species having 1 or 2 nests and colonial species may have over 100 nests in one colony. Single-male colonies, like Southern Masked Weavers, typically have less than 10 nests but sometimes this may be larger especially if there are more males than the usual one. One result of PHOWN (Photos of weaver nests) is having a nest count per colony. To see minimum, average and maximum colony sizes for records submitted to PHOWN click here.

While ringing or birding, you can look out for weaver colonies and contribute photos with nest counts to the ADU Virtual Museum. As soon as your record is accepted, the average colony sizes will be automatically updated.

PHOWN (Photos of Weaver Nests; pronounced "phone") is a new ADU Virtual Museum project, where weaver nests or colonies may be photographed and submitted. To take part in this project, you need to register as an ADU participant. Then find weaver nests and take photos and count the nests. Read more details about how to take part by reading here. Any weaver species (Ploceidae family) may be photographed, including introduced populations that breed naturally in the wild.

You can also take part in the other ADU Virtual Museums, all designed by Rene Navarro.

You can view submissions (without being registered) by going here. There are different search possibilities - explore these yourself! There are already 23 records of a variety of southern African weavers. The first one submitted was by Les Underhill of Southern Masked Weavers breeding on a barbed wire fence.

This is a reminder that ringers need to record and submit all recaptures of ringed birds (except same day retraps). This is important for using the SAFRING database for survival analyses. If you have recapture data that you did not submit because it was less than 1 year after ringing, please do submit it. 

Ringers who have submitted data and/or retraps and recoveries recently will have received a link to the summary on the web. Michael Brooks has developed this using google maps as an amazing new tool so that you can see where your birds were ringed and found again.

If you have not seen this new system, please submit your ringing data!

Also you can look at updated longevities of weavers here and click on any ring number on this page to see the SAFRING summary. The weaver with the greatest elapsed time in SAFRINGs database is a Southern Masked Weaver.

Gerrie Horn, a recently qualified ringer, compiled a two page pamphlet to use to tell landowners about ringing when asking them for permission to ring on their property. Gerrie has kindly given permission for this pamphlet to be used by ringers. You would need a colour printer to print copies or you can email the pdf to landowners. The file may be downloaded here.

Birds are unique in having feathers. Ultimately, flight feathers represent the main means of locomotion for most species, and the process and strategy of replacing those feathers is a fascinating and important aspect of bird biology. The ADU is a world leader in the quantitative analysis of moult, because the "Underhill-Zucchini moult model" was developed here in 1987, and there has subsequently been a long history of moult research at the ADU. This new paper is collaboration of Adrian Craig and Bo Bonnievie at Rhodes University with Dieter Oschadleus, who heads up SAFRING at the ADU. The study species is the Southern Red Bishop, and the paper considers the variability in the timing and duration of primary moult across southern Africa.

Craig AJFK, Bonnevie B, Oschadleus HD 2010. Regional patterns in moult and sexual dimorphism of adult Southern Red Bishops Euplectes orix in southern Africa. Ostrich 81: 123–128.

ABSTRACT: Using the SAFRING database and the Underhill-Zucchini model of primary moult, we analysed the timing of wing moult in Southern Red Bishops Euplectes orix in relation to sex and geographical region. Birds from the winter rainfall region in the south-western sector of the Western Cape start the annual moult more than two months before any other population, but there were no significant differences in starting date within the summer rainfall region. There were striking differences in the estimates of moult duration (62–114 d), which did not follow a consistent pattern in relation to sex or geography; annual variation within a region may be an additional factor. Throughout southern Africa, both sexes showed a trend for longer-winged birds to take more time to complete their moult. We suggest that sex, geographical area and possible annual environmental variations may all influence the timing of moult in local populations. In this sexually dimorphic species, males are consistently longer-winged and heavier than females.

The pdf of the paper is available from Dieter Oschadleus.

It is the end of June, meaning it is time to submit ringing data for the last 6 months (and any other outstanding data).

It is necessary to submit all outstanding ringing data every 6 months. You have one month during which to submit, ie anytime during July, once you have entered your data into excel (or a database in SAFRINGs format), and checked the data for accuracy.

If you are not using SAFRINGs excel sheet, note that it is the required format.
Download it here (the top option is most current excel version).

If you want to copy your previous data into SAFRINGs excel file, you will need to re-arrange the columns in your current file to match our excel file, then copy all the columns except don't copy anything over the 'lookup' column. Copy the lookup cell near the top for as many records as you have.

In March this year a successful Ringer's conference was held at Barberspan. Graham Grieve has written a report from a ringer's / attendee's point of view and this may be read as an Afring News article.

Olive-tree Warblers are Palearctic migrants to the thornveld in northern parts of southern Africa. It is an elusive species, sometimes found by being caught in a mistnet rather than being observed. Darren Pietersen recorded this species by unexpectedly catching it in the Kalahari at a new locality for the species. Darren has written an article for Afring News.

Read Afring News articles here.

Do you have an interesting ringing story or analysis? Send your article to safring@adu.org.za

Photo: Olive-tree Warbler, D Pietersen 

There are many opportunities to educate the general public about ringing and reporting recoveries. This morning a group of students from Damelin College watched a bird ringing demonstration at Zandvlei, Cape Town this morning. Cape Weavers and Cape Bulbuls were the most caught species, but two Malachite Kingfishers attracted most attention. Seven birds were recaptures, all from the same site, and ringed up to two years previously.

Marked birds & Vulture Restaurants

Part of education is making available pamphlets and posters that can be distributed. Liz Komen, a ringer from the Namibia Animal Rehabilitation Research & Education Centre, has produced a great poster about looking for marked birds and a brochure about vulture restaurants.

Every issue of Africa – Birds & Birding has a page devoted to some aspect of the research of the Animal Demography Unit. With the focus on football over the next two months, we planned the report for the June-July issue with this in mind. We asked the question: "Which of the 31 visiting nations are represented in the SAFRING database?" The short answer to this question is contained in the title of this news item, and the longer answer is in the double page spread in the current issue of the magazine. We are grateful to Eve Gracie, editor of Africa – Birds & Birding for giving us permission to put this page on the website.

The Wader Study Group Bulletin is published by the International Wader Study Group (IWSG) three times a year. The latest issue of the bulletin has just been produced and it contains a particularly interesting set of papers. One of the papers has ADU postdoc Magda Remisiewicz as lead author. (The IWSG also holds an annual conference; this year the conference is in Lisbon, Portugal from 2–3 October and at least two members of the ADU plan to attend.)

