The world’s 28 Ibis species form the bulk of the family Threskiornithidae (Ibises and Spoonbills), and comprise an interesting group of long-legged, long-beaked, wetland, grassland and forest species. Some are on the brink of extinction (for example Crested, Sao Tome and Giant Ibis), yet others have taken to the modified human world and adapted to […]
Author: Adam Riley
Adam Riley was raised in a rural region of South Africa and is qualified as a Chartered Accountant. He is the founder of Rockjumper Birding Tours, ORYX Worldwide Photographic Safaris, ORYX Worldwide Wildlife Safaris and Tau Anthropological Safaris. Adam leads tours to numerous countries ranging from Colombia to Egypt and Angola to Papua New Guinea. He is one of Africa’s most experienced birders, having seen over 2,000 species on the continent as well as 7,000 species worldwide.
Southern Africa’s first record of Little Crake
The news took South African birders by storm! On Thursday 22 March, Trevor Hardaker, a prominent South African birder and rarity tracker, announced that a Little Crake had been found the previous day by Gillian Barnes in Clovelly Wetland near Fishhoek, a southern suburb of Cape Town. This is not far from Cape Point, Africa’s […]
Pheasant-tailed Jacana courtship dance by Adam Riley
Whilst leading a birding tour to Sri Lanka last year, I spotted a flash of bright white in a lily-choked wetland near Ambalantota in the south-east of this verdant island. Closer investigation revealed a stunning male Pheasant-tailed Jacana perched atop a female. Pheasant-tailed Jacana pair by Adam Riley Our excitement at finding these avian gems […]
An afternoon at Nebrownii waterhole, Etosha National Park, Namibia
One of Africa’s great reserves is the incredible Etosha National Park in northern Namibia. This vast, arid wilderness of 22,750 square kilometers is centered around the seemingly endless Etosha Pan, a saline depression that irregularly fills with rain water and at these times attracts millions of flamingoes and other waterbirds (as is the current situation.) […]
The Geladas of Ethiopia by Adam Riley
Geladas are the sole survivors of a once abundant branch of primates that historically foraged across the grasslands of Africa, the Mediterranean and India. These relics of times gone by now cling to a precarious existence on the sheer cliffs of Ethiopia‘s mountains, from which each morning they materialize, to forage on nearby moorlands, before […]