IN THIS ISSUE December 2020

Farewell 2020 • Birding Big Day, a highlight of 2020! • Searching for swallows • Spotting leopards to save penguins • Support avitourism this festive season • Keep track of 2021 • GPS for vultures • Last chance to learn about... • Support bird conservation in South Africa • Birding Big Year 2021 • Tracking Endangered cormorants • Southern Ground-Hornbill – a perfect gift!

Farewell 2020

It has certainly been a tough year! Under these very different and sometimes incredibly trying circumstances, BirdLife South Africa has worked hard to weather the Covid-19 storm.
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Searching for swallows

The rapid decline of Blue Swallows in Mpumalanga over the past few decades has led Dr Kyle Lloyd, the Rockjumper Fellow of White-winged Flufftail Conservation, to visit the species’ historical nesting sites in the province to determine whether any of the swallows remain.
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Support avitourism this festive season

December is prime birding season in South Africa. If you plan to head out, please consider supporting our community bird guides, Birder Friendly Establishments and Birder Friendly Tour Operators as they recover from the Covid-19 travel restrictions.
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GPS for vultures

In October, while a team of researchers and volunteers were monitoring a White-backed Vulture breeding colony in the Northern Cape, BirdLife South Africa took the opportunity to expand research on the source of lead poisoning.
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Support bird conservation in South Africa

Birding Big Year 2021

2021 will be a birding year like no other for the Widdows family who, with two kids in tow, is attempting a proudly South African Birding Big Year in aid of BirdLife South Africa’s Community Bird Guide Training Project.
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Southern Ground-Hornbill – a perfect gift!

Help to support BirdLife South Africa’s conservation efforts by purchasing Southern Ground-Hornbill merchandise.
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Birding Big Day, a highlight of 2020!

The year 2020 may be remembered for all the wrong reasons, but Birding Big Day 2020 will be remembered for all the right reasons: a record number of participants, national and provincial records broken and lots of data for citizen science projects.
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Spotting leopards to save penguins

On the face of it, conducting a camera survey for leopards seems to have very little to do with penguin conservation. But knowing more about these elusive predators will help in our attempt to establish a penguin colony in De Hoop Nature Reserve.
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Keep track of 2021

There’s still stock of the stunning 2021 Birds of Southern Africa calendar, but it’s limited!
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Last chance to learn about...

This is the last month we’ll be featuring the Southern Ground-Hornbill as BirdLife South Africa’s Bird of the Year 2020. Make sure you’ve checked out our free educational resources!
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Tracking Endangered cormorants

Seabird scientists from BirdLife South Africa and Nelson Mandela University recently went to Dyer Island to fit GPS trackers and small camera loggers to breeding Cape Cormorants to find out where they mostly forage.
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