The new paper presents the results obtained as a result of years of intensive wader ringing. It deals with the primary moult of second-year Wood Sandpipers:
Remisiewicz M, Tree AJ, Underhill LG, Taylor PB 2010. The path to adult dress: primary moult in second-year Wood Sandpipers Tringa glareola in southern Africa. Wader Study Group Bulletin 117: 35–40.
The abstract is below. This paper is the third of a trilogy of papers dealing with the primary moult of the Wood Sandpiper. The other two papers dealt with the moult of adult and first-year Wood Sandpipers respectively. The citations to these papers are
Remisiewicz M, Tree AJ, Underhill LG, Gustowska A, Taylor PB 2009. Extended primary moult as an adaptation of adult Wood Sandpipers Tringa glareola to their use of freshwater habitats of southern Africa. Ardea 97: 271–280.
and
Remisiewicz M, Tree AJ, Underhill LG, Taylor PB 2010. Rapid or slow moult? The choice of primary moult strategy by immature Wood Sandpipers Tringa glareola in southern Africa. Journal for Ornithology 151: 429–441.
The pdfs for all three papers are available from Magda.

ABSTRACT: The path to adult dress: primary moult in second-year Wood Sandpipers Tringa glareola in southern Africa. We know little about the primary moult of waders in their second year of life, especially migrants. Remisiewicz et al. (2009, 2010) have provided details on the primary moult of immature and adult Wood Sandpipers Tringa glareola in southern Africa, but there is no information on the primary moult of second-year birds. Most Wood Sandpipers leave southern Africa for their northern breeding grounds when they are 10–11 months old, so migration separates the subsequent cycles in their primary moult. We chose this species to determine if the pattern of the first complete primary moult of waders during their second year of life differs from that of adults. We analysed the primary moult scores of 97 sub-adult (13- to 20-months-old) Wood Sandpipers obtained in southern Africa by using the Underhill–Zucchini moult model to estimate the timing and duration of moult for all 10 primaries combined and for P1 and P2 individually. Sub-adult Wood Sandpipers were observed in southern Africa between June and December, when, by about 19 months of age, they become indistinguishable from adults. Half of the sub-adults showed two generations of their fully grown primaries after a previous partial moult. All 54 sub-adults in active moult started at P1 and progressed outwards to P10. The starting date of moult for all sub-adults estimated using all 10 primaries was 2 September, 13 days later than for adults. The sub-adults’ primary moult was estimated to last on average 134 days, which did not differ significantly from the 131 days in adults. The rate primary feather mass is deposited did not differ between the sub-adults and the adults. Moult of P1 and P2 in sub-adults started 10–11 days later than in adults, but overlapped in the same manner as in adults. The number of primaries grown simultaneously with subsequently moulted primaries and the size of the wing gap in sub-adults resembled the pattern in adults. Sub-adults finished their primary moult on 15 January on average, 15 days later than adults. We suggest that sub-adult Wood Sandpipers catch up with the timing of the adults when they are 19–20 months old, when they finish their first complete moult of primaries, before the pre-migratory fattening period in February–March.

36 people attended the 2010 Namibian ringers' get-together (RGT) at Kakuse farm near Tsumeb. The first RGT was held at Wiese farm in 2004. Nearly 300 birds were ringed with Blue Waxbills and Red-billed Quelea being the most often caught species. Not all ringers came to ring birds, however; some attended simply to enjoy the wonderful social atmosphere at these get-togethers. Read more about this event here.

Photo & copyright: Ursula Bader

In targetting weavers to study their movements, other birds are also caught. This morning a Rufous-chested Sparrowhawk (probably a sub-adult female) flew into my mist net at dawn in Kommetjie. There is a large roost with mainly Cape Weavers and some Southern Masked Weavers. When the sparrowhawk flew past, the weavers stopped their morning chorus. While ringing the sparrowhawk, the weavers quickly left the roost in some large flocks and later in smaller flocks. The Rufous-chested Sparrowhawk has been recorded catching weavers as prey, including Cape and Southern Masked Weavers. Thus the weaver chicks that have been ringed on the Peninsula are potential prey of this small raptor. Several weaver chicks have been recaptured at this site: read more about this project here.

The captured sparrowhawk did not catch any early weavers, but nor did I on this session!

The next ADU Seminar is on Wednesday 26 May at 11h30. Our speaker is Sara Lipshutz, whose topic is "Estimating the population size and distribution of Kittlitz's Plovers at Barberspan Bird Sanctuary."

Sara is a semester-abroad student from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, USA, and she has spent the past six months at UCT within the programme called Globalization and the Environment. For her independent study project within this programme, Sara linked up with Magda Remisiewicz's wader ringing fieldwork at Barberspan Bird Sanctuary and conducted her own project on the Kittlitz's Plovers there, estimating the population size from the pattern of captures and recaptures.

The talk will be in the Map Room of the ADU, on the second floor of the PD Hahn Building.

Gerard Malan has published a new book entitled "Raptor survey and monitoring - a field guide for African birds of prey." It is available from Briza Publications and apparently the EWT.

Last weekend, 36 people gathered to attend the 2010 Namibian ringers' get-together at Kakuse farm near Tsumeb. Dieter Oschadleus, head of SAFRING who travelled from Cape Town to attend the event, reports: "Nearly 300 birds were ringed with Blue Waxbills and Red-billed Quelea being the most often caught species. Some fantastic species diversity was provided by the efforts of Dirk Heinrich and others, who ringed Three-banded Courser, Comb Duck, African Golden Oriole, Dark Chanting Goshawk, Gabar Goshawk, White-crowned Shrike, White-browed Scrub Robin, Yellow-billed Hornbill and Red-billed Hornbill. Not all ringers came to ring birds, however; some attended simply to enjoy the wonderful social atmosphere at these get-togethers.

"The hosts Ulrich and Anke Hofmann provided wonderful hospitality and meals. Gudrun Middendorf and Neil Thomson organised a memorable event!" Well done to the Namibian ringers for arranging the "get-together" annually, and for supporting it by travelling large distances to attend.

