Steppe Buzzard (Bruinjakkalsvoël)

Scientific name: Buteo vulpinus

The Steppe buzzard has a rufous colour which gives this subspecies its scientific name (vulpes is Latin for "fox"). The tail of vulpinus is paler than the buteo form, and often quite rufous. The upper wings have pale primary patches, and the primary flight feathers are also paler when viewed from below. Adults have a black trailing edge to the wings, and both morphs often have plain underparts, lacking the breast band frequently seen in buteo.
It occurs in all countries of southern Africa, but it is especially common in South Africa, Swaziland, Botswana and Zimbabwe. It generally favours open habitats, such as savanna, grassland and open woodland, often moving into mosaics of croplands.
Its diet in southern Africa is not well-known, but it is thought to consist mainly of insects and small mammals. It does most of its foraging from a prominent perch, such as a tree or telephone pole, dropping onto the ground once it spots prey.

203 Helmeted Guineafowl (Gewone Tarentaal)

Scientific name: Numida meleagris

The helmeted guineafowl (Numida meleagris) is the best known of the guineafowl bird family, Numididae, and the only member of the genus Numida. It is native to Africa, mainly south of the Sahara, and has been widely introduced into the West Indies, Brazil, Australia and southern France.

The helmeted guineafowl is a large (53–58 cm) bird with a round body and small head. They weigh about 1.3 kg. The body plumage is gray-black spangled with white. Like other guineafowl, this species has an unfeathered head, in this case decorated with a dull yellow or reddish bony knob, and red and blue patches of skin. The wings are short and rounded, and the tail is also short. Various sub-species are proposed, differences in appearance being mostly a large variation in shape, size and colour of the casque and facial wattles.

Habitat: It breeds in warm, fairly dry and open habitats with scattered shrubs and trees such as savanna or farmland. Flocks of guineafowl have flourished in recent years in the Southern Suburbs of Cape Town, where they seem to have adapted remarkably well.

614 Karoo Scrub-Robin (Slangverklikker)

Scientific name: Cercotrichas coryphaeus

The Karoo scrub robin or Karoo robin (Cercotrichas coryphaeus) is a species of bird in the family Muscicapidae. It is found in Lesotho, Namibia, and South Africa.
Its natural habitats are dry shrubland and Mediterranean-type shrubby vegetation.It is 17 cm long and weighs 19 g. The upperparts are drab greyish brown; the face with a narrow, white supercilium above thin black eye-stripe. Partial whitish eye-ring below eye. Closed tail darker than rump and mantle. Upper wing coverts and flight feathers brown, underwing dull buffy brown. Bill black, eyes brown and legs as well as feet black.
Song calls vary between individuals, e.g. chip, swee-chipswirraree, seeep-seeep-treeeeyer, repeated 5 – 10 times.
Favours bare ground beneath ca. 1 m high vegetation and can be found in the low shrublands of the Karoo and Namaqualand in South Africa, in drainage line woodland. Also occasionally seen among tall vegetation at the base of farm dam walls.
Nearly all food taken on ground, while its diet consists mainly of insects, dominated by worker ants that it gleans from the ground surface, and also including termites, beetles, caterpillars, moths and small grasshoppers.

162 Pale Chanting Goshawk (Bleeksingvalk)

Scientific name: Melierax canorus

S Pale Chanting Goshawk is a medium-sized raptor 56–65 cm long. Adult has pale grey upperparts. On wings, secondary coverts have fine white bars. Rump is white. Tail is dark grey, with outer feathers barred with white. Underparts are white, finely barred with wavy grey bars. Chest is pale grey. Underwings are black on outer primaries, and white on inner primaries and secondaries. Tail is dark grey barred with white. On the head, crown is grey, becoming paler on nape and upper back. Hooked bill is black, with yellow-orange cere and gape. Eyes are red or reddish-brown. Bare legs and feet are red.
Both sexes are similar in plumage, but female is larger than male.

In flight, the adult has black primary flight feathers, very pale grey (white from a distance) secondaries, and grey forewings. The wingspan is about 105 cm.

