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The Changing Fortunes of Europe’s Vultures – Part 1

10,000 Birds

The south, just 21 kilometers away, is the coast of Morocco and the Griffons have just completed a short but arduous sea-crossing across the Strait of Gibraltar. Griffon Vultures have a long breeding season. Isn’t it a bit late to breed? Why bother with such a risky journey if you aren’t going to breed?

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The return of the Old Man

10,000 Birds

According to Storks, Ibises and Spoonbills of the World , a handsome volume written by James Hancock, James Kushan and Philip Kohl and published by Academic Press in 1992, Geronticus eremita “once nested in the mountains of central Europe, across northern Africa and into the Middle East. But this range is now much reduced.

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The Bee-eaters of Africa

10,000 Birds

The wonderful family Meropidae contains 27 dazzling species, of which Africa is endowed with no less than 20 species, the balance occurring across Asia and with one as far afield as Australia. Carmine bee-eaters occur throughout most of Subsaharan Africa, and many populations migrate widely post breeding.

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The Storks of Africa

10,000 Birds

Africa has more than its fair share of storks, with 8 of the world’s 19 species gracing the continent. Marabous occur throughout tropical and subtropical Africa from Zululand in northern South Africa right up to the arid Sahel region fringing the Sahara Desert, avoiding the closed canopy rainforest zones of central and west Africa.

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What the rings reveal

10,000 Birds

Black-tailed godwits winter in large numbers on the estuaries of both Norfolk and Suffolk, and we know that nearly all these birds breed in Iceland. In breeding plumage islandica godwits develop a deeper red plumage than their limosa cousins. They are of the race islandica , a sub species of the nominate race, limosa.

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Africa’s endangered species

10,000 Birds

All the inhabited continents except Africa have experienced bird extinctions; however the 2012 update of the IUCN Red List shows a startling, but not altogether unexpected, trend in that more and more of our bird species are facing extinction.

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South Africa’s endemic birds

10,000 Birds

My home country of South Africa can only be described as a birding paradise! The Cape Rockjumper (here a female) is best sought at Rooiels, on the east coast of South Africa, north of Cape Town. Males of this species are more brightly colored in their non-breeding winter plumage.