CRAIG T. SYMES and STEPHAN WOODBORNE (2010) Migratory connectivity and conservation of the Amur Falcon Falco amurensis: a stable isotope perspective. Bird Conservation International (online early)

Abstract
Stable isotopes (δD, δ13C, δ15N) were measured in adult and juvenile Amur Falcon Falco amurensis feathers to understand the migratory connectivity of this species. Using the OIPC (Online Isotopes in Precipitation Calculator) and a calibration curve for American Kestrels Falco sparverius we predicted the breeding range of South African Amur Falcons in the Palaearctic. δD values for juvenile feathers (mean ± SE = -58.1 ± 2.5‰, range -83.9 to -25.7‰) and predicted Palaearctic annual precipitation values indicated that juvenile Amur Falcons in South Africa originated from across their entire Palaearctic range. This rejects the leapfrog migration hypothesis and suggests the widespread movement of birds south, with a funnelling effect into the subregion where they become concentrated over a narrower distribution range. Adult δDf values were more depleted (-37.4 ± 1.8‰, range = -71.3 to -9.3‰) than predicted annual precipitation values for sites where feathers moulted in South Africa (-20.2 ± 0.9‰) but there was no correlation between δDp and δDf. This, together with significant variation of δ13C among sites and annual fluctuations in roost sizes, suggests that roost site fidelity is low in the overwintering range. Populations not confined to breeding sites in South Africa are able to move widely across the subregion, feeding on a broad range of arthropods that become seasonally abundant during the austral summer. Total population estimates for South Africa are significantly lower than global estimates so a significant proportion of the population may not overwinter in South Africa or global populations are significantly lower than estimated. In South Africa, roosts that number hundreds to thousands of individuals are often in large exotic trees, e.g. Eucalyptus sp. They are often tolerant of disturbance at roosts which may be of little concern for their conservation. Habitat changes in the overwintering range in South Africa though, particularly due to agriculture, afforestation and strip mining, may affect global population numbers. There is also concern over the persecution of birds along their migratory route.

Every year, the bird ringers in Namibia organize a Ringers' Get-Together for themselves. This year's Ringers' Get-Together is taking place on Farm Kakuse, north of Tsumeb from 13–16 May. The accommodation is the Toko camping site. Camping is under the huge Acacia trees in the picture. This year, Dieter Oschadleus, head of SAFRING, is attending. Dieter says: "I'm looking forward to meeting with the Namibian ringers again. My last visit was in May 2004 when the get-together was held at Wiese farm. I'm hoping that the catch at Kakuse includes Chestnut Weavers and White-crowned Shrikes." We look forward to Dieter's report on his return!

Four Turnstones flew non-stop from Victoria (Australia) to Taiwan in just over six days, covering 7600km, cruising at an average speed of 50-55km/h. These results were obtained using geolaocators, as this species is too small for satellite transmitters. Read more here. 

Right: map of recoveries for African-Eurasian Turnstone migration.

In June 2008, Dieter Oschadleus was part of a group that travelled to the town of Lubango in Angola. They started the process of turning the 40 000 specimens in the Lubango Bird Skin Collection into records in an electronic database. The report of this visit is contained in a newly published paper:

Mills, M.S.L., Franke, U., Joseph, G., Miato, F., Milton, S., Monadjem, A., Oschadleus, D. and Dean, W.R.J. 2010. Cataloguing the Lubango Bird Skin Collection: towards an atlas of Angolan bird distributions. Bulletin of the African Bird Club 17: 43–53.

We asked Dieter, who has a particular interest in weavers, what had been for him the highlight of the trip: "It was exciting to see two specimens of Black-chinned Weaver Ploceus nigrimentus, a rare weaver found mainly in Angola and slightly to the north of Angola. In the picture, the female at the top has a black head, the male's crown is yellow-orange."

The African Bird Club, the publisher of the Bulletin, was formed in 1992 by a group of people with a common interest in African ornithology. The aims of the Club are to
1. provide a worldwide focus for African ornithology
2. raise money to support conservation projects in Africa through the Conservation Fund
3. encourage an interest in the conservation of the birds of the region
4. liaise with and promote the work of existing regional societies
5. publish a twice-yearly colour bulletin
6. encourage observers to visit lesser known areas of the region, and search for and study globally threatened and near-threatened species.

Kobie and Shonie produced a warbler identification guide for southern African ringers several years ago. The guide was available on our UCT web as a word document, but it has now been upgraded to a pdf file. 

The file can be downloaded in two formats, a smaller original file with line drawings, or a larger version that includes line drawings and colour photographs.

Go to the species identification page here and scroll down to the warbler header.

Photo (left): African Marsh Warbler at nest, photograph by Shonie Raijmakers (from the cover of the updated version of the guide).

This week BirdLife Eastern Cape is celebrating their 60th anniversary. One of the events is a ringing course for trainees and ringing demonstrations for anyone attending the celebrations. The ringing was organised by ringer Albert Schultz, with help from Tony Tree and Paul Martin. Trainees are Phil Whittington from East London Museum with Liz Watkins, Gerrie Horn from PE, Robyn Kadis who chairs BirdLife Berg River, Gary Sparrow from Dikkop Flats Farm and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University students Tanja van de Ven and Liaan Minnie.

So far about 300 birds have been caught. Some special species included Knysna Lourie, Terrestrial Bulbul, Starred Robin, one African Reed Warbler that has not left on migration yet, Puffback, Olive Bush Shrike, and Collared Sunbird. Most common birds so far were Cape Bulbul, Lesser Swamp Warbler, Bar-throated Apalis, Common Waxbill, Sombre Greenbul and Southern Masked Weaver.  Ringing sites were mostly at Cape Recife, and also at Settlers Park, The Island Forest and Thunzi Lodge. 

New ringers

During the course two new ringers qualified: Gerrie Horn (left) and Phil Whittington (right), with Albert Schultz in the middle. Both Gerrie and Phil have been training for several years and are competent in all aspects of mist-netting, with very good bird identification skills.

Notification of the first ever recovery of a Barn Swallow from Mt Moreland in KZN has just been received.

Today, 3 May, 2010, the Lake Victoria Conservancy’s sponsored ringer, Andrew Pickles,  received an email from SAFRING, South Africa’s national bird ringing centre, that a Barn Swallow ringed by him at the Mt Moreland roost, ring number AM94463, on Friday 12 December 2008 has been found dead in Ukraine. It was found on 1 May 2010 by a Ukrainian teacher, Victor, at a town called Kirovograd just south of Chenobyl. This is a distance 8691 km from Mt Moreland. It is 505 days since it was ringed in 2008 when it was recorded as a juvenile male weighing 20g. 