Immatures have brown upperparts, with a white rump and black bars on the tail. From below, the flight feathers and tail are white with black barring, the throat is dark-streaked white, and the rest of the underparts are rufous.

The pale chanting goshawk eats a variety of vertebrate prey, mainly lizards, but also small mammals and birds, and large insects. It often walks on the ground.

This is generally a rather quiet bird, but during the breeding season the male makes a series of tuneful whistling calls kleeuu, kleeuu-ku-ku-ku from a tree-top perch.

Normally a female mates with a single male, but in "broken veld" vegetation, a female and two males may form a polyandrous trio.[3]

The relatively small stick nest is built in an acacia at a height of 3 to 10 m. The female lays and incubates one or two pale bluish or greenish white, unmarked eggs. Only one chick is normally reared from a nest of two. The breeding cycle begins in midwinter and takes over 115 days.[3] The young after leaving the nest may be found near it for some months and in the following year may even display in the same area. Some pairs and especially trios raise a second brood, starting about 24 days after the first brood fledges.[

587 Capped Weatear (Hoëveldskaapwagter)

Scientific name: Oenanthe pileata

The capped wheatear (Oenanthe pileata) is a small insectivorous passerine bird. This wheatear is found in open dry sandy and stony habitats and short grassland with a few bushes and termite mounds in Africa, from Kenya and Angola south to the Cape. It is largely non-migratory, but undertakes seasonal movements.

The capped wheatear is 17–18 cm long and weighs 32 g. Its legs and pointed bill are black. This common species is striking and unmistakable in appearance. The adult has a black cap, cheeks and breast band, and white eye stripe and throat. The rest of the underparts are white with buff on the flanks and lower belly. Like other wheatears, it has a distinctive tail pattern with a black feathers on the base and centre of the tail forming an inverted T against the otherwise white rump.

The juvenile has a brown cap and cheeks, and the breast band is weak and diffuse. However, the breast band, larger size, and white at the base of the outer tail feathers distinguish it from the migrant northern wheatear, which is rare over most of the capped wheatear's range.

The capped wheatear's song is a loud melodic warble interspersed with slurred chattering, and it has a chik-chik alarm call. It is monogamous and builds a nest of straw, grass, and leaves in a hole in the ground or a termite mound. It may use man-made drainage pipes if available. Typically three or four, sometimes more, eggs are laid.

This solitary species feeds on insects, especially ants. Like other wheatears, it perches on mounds and hops over the short grass, or flies low over the ground.

703 Pririt Batis (Priritbosbontrokkie)

Scientific name: Batis pririt

Female

Male

The pririt batis (Batis pririt) also known as the pririt puff-back flycatcher or pririt puffback, is a small passerine bird in the wattle-eye family. It is resident in western and central southern Africa.

It is a small stout insect-eating bird, found in dry broadleaf woodland and thorn scrub. The nest is a small neat cup low in a tree or bush.

The pririt batis is strikingly patterned. The adult male has a dark grey crown and back, black eye mask and white throat. It has a black rump and tail, and its wing are black with white edging to the flight feathers and a long white shoulder patch. The underparts are white with a broad black breast band and black speckles on the flanks. The female and juvenile plumages differ in that there is no black breast band, but the throat and breast are a warm buff colour.

The pririt batis hunts by flycatching, or by taking prey from the ground like a shrike. The song is typically a slow descending series of whistled notes: teuu, teuu, teuu, teuu.

759, Pied Starling (Witgatspreeu)

Scientific name: Spreo bicolor

The pied starling or African pied starling, (Spreo bicolor) is a bird endemic to South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland. It is common in most of its range, but largely absent from the arid northwest and the eastern lowlands of South Africa. It is found in open habitats such as grassland, karoo scrub, thornbush and agricultural land, and often associates with farm animals.

The adult of this 27–28 cm (11 in) long starling has mainly dully glossed black plumage except for a white lower belly and undertail. It has a white iris and yellow lower mandible. The sexes are alike, but the juvenile has unglossed plumage, a brown iris and a dull yellow lower mandible. There are no subspecies. This species has a number of calls, but the most familiar is a skeer kerrra kerrra. There is also a soft warbling song.

