Bulletin 326 - South Africa #3 - Part 1 - Hawks and Eagles; small mammals

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!

If you like raptors, Africa is an amazing place. We saw eagles almost every day and as many as 4 different species on several days. Of course, there were smaller hawks and kites too. I will start with the smaller ones and work up to the eagles.

We saw the  22" Yellow-billed Kite (Milvus aegyptius) daily. It was the most common raptor. It has a dark brown back, reddish underparts with a yellow bill of course.

Yellow-billed Kite

The 12" Black-winged Kite (Elanus caeruleus) is the same genus and similar to our White-tailed Kite, but the whole wing is black.

Black-winged Kite

We only saw the 15" Lizard Buzzard (Kaupifalco monogrammicus) one time. It is gray with red bill and feet and a black midline stripe on the throat.

Lizard Buzzard

The 16" African Cuckoo-Hawk (Aviceda cuculoides) was another one hit wonder. It is listed as an 'uncommon woodland resident' where it perches quietly.

African Cuckoo-Hawk

There are several harriers, but I photographed only 1 species, the 19" African Marsh Harrier (Circus ranivorus). As usual, I can seldom see these birds perched to photograph as they hunt on the wing, flying over the ground. It is brown with a rufous belly.

African Marsh Harrier

The genus buteo birds are called hawks in the New World like the Red-tailed Hawk. But in the Old World, the buteos are called buzzards and I photographed 3 of them. The 19" Common Buzzard (Buteo buteo) is a migrant to  Africa from Europe. We saw several of these birds as they were arriving for the winter.

Common Buzzard

The similar 18" Forest Buzzard (Buteo trizonatus) is an endemic South Africa bird. The difference is the underwing is mostly white in this bird. 

Forest Buzzard

The 23" Jackal Buzzard (Buteo rufofuscus) is more colorful. He is dark backed with a red chest and black belly. It is endemic in South Africa and Namibia.

Jackal Buzzard

 The 24" adult African Harrier Hawk (Polyboroides typus) is a broad-winged gray bird with bare facial skin that my flush red or yellow. He has a wide white band across the black tail. This on flew across the water on our boat trip, and landed in a tree close by. We saw this bird twice more on the trip.

African Harrier Hawk

Here he is perched.

African Harrier Hawk

Continue to part 2