This recovery is exciting in many ways. Not only is swallow AM94463 the first swallow from the Mt Moreland roost to be recovered but records show it was ringed only the day before the Pickles team recaptured  the first foreign ringed swallow at Mt Moreland. That swallow 136952V was 6 month old, weighed 17g and came 10 327 km from Nilsia in Finland. Thanks to Birdlife International it made news around the world. 

These two records give rise to an interesting question…was this latest swallow, AM94463, actually from the Ukraine or was it on its way to Finland?  It is the migration season and Finland still awaits its swallows so the answer could be either. 

Another ‘date’ coincidence is that swallow AM94463 was found on the day, May 1st, that Durban’s  new greenfields King Shaka International Airport, 2.6 km north of the Mt Moreland roost, opened. Airports Company South Africa has, working with the Lake Victoria Conservancy and Birdlife SA, put in various safeguards to protect the millions of Barn Swallows when they return to their roost in October 2010. Details of the Conservancy’s efforts to protect the swallows in face the new airport can be followed on their website. 

Hilary Vickers

This news item is part of the ADU's celebration of World Migratory Bird Day, this weekend 8–9 May.

Post doc Magda Remisiewicz has made numerous expeditions from Cape Town to the Barberspan Bird Sanctuary for her fieldwork over the past three years: "We have just returned from our last trip to Barberspan this spring-summer season and achieved this expedition's main goal of ringing and examining Little Stints to check their fat deposits and the development of their breeding plumage just before they depart on migration to the northern breeding grounds in the Siberian tundra.

"The Little Stints we caught were nearly double their usual body mass, weighin 40g–42g. I have never seen birds so tightly packed with fat. The fat deposit under the Little Stint’s thin skin formed a massive cushion extending over the underparts from the furculum, over the pectoral muscles and the belly to the base of the hind limbs. Once these birds took off, they should certainly have made it to Kenya or further in one flight. The Little Stints had put on almost complete breeding plumage, with soft white edges to their chestnut-and-black body feathers. You rarely see them that white, because these edges wear away by the time the Little Stints reach the breeding grounds and they look much darker, the cryptic design they need in the tundra where they will be breeding in about six weeks' time.

"Barberspan was Kittlitz's Plover heaven as usual. We saw eggs and chicks as well as flocks of immatures a few months old feeding alongside adults on the swarms of minute biting flies, which were in turn feeding on us. Many recaptures of Kittzlitz's Plovers and of other waders ringed during the SAFRING Ringers' Conference in March provided excellent data. The surprise was a catch of about 30 Crowned Lapwings mist-netted at full moon. During the past six months we have followed the seasonal changes in bird numbers and species composition. At any time of the year Barberspan Bird Sanctuary is a fantastic ringing and birding site. The winter visitors such as Swallow-tailed Bee-eater and Crimson-breasted Shrike are now arriving in numbers."

Post-doc Magda Remisiewicz is back at Barberspan Bird Sanctuary for a fortnight of fieldwork, accompanied by Joel Avni and semester-abroad student from the US, Sara Lipshutz. "Our main aim this expedition is to catch Little Stints to assess their fat load and the extent of their breeding plumage just before they leave South Africa to head north. But most migrant waders have already departed, and the closest we have come to Little Stints is seeing them through binoculars, noting that they are tantalisingly fat and in almost full breeding plumage. Only single Wood Sandpipers, Greenshanks and Common Ringed Plovers remain. There are far fewer Caspian Terns than at the time of the Ringers' Conference last month, but we are seeing many more Whiskered Terns.

"We are catching many Kittlitz’s Plovers that were ringed during the conference and also our earlier expeditions, and these provide excellent data for Sara’s project to estimate the size of the population at Barberspan using capture-recapture analyses. We have also ringed a few unusual birds: a White-fronted Plover of the subspecies Charadrius marginatus tenellus and a Cape Shoveler (total head length, 125.6 mm), a rare catch though they are common here. A pair of Marsh Owls screams over our heads while we check the nets. We are also spotting species that are rarely seen here in summer, such as Swallow-tailed Bee-eater, Fulvous Duck, Crimson-breasted Shrike and Red-headed Finch.

"The rangers here, Andrew Mvundle, Amos Koloti and David Moruatheko, are still talking about all the friendship they got from the interesting folks they met at the SAFRING Ringers' Conference and are approaching atlasing with new-found purpose. They have asked me to convey their greetings to everyone they met at Barberspan."

One-year contract position available from 1 June 2010, closing date 4 May 2010. 

This is a field-based research assistantship attached to the Institute’s Southern Ground-Hornbill Research and Conservation Project. The successful applicant will be based in a 180 000 ha private nature reserve adjacent to Kruger National Park. The job requires extensive time in the field, often under very hot conditions, and includes tasks such as nest monitoring, capturing and handling ground-hornbills, fitting birds with satellite and radio transmitters, and assisting postgraduate students. Office-based tasks include data capture, storage and analysis, and equipment maintenance.

The successful applicant will have relevant ornithological field experience and a demonstrated ability to work independently in the field; a Code 8 driver’s license; off-road driving experience; a SAFRING-certified bird-ringing license; experience with radio- and/or satellite-telemetry; an ability to work independently; and familiarity with Microsoft Office and ArcView GIS. The successful applicant must be prepared to work on foot in ‘Big 5’ country. Additional strong recommendations include a BSc in Zoology or equivalent and GPS navigation skills. 

The annual remuneration is R100 000.

Application: 
Contact hilary.buchanan [at] uct.ac.za for application details. Reference Number for this post: I-2067

Andrew and Ivan Pickles have been ringing Barn Swallows monthly at Mt Moreland during summer for the last few years. Find out more about these swallows and the airport by watching Carte Blanche on Sunday 25 April. Andrew sent the following details:

"Last month Carte Blanche visited the new King Shaka Airport near Umdhloti just north of Durban. They filmed an insert on the airport on the Thursday, and stayed for the Friday and joined our ringing session. During the day they interviewed Angie Wilkin, Ted Vickers and Hilary Vickers then on the Friday afternoon they attended my presentation talk which was not filmed. Then they joined us for the ringing where I was interviewed. Initially the insert was to be 5 minutes long and shown after the airport insert, due to the footage obtained it has been extended into a full insert and is scheduled to be shown this coming Sunday 25th April. They say that a return visit is to be made next swallow season to see if any changes have happened due to the airport."