Like other starlings, the pied starling is an omnivore, taking a wide range of invertebrates, seeds and berries, but its diet is mainly insects, including many ants and termites. It will take figs from gardens and some human food discards. Foraging is frequently near livestock, with birds feeding on insects disturbed by the animals and also perching on cattle or sheep to remove ectoparasites.[3]

The pied starling has sometimes been seen as a pest when it takes soft fruit such as grapes or figs, and was also itself considered good eating. However, it is little persecuted at present.[3]

746 Bokmakierie (Bokmakierie)

Scientific name: Telophorus zeylonus

The bokmakierie (Telophorus zeylonus) is a bushshrike. This family of passerine birds is closely related to the true shrikes in the family Laniidae, and was once included in that group. This species is endemic to southern Africa, mainly in South Africa and Namibia, with an isolated population in the mountains of eastern Zimbabwe and western Mozambique.

It is a species of open habitats, including karoo scrub, fynbos and parks and gardens in urban areas. The bulky cup nest is constructed in a hedge, scrub or tree fork. The 2-6, usually three, red-brown or lilac-blotched greenish-blue eggs are incubated by both sexes for about 16 days to hatching, with another 18 days to fledging.

The adult bokmakierie is a 22–23 cm long bird with olive-green upperparts and a conspicuous bright yellow tip to the black tail. The head is grey with a yellow supercilium, and the strong bill has a hooked upper mandible. The underparts are bright yellow with a broad black collar between the throat and breast, which continues up the neck sides through the eye to the bill. The legs and feet are blue-grey. The sexes are similar, but juveniles are a dull grey-green below, and lack the black gorget.

There are four subspecies, differing mainly in colour shade and size. Although the species as a whole is not threatened, the isolated dark subspecies restrictus in the Chimanimani Mountains numbers only about 400 birds.

The bokmakierie has a range of loud whistles and calls, often given in duet, but the most typical is the one that gives this species its name, bok-bok-mak-kik.

Unlike the true shrikes, which perch conspicuously in the open, the bokmakierie is shy and skulking. This bird has a typical shrike diet of insects, small lizards, snakes, small birds and frogs. It is preyed upon itself by snakes, mongooses, and large shrikes like the northern fiscal and southern boubou.

425 White-backed Mousebird (Witkruismuisvoël)

Scientific name: Colius colius

The white-backed mousebird (Colius colius) is a large species of mousebird. It is distributed in western and central regions of southern Africa from Namibia and southern Botswana eastwards to Central Transvaal and the eastern Cape.

This mousebird prefers scrubby dry habitats, such as thornveld, fynbos scrub and semi-desert.

This bird is about 34 cm (13 inches) long, with the tail comprising approximately half the length, and weighs 38–64 g (1.3–2.3 oz). The upper parts, head, prominent crest and breast are grey apart from a white back stripe flanked by two broad black stripes and a dark red, or maroon, transverse band at the base of the tail. The white is not visible unless the wings are at least partly open, such as when the birds are alighting, or sometimes in hot weather. The belly is buff in colour. The bill is bluish white with a black tip, and the legs and feet are red.

The speckled mousebird can be distinguished from this species by its differently coloured beak, legs and upperparts.

The white-backed mousebird is a frugivore which subsides on fruits, berries, leaves, seeds and nectar. It also will feed on the buds of some plants, sometimes to the extent of stripping the branches of ornamentals such as fiddlewoods. Its feeding habits make it very unpopular with fruit farmers and domestic gardeners, which might be why it is very shy as a rule. When it spots a human it either sits quiet in a tree or takes off immediately. Sometimes it will settle quietly on lawns when the grass is flowering and feed on the grass stigmata and stamens. In the wild its fruit-eating habits make it an important factor in disseminating seeds of indigenous berry-bearing plants such as Halleria lucida. However, it also spreads the seeds of invasive aliens such as Cotoneaster.

In handling mousebirds the tail should be avoided, as the long retrices come out so easily as to suggest that it is a sacrificial defence mechanism.

