A special Hoopoe in the trap

Today marked a personal highlight and milestone. I ringed the 250th bird since I got my ringing licence at the beginning of February 2009. The bird that had the honour of this milestone was an African Hoopoe (Upupa africana – Rob 451 – Ring CC94703). I trapped it in snaptrap in my garden – that was after putting out traps for 5 days in a row on the lawn. It was very interesting to watch the Hoopoes (there were two birds at times) as they went probing all over the lawn. They even probe their bills through the netting of the snaptrap, but don't go for the mealworm in the trap. My "very unscientific" conclusion after watching them for many hours, is that they feed on feel rather than sight. Other species went straight for the wriggling worm. Capturing Hoopoes in a snaptrap is more by accident, in my opinion, than inticing them by the bait into the trap.

Note the big white window in the wing of the Hoopoe – indicating the wing pattern of the male bird. The female as more black patterns in the wing and not such a large wide window. Also note the wax sheaths on the rectrices showing that the bird is moulting it's tail feathers. The wing primaries showed no moult.

This was the second Hoopoe that I ringed. The first being over Easter weekend on the farm Tasmania to the south of Aliwal North.

The weather had not been very favourable for atlasing for SAPAB2 this "long weekend", so I put out the traps to see if a few birds will succumb to the juicy mealworms. Yesterday I went to the local golf course – the wind was strong, but a few birds could be captured and ringed. We (the kids and I) had a few magnificent sigthings of raptors. The first was a Lanner Falcon charging swiftly after a Cape Turtle Dove. The dove was lucky enough to escape. Shortly after that we heard an African Fish-Eagle calling over the water at the Islands Spa. Not long after the call, we saw the magnificent bird flying overhead. Then we had sightings of a Black-shouldered Kite hunting low over the reeds and the fairways of the golf course – hovering time from time to get good views of possible and unsuspecting prey. Seems as if the raptors don't really mind the wind and the chill of winter.

At the end of the weekend a whole flock of Red-winged Starlings had been ringed – no less then 20 of them received a bangle to wear.