Note: the screening may be delayed by 1 or 2 weeks, so keep watching Carte Blanche.

Several new ringers have been registered recently. Sally Hofmeyr (Cape Town) and Johan van Rensburg (Standerton) qualified at the recent ringers conference at Barberspan. 

Sir Clive Elliott, previous ringing co-ordinator at SAFRING, has renewed his registration to ring here on visits to southern Africa. Tom Bryson from Germany has qualified to ring birds in southern Africa.

From the FitzPatrick Institute, Mduduzi Ndlovu has upgraded from a waterbird ringer to all species and Mbongeni David Nkosi is registered as a full ringer. 

David Nkosi 

Data from the SAFRING database are used in all sorts of ways to test all sorts of ideas. Here is a paper that combines the small samples of moult data collected by each ringer into a large enough dataset that inferences can be drawn. The picture (by Richard Sherley) is a Malachite Sunbird in eclipse plumage, one of the sexually dimorphic species considered in the paper.

Bonnievie B, Oschadleus HD. 2010. Timing of primary wing moult in sexually dimorphic passerines from the Western Cape, South Africa. Ostrich 81: 63–67.

Abstract: SAFRING ringing data was used to investigate the differences in the timing and duration of primary wing moult between males and females of sexually dimorphic passerines from the Western Cape, South Africa. In the sunbirds, weavers and canaries that were considered, the males generally started moult before the females, whereas this was not so for other species. In the species where males started moult before the females, the standard deviation of the start of moult was generally smaller in the males and the males generally took longer to moult. These differences in the patterns of moult are discussed in the context of differences in parental care between males and females of each species and within their taxonomic groups.

The pdf is available from Dieter Oschadleus.

In the 1990s, Roy Earlé at the National Museum in Bloemfontein developed a research interest in blood parasites of birds. These infections are potentially of conservation importance because they can weaken and kill birds. They are spread mainly by insects, especially flies and mosquitos. In an era of climate change, getting baseline data on infection prevalance is of paramount importance. Roy got SAFRING birdringers collecting blood smears, and my father George Underhill collected vast numbers of these. For his MSc, Albert Schultz did an analysis of the blood parasite data derived from these blood smears, and this paper is based on one of the chapters of his MSc thesis.

Schultz A, Underhill LG, Earlé RA, Underhill G 2010. Infection prevalence and absence of positive correlation between avian haemosporidian parasites, mass and body condition in the Cape Weaver Ploceus capensis. Ostrich 81: 69–76.

ABSTRACT: Over a two-year period, 945 adult Cape Weavers Ploceus capensis were mist-netted with a bias towards 632 male and 308 female birds. Blood smears presented avian haemosporidia in 58.79% of males and 61.90% of females, representing five species from three genera: one avian kinetoplastid haemoflagellate Trypanosoma everetti with 0.28% infection rate, Haemoproteus queleae (69.45%), Leucocytozoon bouffardi (23.91%), and Plasmodium species (5.76%). Double infections occurred in 40 birds (11.52%), with females having the greatest number. Differences in infection prevalence between sexes was correlated to time spent being active at the nest, with a marked reduction in female infection due to incubation within a tunnel-shaped nest providing protection from vectors. Commencement of the breeding season coincided with increased parasite prevalence in both sexes, correlating to energy expenditure on reproductive effort, resulting in reduced immunocompetence. Recorded seasonal spring relapse is synchronised with peak breeding season activity, when vector intensity and activity peak due to host population increases, and avian immunodefence systems are possibly compromised due to the stress of the reproductive cycle. No negative impacts were discerned on body mass or condition during this long-term study, which may be presented when parasitemia peaks over a number of days only, thereafter decreasing in intensity.

You can get a copy of the pdf from Albert Schultz.

Holger Kolberg sent this email to the Namibian ringers listserver: "On 15 March 2010 Mark (Eric) Boorman controlled a Common Tern with Swiss ring No H105363 at Mile 4. Nothing special you may think, he does this all the time. Au contraire my dears! This is the first time that a Swiss bird has been controlled this far south, so yet another (tern)feather in Eric's cap! Well done, tern-dude!

For the record: the bird was ringed in Oberhofen bei Kreuzlingen in Switzerland as a chick on 27 June 2008 so the time elapsed was 626 days and the distance covered 7822km."

There is a previous link between Switzerland and South Africa, but in the other direction to the Common Tern. A Barn Swallow (AA01668) was ringed in Feb 1972 in Gauteng, and was retrapped in Switzerland in October 1974.

The Ringers Conference at Barberspan, March 2010, was a huge success, thanks to many people helping in various ways.

North West Parks and Tourism Board - generously provided the facilities at the Barberspan Nature Reserve, and the staff participated in the conference. North West Parks also sponsored 2000 metal and 2000 colour rings for the quelea project

Mr Johnson Maoka, North West Parks and Tourism Board, who addressed the delegates in the opening talk about Barberspan

Mark Anderson, BirdLife South Africa director, the invited speaker for the first evening, gave an inspiring talk on Kimberley's pink gems, focusing on the conservation issues surrounding the Lesser Flamingos of Kamfers Dam

Sampie van der Merwe, Park Warden, and his team at the reserve – went out of their way to ensure smooth running of the conference

Rangers Amos  Koloti, Andrew Mvundle, and David Moruatheko for their help before and/or during the conference, also all the technical staff of the reserve 

Roston - loan of the double door Coke fridge

Jaco Botha - donated seed for waterbird bait and the loan of canvas coverings for the hall for the talks

Magda Remisiewicz and Joel Avni - for doing fieldwork at the reserve for several years which helped make the conference a success. They also motivated and assisted in the planning and preparations. Joel and Magda have played a huge role in training the field rangers. Ecotone Africa provided sponsorship for the conference

Joel and Magda, plus Sara Lipshutz and Yahkat Barshep, formed an advance party so that ringers could benefit from their experience on arrival, and hit the ground running

Magda acted as leader of the Scientific Programme Committee

Zephné and Herman Bernitz played the key role in conference preparation, administration and day-to-day organisation. The social braai that they organised was a highlight of the weekend, and the salads provided by Zephné were fantastic!