This is a markedly social bird, with small groups of presumably related birds feeding together and engaging in mutual preening. It roosts in groups at night. Its perching habits are amusingly parrot-like; it often almost hangs from its legs rather than squatting on them like most birds, and commonly with each leg gripping a different upright branch.

These sedentary birds may breed at any time of the year when conditions are favourable. The nest is a large cup well hidden in a thicket. Nestlings are fed by both parents and also by helpers, usually young birds from previous clutches.

The white-backed mousebird has a whistled zwee-wewit call. It also has a buzzing or crackling call that might be for alarm or keeping in contact with the group.

474 Greater Honeyguide (Groot Heuninwyser)

Scientific name: Indicator indicator

The greater honeyguide (Indicator indicator) is a bird in the family Indicatoridae, paleotropical near passerine birds related to the woodpeckers. Its English and scientific names refer to its habit of guiding people to bee colonies.

The greater honeyguide is a resident breeder in sub-Saharan Africa. It is found in a variety of habitats that have trees, especially dry open woodland, but not in the West African jungle.The greater honeyguide is about 20 cm long and weighs about 50 g. Like all African honeyguides, it has bold white patches on the sides of the tail. The male has dark grey-brown upperparts and white underparts, with a black throat. The wings are streaked whitish, and there is a yellow shoulder patch. The bill is pink.

The female is duller and lacks the black throat. Her bill is blackish. Immature birds are very distinctive, having olive-brown upperparts with a white rump and yellow throat and upper breast.The greater honeyguide feeds primarily on the contents of bee colonies (“hives”): bee eggs, larvae and pupae; waxworms; and beeswax. (Honeyguides are among the few birds that can digest wax.) It frequently associates with other honeyguides at hives; immatures dominate adults, and immatures of this species dominate all others. Like other honeyguides, the greater honeyguide enters hives while the bees are torpid in the early morning, feeds at abandoned hives (African bees desert more often than those of the temperate zones), and scavenges at hives robbed by people or other large animals, notably the ratel or honey badger. Most remarkably, it also guides people to hives.[2] The greater honeyguide also catches some flying insects, especially swarming termites. It sometimes follows mammals or birds to catch the insects they flush, and joins mixed-species flocks in ones and twos. It has been known to eat the eggs of small birds.

Guiding is unpredictable and is more common among immatures and females than adult males. A guiding bird attracts a person's attention with wavering, chattering "'tya' notes compounded with peeps or pipes",[3] sounds it also gives in aggression. The guiding bird flies toward an occupied hive (greater honeyguides know the sites of many hives in their territories) and then stops and calls again. As in other situations, it spreads its tail, showing the white spots, and has a "bounding, upward flight to a perch", which make it conspicuous. If the followers are native honey-hunters, when they reach the hive they incapacitate the adult bees with smoke and open the hive with axes or pangas (machetes). After they take the honey, the honeyguide eats whatever is left.[4]

465 Acacia Pied Barbet (Bonthoutkapper)

Scientific name: Tricholaema leucomelas

The acacia pied barbet or pied barbet (Tricholaema leucomelas) is a species of bird in the Lybiidae family. It has a black-and-white striped head with a red forehead and yellow colouring above the eyes. It has a black bib under the chin, with a white breast and underparts. It primarily inhabits semi-arid savanna, as well as grassland, fynbos, agricultural areas and urban gardens, where it did not inhabit previously. With the introduction of alien vegetation, especially Acacia species from Australia, to regions bordering its original range, this species has been able to expand its range to these otherwise unreachable areas.[2]

It is found in Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Like most other barbets, the acacia pied barbet drills holes into dead wood to create cavity nests, like a woodpecker. It lays two to four eggs from August to April, and both sexes incubate the eggs.

The acacia pied barbet has been observed taking fruit from various trees and shrubs, such as Ficus, Rhus and Phoenix reclinata, as well as Aloe nectar and insects.

