Bulletin 324 - South Africa #1 - part 1 - Plovers, Sandpipers, Jacana and Mongooses

I had an amazing 2 week trip to South Africa and scored almost 280 new species of birds as well as fantastic mammals and a few reptiles. My guide Casper Badenhorst was outstanding. You can see his web site here. He can be contacted through the web site or if you want his email it is info@birdingandwildlifesafaris.com. I recommend him highly as he showed me so many rare birds and animals. I will use him again when I go to Southern Africa.

As usual my birding luck was 100% and we saw almost every thing expected to be found and many that were not expected!

Plovers are my favorite shorebirds since I first saw a Killdeer with his 2 chest stripes, when I was a child.  I photographed 9 new ones for the trip..a record for any trip for me. The first was the 6" White-fronted Plover (Charadrius marginatus). It is IDed by white forehead and buffy breast.

White-fronted Plover

The 7.5" Common Ringed Plover  (Charadrius hiaticula) has a single wide breast band.

Common Ringed Plover

The third was a distant 6" Kittlitz's Plover  (Charadrius pecuarius). Despite the distance, it is easily IDed by the black ring around his head. It is endemic to Africa.

Kittlitz's Plover

The last small one is also endemic to Africa. The 7" Three-banded Plover  (Charadrius tricollaris). It is IDed by the 2 black breast bands and red eye ring.

Three-banded Plover

Many plovers lay their eggs on the ground with no nest. Here are eggs of the Three-banded Plover.

Three-banded Plover - eggs

Large long legged plovers are called lapwings. All of them here are endemic to Africa. The 12" Blacksmith Lapwing (Vanellus armatus) is an easy ID with his pied appearance.

Blacksmith Lapwing

The 10" Black-winged Lapwing (Vanellus melanopterus) has a gray head, black breast band and wings.

Black-winged Lapwing

The 12" Crowned Lapwing (Vanellus coronatus) is brown with a white ring around his head.

Crowned Lapwing

The 12" White-crowned Lapwing (Vanellus albiceps) has gray head and neck, white on top of head, yellow bill and yellow wattle from bill.

White-crowned Lapwing

Last is the 14" African Wattled Lapwing (Vanellus senegallus). It is mostly gra brown with a white forehead and red above the bill, It also has a yellow bill and wattle

African Wattled Lapwing

Continue to part 2