Everyone who attended – some of whom made pretty adventurous journeys to reach Barberspan – and everyone who presented papers

Shonie Raijmakers donated many flap traps to SAFRING 

Throughout the world, ringing plays a key role in discovering the migration strategies of birds. This paper describes the patterns of migration for Common Snipe on their way southwards through Poland after the breeding season. ADU postdoc Magda Remisiewicz is a co-author of this paper.

Minias P, Wlodarczyk R, Meissner W, Remisiewicz M, Kaczmarek K, Czapulak A, Chylarecki P, Wojciechowski A, Janiszewski T 2010. The migration system of Common Snipe Gallinago gallinago on autumn passage through Central Europe. Ardea 98: 13–19.

ABSTRACT: The Common Snipe Gallinago gallinago migrates in large numbers through central Europe towards its wintering grounds in western Europe. Over the past 20 years more than 12 000 Common Snipes were ringed at seven ringing stations in Poland during their autumn migration. Birds migrating along the Baltic coast tended to spend the winter in more northern areas than those that used southern Poland as stopover sites during migration. This pattern supports the hypothesis of a parallel autumn migration exhibited by Common Snipe. Additionally, snipes passing through Poland at the beginning of the autumn migration (originating from near breeding areas) overwintered further north than later migrants (known to originate from more northern areas), which is consistent with a leap-frog migration pattern. Our results suggest that the migration pattern of the Common Snipe is more complex than previously thought, because these birds use a combination of two different non-exclusive migratory patterns.

If you would like a copy of the pdf, please email Magda.

Mt Moreland now has a web site for their Barn Swallows! There is a video clip of large numbers arriving at the roost site, and various news items and updates.

The period 11-21 March saw successful days of ringing and bird talks. At Barberspan Bird Sanctuary 1610 birds were handled of 82 species. Birds not ringed at Barberspan previously were Darter (10 chicks), Cloud Cisticola, and Crimson-breasted Shrike. Of the retraps already reported, the greatest elapsed time was for 2 White-browed Sparrow-weavers ringed in June 2008. Top species caught were Southern Red Bishop (743), Red-billed Quelea (183), Southern Masked-Weaver (128), Kittlitz's Plover (70), and Egyptian Goose (38). 

About 300 birds were ringed at Wakkerstroom over 2 days to demonstrate ringing to birders attending the BLSA AGM. Ringers Rina Pretorius, Sylva Francis (with trainee Michael), Yahkat Barshep and Doug Harebottle helped with the ringing. The retrap with the greatest elapsed time was a Southern Red Bishop ringed on 07/01/2005. 

Brief reports of these events may be seen as a web report and SAFRING news items.

Dieter Oschadleus, who heads up SAFRING, was invited to do a bird ringing demonstration each morning during the BirdLife South African AGM in Wakkerstroom in Mpumalanga this weekend. Other ringers and trainees assisted Dieter with the ringing operations, and we valued their assistance. The mistnets were set up at 06h00, and from soon after this a steady stream of the delegates attending the AGM visited the ringing table. For many of them, it was the fascinating experience of seeing a wild bird alive in the hand for the first time, and seeing how the measurements are made and how primary moult works and is recorded.

Over the years, the BirdLife South Africa Centre at Wakkerstroom has been the base for several training courses in bird ringing arranged by SAFRING. The variety of habitats in the region provides opportunities to handle lots of different species.

As at the Bird Ringers' Conference last weekend at the Barberspan Bird Sanctuary, the most commonly handled species was Soutern Red Bishop. But the species diversity was excellent, and other species seen in the hand included Red-billed Quelea, Half-collared Kingfisher (in the picture above), Little Bittern, Barn Swallow, Levaillant's Cisticola, Drakensberg Prinia, African Reed Warbler, Little Rush Warbler and European Sedge Warbler (in the picture below).

Thanks to Yahkat Barshep for the photos.

Protection of the area now known as the Barberspan Bird Sanctuary started in 1954, when the old Transvaal Provincial Administration bought 454 ha of land at the northern end of the pan, and steadily purchased more land. The total area is about 3000 ha in extent of which 2000 ha are water. In 1975, Barberspan was designated a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance. A research centre was established in 1958, grew to a global centre of excellence in the 1970s and 1980s, but was closed in 1991. The ongoing conservation status of the area was confirmed in 1998 when Barberspan (and the adjoining Leeupan, outside the protected area) were declared an Important Bird Area. Barberspan Bird Sanctuary is now a reserve of the North West Parks and Tourism Board. Facilities include this strategically positioned bird hide which overlooks one of the reedbeds.

Barberspan falls into four SABAP2 "pentads"; a provisional bird list which amalgamates the data in the SABAP2 database for these four pentads is available here. This list is produced, on demand, from the latest version of the database. The species in this list are ordered by reporting rate, the percentage of checklists on which a species has been reported. The reporting rate can loosely be interpreted as the probability of seeing a species. The species at the top of the list are those most likely to be seen, and those lower down less likely. This list is not a complete list of all species ever recorded at Barberspan Bird Sanctuary, but only those that have been recorded since SABAP2 started in July 2007.

We thank all those who invested time, effort and resources in the 2010 SAFRING Ringers' Conference:

• North West Parks and Tourism Board generously made the facilities at the Barberspan Nature Reserve available
• Sampie van der Merwe, Park Warden, and his team at the reserve did everything in their power to make the conference run as smoothly as possible
• Researchers Magda Remisiewicz and Joel Avni have been doing fieldwork at the reserve for several years, and motivated and assisted in the planning and preparations. Joel and Magda have played a huge role in training the field rangers
• Joel and Magda, plus Sara Lipshutz and Yahkat Barshep, formed an advance party so that ringers could benefit from their experience on arrival, and hit the ground running
• Magda also acted as leader of the Scientific Programme Committee
• Zephné and Herman Bernitz played the key role in conference administration and day-to-day organisation
• Everyone who attended – some of whom made pretty adventurous journeys to reach Barberspan – and everyone who presented papers

This Spotted Eagle-Owl was mistnetted yesterday evening after the official closing session of the SAFRING 2010 Ringers' Conference at Barberspan Bird Sanctuary. It was a retrap; we will have to wait to find out when it was ringed, but it is likely to be a long time ago. Bird ringing remains the most cost-effective method of finding out about survival rates and movements for most bird species. In an era of global change, bird conservation initiatives need an intensified ringing effort to detect changes in these vital characteristics of birds.