601 Cape Robin-Chat (Gewone Janfrederik)

Scientific name: Cossypha caffra

The Cape robin-chat (Cossypha caffra) is a small passerine bird of the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae. It has a disjunct range from South Sudan to South Africa.[2] The locally familiar species has adapted itself to various man-altered habitats. The Cape robin-chat is 16–17 cm long. The adult’s upper-parts are grey, and the face sides in front of and behind the eye are blackish, and is separated from the crown by a white supercilium. The chin, throat, central breast, rump, under-tail coverts and outer tail feathers are orange. The breast is deeper orange in colour during the non-breeding season.[2] The central tail feathers are greyish-brown and the belly is pale grey.

The black bill is short and straight, with a slightly down-curved upper mandible. The legs and feet are pinkish grey, and the eye is brown. The sexes are similar, but the juvenile is dark brown above and buff below, heavily marked with buff on the upperparts and grey-brown on the breast.
It forages close to or on ground level. It prefers the cover of dense vegetation, but is not very shy. Invertebrates, small frogs and lizards are obtained in scrub or on leaf litter. In addition fruit and seeds are plucked from plants or eaten on the ground.[6] Occasionally an insect may be hawked in the air, or invertebrates may be gleaned from leaves, branches or rocks.

583 Short-toed Rock Trush (Korttoonkliplyster)

Scientific name: Monticola brevipes

The short-toed rock thrush (Monticola brevipes) is a species of bird in the family Muscicapidae. It is found in Angola, Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical dry shrubland.

Birds in the eastern part of its range are sometimes regarded as a separate species, the Pretoria rock thrush or Transvaal rock thrush (M. pretoriae).

885 Cape Bunting (Rooivlerkstreepkoppie)

Scientific name: Emberiza capensis

There are a dozen subspecies, differing in plumage, but all have the distinctive head pattern and rufous in the wings. The north-eastern race E. c. vincenti is very dark above, and slaty below. It has reduced chestnut on the wing coverts. It is now usually raised to species status as Vincent's bunting, Emberiza vincenti, however some taxonomists still consider it to be conspecific.
The Cape bunting is 16 cm long. The adult has a black crown, white supercilium and black-bordered white ear coverts. The upperparts are grey brown with some dark streaks, and the wing coverts are chestnut. The tail is darker chestnut, and the underparts are grey with a pale throat. The sexes are very similar, but females may have a buff tone to the white head markings. Young birds have duller chestnut wings, a less distinct head pattern, and heavier streaking extending on to the breast and flanks. The call is an ascending zzoo-zeh-zee-zee. The song is a loud chirping chup chup chup chup chee chhep chu. E. c. vincenti has a simple tre-re-ret tre-re-ret song.
The Cape bunting occurs in southern Africa from south-western Angola, eastern Zambia, Zimbabwe and southern Tanzania to the Cape. Its habitat is rocky slopes and dry weedy scrub, mainly in mountains in the north of its range. It previously utilized stony arid areas with some short grass, but much of this has been lost to ploughing.

813 Cape Weaver (Kaapse Wewer)

Scientific name: Ploceus capensis

The Cape weaver is a stocky 17 cm long bird with streaked olive-brown upperparts and a long pointed conical bill. The breeding male has a yellow head and underparts, an orange face, and a white iris. The adult female has an olive-yellow head and breast, shading to pale yellow on the lower belly. Her eyes are brown. Young birds are similar to the female.
Endemic to South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland, occurring across much of the area excluding the Kalahari Desert, generally preferring open grassland, lowland fynbos, coastal thicket and farmland, provided they have permanent water and trees. This common species occurs in grassland, agricultural and fynbos habitats, often near rivers. It breeds in noisy colonies in trees and reedbeds. This weaver builds a large coarsely woven nest made of grass and leaf strips with a downward facing entrance which is suspended from a branch or reed. The hadada ibis will sometimes nest in the weaver colonies. The Cape weaver feeds on a wide variety of seeds, grain and insects. The calls of this bird include a harsh azwit, azwit.
Omnivorous, as its diet it is pretty much equally split between arthropods and plant matter, especially seeds, fruit and nectar. It forages on the ground and in tree foliage, gleaning food from crevices in bark and hawking insects aerially.

226 Common Moorhen (Grootwaterhoender)

Scientific name: Gallinula chloropus 

The common moorhen (Gallinula chloropus) (also known as the swamp chicken[2]) is a bird species in the Rallidae family. It is distributed across many parts of the Old World.

The name mor-hen has been recorded in English since the 13th century.[5] The word moor here is an old sense meaning marsh;[5] the species is not usually found in moorland. An older name, common waterhen, is more descriptive of the bird's habitat.

The moorhen is a distinctive species, with dark plumage apart from the white undertail, yellow legs and a red frontal shield. The young are browner and lack the red shield. The frontal shield of the adult has a rounded top and fairly parallel sides; the tailward margin of the red unfeathered area is a smooth waving line. In the related common gallinule of the Americas, the frontal shield has a fairly straight top and is less wide towards the bill, giving a marked indentation to the back margin of the red area.

The common moorhen gives a wide range of gargling calls and will emit loud hisses when threatened.[7] A midsized to large rail, it can range from 30 to 38 cm (12 to 15 in) in length and span 50 to 62 cm (20 to 24 in) across the wings. The body mass of this species can range from 192 to 500 g

Habitat: The common moorhen lives around well-vegetated marshes, ponds, canals and other wetlands, marsh environments and well-vegetated lakes. Populations in areas where the waters freeze, such as eastern Europe, will migrate to more temperate climes. This species will consume a wide variety of vegetable material and small aquatic creatures. They forage beside or in the water, sometimes walking on lilypads or upending in the water to feed. They are often secretive, but can become tame in some areas. Despite loss of habitat in parts of its range, the common moorhen remains plentiful and widespread.

The birds are territorial during breeding season. The nest is a basket built on the ground in dense vegetation. Laying starts in spring, between mid-March and mid-May in Northern hemisphere temperate regions. About 8 eggs are usually laid per female early in the season; a brood later in the year usually has only 5–8 or fewer eggs. Nests may be re-used by different females. Incubation lasts about three weeks. Both parents incubate and feed the young. These fledge after 40–50 days, become independent usually a few weeks thereafter, and may raise their first brood the next spring. When threatened, the young may cling to the parents' body, after which the adult birds fly away to safety, carrying their offspring with them.

228 Red-knobbed Coot (Bleshoender)

Scientific name: Fulica cristata

The red-knobbed coot is largely black except for the white frontal shield. It is 38–45 cm (15–18 in) long, spans 75–85 cm (30–33 in) across the wings and weighs 585–1,085 g (1.290–2.392 lb).[3][4] As a swimming species, it has partial webbing on its long strong toes. The juvenile is paler than the adult, has a whitish breast, and lacks the facial shield; the adult's black plumage develops when about 3–4 months old, but the white shield is only fully developed at about one year old, some time later.

A good view is necessary to separate this species from the Eurasian coot, with which its range overlaps. There are two tiny red knobs at the top of the facial shield, which are not visible at any great distance and are only present in the breeding season; the black feathering between the shield and the bill is rounded, whereas in Eurasian it comes to a point; and the bill has a bluish grey tinge. In flight, the red-knobbed coot lacks the white trailing edge to the secondaries of the Eurasian coot.

It is a resident breeder across much of Africa and in southernmost Spain on freshwater lakes and ponds. It builds a nest of dead reeds near the water's edge or more commonly afloat, laying about 8 eggs (or more in good conditions).[2] However, its behaviour towards its own young is so aggressive that only a few are likely to survive to adulthood.
The habits of the red-knobbed coot are practically identical to those of the Eurasian coot. It is much less secretive than most of the rail family. Where it is undisturbed it is likely to bully any intruder, even large birds such as Egyptian geese, if they do not defy its challenges.[2] It can be seen swimming on open water or walking across waterside grasslands. It is an aggressive species, and strongly territorial during the breeding season.

The red-knobbed coot is reluctant to fly and when taking off runs across the water surface with much splashing. It does the same, but without actually flying, when travelling a short distance at speed (to escape a rival, for example, or to dispute possession of a choice morsel). It bobs its head as it swims, and makes short dives from a little jump.