Colin Jackson made an excellent presentation on initiatives to standardize the ages of birds in the hand. Colin, who is a leading ringer in Kenya, is based at the A Rocha centre at Watamu, 100 km noreth of Mombasa, close to Mida Creek where he rings waders and the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest, where he rings passerines. He made a huge contribution to the weekend, sharing his expertise on the principles of aging and sexing birds. Colin's impressions: "At the conference sessions, it was excellent to see how ringing in southern Africa is revealing some fascinating secrets of bird ecology and migration. And in the field, it was very stimulating to see and feel the raw enthusiasm of SAFRING ringers."

At the other end of the spectrum, Carol Milan, who drove to Barberspan from Cape Town, and Samantha Scott, a Wits MSc student, are trainee ringers. Carol said: "This unique event brought together a group of people willing to share their knowledge and experience, and to provide opportunities for trainees like me to learn about bird ringing. They all showed a deep love and interest in conservation. The value I attach to my experiences over these few days is immeasurable. I have loved every moment intensely, and I look forward to the next event." Sam commented: "I found out about the conference on the SABAP2 website. My MSc project is going to involve bird ringing so I decided to attend. I found myself diving into a whole new world of enthusiasm, excitement and passion for birds. I watched hundreds of Amur Falcons enter their roost in a single large Eucalyptus tree in the evenings. I held a variety of bird species. I helped with the setting up of mist nets. I watched the sunrise while catching birds on the Barberspan shoreline. This conference has been a fantastic experience and has certainly encouraged me to train as a bird ringer and form part of a great project that involves the passion of hundreds of people across South Africa."

Besides the formal conference proceedings this weekend at the Barberspan Bird Sanctuary, we are ringing in the mornings and evenings. The first ringers are up as early as 03h30 each morning. At this stage, the total number of birds ringed is around 1400 birds, of 77 species – both these figures will grow as individual ringers continue to report their ringing activities for the weekend, and do more ringing tomorrow (Monday) morning. The species of which we have ringed the most individuals was the Southern Red Bishop, with approaching 500 birds ringed. Some of them are in the picture. We also ringed about 200 Red-billed Queleas, far fewer than anticipated; there are not vast numbers here at present.

Other interesting species ringed included Chestnut-banded Plover, Cloud Cisticola (first ringing record for Barberspan Bird Sanctuary), European Bee-eater, African Scops-Owl, Spotted Eagle Owl (we retrapped a bird that had already been ringed), Great Reed Warbler, Garden Warbler, Willow Warbler, Grey-headed Gull, Wood Sandpiper, Helmeted Guineafowl, Red-capped Lark, Pink-billed Lark, African Quailfinch, Ant-eating Chat, Red-knobbed Coot, Spotted Flycatcher, Lesser Honeyguide, ...

The formal start of the SAFRING Ringers' Conference took place yesterday evening. The 60 delegates were welcomed to Barberspan by Mr Johnson Maoka, North West Parks and Tourism Board, who described some of the progress and the problems on site (in the picture). Joel Avni told us some of the history of Barberspan. Dieter Oschadleus and Magda Remisiewicz described the "communal" projects we would tackle while we are together: Red-billed Queleas (NWPTB has sponsored 2000 rings and colour-rings), White-browed Sparrow-weavers (estimated population size from retraps), bird diversity in the reedbeds, and waders (moult of migrants and residents). Mark Anderson, BirdLife South Africa director, was the invited speaker for the evening, giving an inspiring talk on Kimberley's pink gems, focusing on the conservation issues surrounding the Lesser Flamingos of Kamfers Dam.

The formal welcome, printed in the conference programme, reads like this:

Welcome to Barberspan Nature Reserve, and welcome to the 2010 SAFRING Ringers' Conference.

Take the opportunity to meet new people, and renew old friendships. Please take the opportunity to learn new things, and to gain new experiences. Please make a special effort to be inclusive and to create a sense of community.

Most importantly, we would like you to leave here better equipped to be an ambassador for biodiversity in an era of global change. Please read the environmental change booklet in your welcome pack. Many of the case studies in the booklet have bird ringing as a component of the data gathering.

There are now many examples of consistent, long-term ringing efforts being amalgamated to produce data sets which show how the survival rates, migration patterns and timing of moult have changed through time. This underpins the importance of maintaining SAFRING as a national (and in fact global) resource. All ringing records going back to 1948 have been captured electronically, facilitating its value as a resource of measuring change.

We gather at a very special place in the history of ornithology in South Africa. A vast number of waterbirds were ringed here, mainly in the 1960s and 1970s, generating large samples of recoveries. Half a century on, there is an amazing opportunity to examine how migration patterns of waterbirds have changed, partly as a consequence of climate change, and partly as a result of the construction of huge reservoirs along the major rivers, providing refuges in times of drought. We express our thanks to the North West Parks and Tourism Board for welcoming us here, and assure them that we will do whatever we can to restore Barberspan to its former glory.

Here is ADU PhD student Yahkat Barshep, from Nigeria, holding an Egyptian Goose in South Africa.

60 people are currently assembling at Barberspan Bird Sanctuary in North West Province for the 2010 SAFRING Ringers' Conference. Delegates represent Botswana, France, Kenya, Nigeria, Poland, USA and, of course, the host nation South Africa, with at least one person from every province.

Even though the official start of the conference is not until this evening, most people had already arrived yesterday, and had set up their nets and traps. Ringing started in earnest yesterday evening, with a big catch of waders, ducks, geese and coots, and has continued today, with mistnets set up at various sites scattered over a large area. Species ringed today included Great Reed Warbler, Helmeted Guineafowl, Red-knobbed Coot, Rattling Cisticola, Ant-eating Chat, Kittlitz's Plover, Little Stint and lots of Red-billed Queleas and Southern Red Bishops.

This is the biggest gathering of people at Barberspan Bird Sanctuary for many years. This site was once one of the world's most renowned centres of excellence in waterbird research. Sadly, about 20 years ago it fell into disuse. Currently, the North West Parks and Tourism Board, aided by the ADU, is working hard to restore Barberspan to its former glory. The 2010 SAFRING Ringers' Conference is part of the rebuilding process.