The red-knobbed coot is an omnivore, and will take a variety of small live prey including the eggs of other water birds. Its main food in most waters however comprises various waterweeds such as species of Potamogeton for which it commonly dives.[5]

This is a noisy bird during mating, but its vocalisations are quite different from the Eurasian coot. It gives a fast kerrre like the little crake, a harsh ka-haa and a grunting hoot "oot oot" that suggests that the name "coot" might be onomatopoeia, but inspection of the etymology of "coot" fairly decisively negates any such suggestion.[6]

567 African Red-eyed Bulbul (Rooioogtiptol)

Scientific name: Pycnonotus nigricans

The African red-eyed bulbul or black-fronted bulbul (Pycnonotus nigricans) is a species of songbird in the Pycnonotidae family. It is found in Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Its natural habitats are dry savanna and subtropical or tropical dry shrubland.
Genus as currently constituted probably polyphyletic; in-depth analysis of morphology, voice, behaviour and genetics required to redefine its limits. Present species forms a superspecies with P. barbatus, P. capensis, P. xanthopygos, P. leucotis and P. leucogenys, possibly including some other species. Parapatric and locally sympatric with both P. barbatus and P. capensis, and hybridizes extensively with both in narrow transition zones along at least part of boundaries between their respective distributions. Nominate race intergrades with superior over a broad front along middle R Orange and in Griqualand West (South Africa). Proposed race grisescentior indistinguishable
A medium-sized bulbul with slightly peaked crown, giving distinctive, squarish head shape. Has head and neck black, ring of bare orange or red around its eye and a yellow underneath tail.

550 White-necked Raven (Withalskraai)

Scientific name: Corvus albicollis

The white-necked raven (Corvus albicollis) is somewhat smaller (50–54 cm in length) than the common raven or indeed its nearest relative, the thick-billed raven C. crassirostris. The white-necked raven has a much shorter tail than the common raven, as well as a deeper bill with a white tip that is almost as strongly arched as that of the thick-billed raven. Though predominantly black, the throat, breast and neck show a faint purple gloss. There is a large patch of white feathers on the nape of the neck.
It occurs in eastern and southern Africa in open, mountainous country. It is quite commonly found in small towns and villages as long as there are mountains or hills for roosting and nesting relatively nearby.
Most of this bird's food is obtained from the ground, but it will take food from trees as well. It has been seen to drop a tortoise from a height on to hard ground, preferably on rocks, and then swoop down to eat it, or even pick it up again if not sufficiently broken. White-necked ravens will also readily take carrion from road kills. Fruit, grain, insects, small reptiles, peanuts and human food are also readily taken and the bird forages in back yards and gardens quite openly. Like all or most raven species, the White-necked raven form flocks after leaving their parents and once fully matured will pair off and form territories. It is often found in the company of other scavengers such as kites or vultures.

Nests are bowls of sticks lined with grass, hair, and wool, found mainly on cliff ledges but occasionally found in trees. There are usually 3-5 eggs laid.

386 Diederik Cuckoo (Diederikkie)

Scientific name: Chrysococcyx caprius

Johann Grobberlaar

The diederik cuckoo is a smallish cuckoo at 18 to 20 cm. Adult males are glossy green above with copper-sheened areas on the back and whitish underparts. They have a broken white eye-stripe and a short, green malar stripe. All remiges have three to four white spots on the inner vanes. The four green outer tail feathers are tipped white, and the outermost pair are spotted white on both vanes.

Females show more copper above, and have coppery barring on the flanks. The underparts are often washed brownish.

Juveniles have a red bill, streaky throat and a white wing-bar. They are more copper-coloured above and browner below than the females, and the flank markings are brown blotches.
The diederik cuckoo is a brood parasite.[3] It lays a single egg mostly in the nests of weavers, especially the village weaver and the bishops in the genus Euplectes.

The diederik cuckoo takes a variety of insects and caterpillars. It is a noisy species, with the persistent and loud deed-deed-deed-deed-er-ick call from which it gets its name. Usually four clear, roughly identical, notes followed by a little twitter.
It is a common resident breeder in sub-Saharan Africa which has been recorded as far north as Cyprus (1982). It is a short-distance seasonal migrant, moving with the rains. It is a solitary bird, found in open woodland, savanna and riverside bushes.