We will report daily on highlights from the conference

Magda Remisiewicz and Joel Avni have been at Barberspan Nature Reserve for a week already doing fieldwork and getting everything ready for the SAFRING Ringers' Conference this coming weekend. They have with them Sara Lipshutz, currently a semester abroad student at UCT, coming from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.

They asked  Sara to describe her experiences: "Things here at Barberspan are going great. So far, we’ve ringed 136 individuals of 18 different species. Fortunately for Magda and me, the most common species are our targets – Little Stint and Kittlitz’s Plover. We got some really amazing catches – a juvenile Greater Flamingo [see the picture], a Cattle Egret, and a White-breasted Cormorant. Magda and Joel are busy working with the field rangers to prepare for the conference, and I’m getting to know a LOT more about birds – different species, their habitats, behaviors, calls, etc. I’ve seen 99 different species so far, and can’t wait to keep on birding!"

There is now only camping available for the Ringers' Conference. See the SAFRING website.

On the days between the Ringers' Conference in Barberspan and the BLSA AGM in Wakkerstroom, ADU staff and students will be doing several presentations:

• Tuesday, 16 March – BirdLife Vaaldam, Deneysville Aquatic Club, Deneysville: Dieter Oschadleus – "Unmasking the South Masked Weaver"
• Tuesday, 16 March – BirdLife Inkwazi Bird Club, Bryanston Country Club, 19h30: Les Underhill – "You can make a difference – being a citizen scientist with SABAP2"
• Wednesday, 17 March – Newcastle Bird Club, Newcastle Club, corner of Scott and Bird Streets, Newcastle: 18h20 for 18h30: Dieter Oschadleus – "Africa's feathered locust: the Red-billed Quelea"
• Thursday, 18 March – Wits Bird Club, Delta Park Environmental Centre, 19h30: Yahkat Barshep – "Birding and bird studies in Nigeria" and Magda Remisiewicz – "Wader migrations link Europe and Africa"

ADU representatives at the BLSA AGM will be Dieter Oschadleus (who will be doing ringing demonstrations), Doug Harebottle (who will talking about atlasing), Les Underhill (who will also be talking about atlasing) and Yahkat Barshep (PhD student in the ADU, who is from Nigeria, and who did her MSc on the Rock Firefinch, a species first described in 1998, the species in the photo above).

African Black Oystercatcher males take 8 mm rings, and females 10 mm rings (9 mm if available). Chicks should be ringed with the larger ring size since they cannot be sexed - they can only be ringed when the tarsi are large enough for a 10 mm ring. Read more in this Afring News article.

Recent observations in late November-early December in Ethiopia suggest that there may be a regular overland passage for this species at a higher latitutde than had been previously thought. Some interesting aspects of the Amur Falcon migration are that:
1. It has one of the of longest migration routes of all birds, from eastern Asia all the way to southern Africa.
2. We are not 100% sure of its migration route, but current thinking is that it migrates large distance across the sea between India and the east African coast. Migrating over the sea is unusual for raptors.
3. It has been recorded to migrate during the night. Very little is know about night migration in birds of prey.
In our opinion, Amur Falcon is one of the most suitable species for studies of long-distance migration among the once currently available for satellite telemetry.

In a big joint effort BirdLife South Africa (Rina Pretorius, Sylva Francis, Zephné Bernitz), Microwave Telemetry, Inc., USA (Paul Howey) and German members of the World Working Group on Birds of Prey (WWGBP) (Bernd Meyburg, Achim Matthes) started now a satellite telemetry programm to study the almost unknown migration routes and other aspects of the biology of this little known raptor species.

At the biggest wintering roost known in South Africa (ca 26,000 birds) almost 50 birds were trapped during the last few days. The biggest 10 adult falcons were selected and fitted with experimental 5g solar-powered satellite tags. Already after very few days surprising new information has been gathered: A female went to other roosts over 100 km away from the original roost where it had been trapped.

Bernd Meyburg  

Read more here 

M Visser, AC Perdeck, JH van Balen & C Both. 2009. Climate change leads to decreasing bird migration distances. Global Change Biology (2009) 15:1859"�1865.
Abstract
Global climate change has led to warmer winters in NW Europe, shortening the distance between suitable overwintering areas and the breeding areas of many bird species. Here we show that winter recovery distances have decreased over the past seven decades, for birds ringed during the breeding season in the Netherlands between 1932 and 2004. Of the 24 species included in the analysis, we found in 12 a significant decrease of the distance to the wintering site. Species from dry, open areas shortened their distance the most, species from wet, open areas the least, while woodland species fall in between the other two habitats. The decline in migration distance is likely due to climate change, as migration distances are negatively correlated with the Dutch temperatures in the winter of recovery.With a shorter migration distance, species should be better able to predict the onset of spring at their breeding sites and this could explain the stronger advancement of arrival date found in several short distance species relative to long-distance migrants.  

The Red-billed Quelea has not occurred in the Western Cape historically, but in recent years has started expanding its range into this province. There is a single record of a flock of quelea at Zeekoievlei in 1946. The next record is from the Karoo NP in 1986. There was a large influx in April-May 2007. Records since then have been increasing. 

More information of this project, and how you can (continue to) help us with learning more about sanderlings, can be found on our new webpage. Do you have a ringing license and are you interested in starting colour-ringing sanderlings yourself, for example during expeditions abroad? Please get in touch with us about a possible collaboration. 

Alan Brooks has written a fascinating account of his ringing experience in Turkey. Read Part 1 here (scroll to the bottom of the Afring News box)

It is with sadness that we report the news that Steven Piper passed away yesterday.

Steven was an active ringer, starting from the 1950s! He has been involved in using ringing data for scientific studies, especially in researching the long-term population demography of vultures and wagtails. He published many papers, both popular and academic.

Steven was deeply involved in SAFRING, helping at many of the national ringing training courses. He was chair of the SAFRING Steering Committee for many years. During this period he was instrumental in the establishment of the SAFRING Trust, a trust fund within the BirdLife South Africa Trust, to accumulate resources for the future funding of SAFRING.

It was always a pleasure to listen to Steven‘s entertaining, yet educational, talks at ringers meetings, vulture study group meetings, bird clubs, and international conferences. Steven will be missed in many circles. SAFRING would like to convey our condolences to his family, particularly his wife Andy.

Dieter Oschadleus and Les Underhill