Knysna Warbler



Attendees: Andrew Pickles, Ivan Pickles, Liz Blomeyer, Carol Lowe, Ron Whitham, Pete Woolcock, James Holness, Andrew and Riki Maree, Bob Hobbes, Irene and Eric Strydom, Sandy Olver, Graham and Sue Salthouse, Robin Eccles, Hanli Kloppers and Herbie and Jeanette Osbourne (19)

Andrew and his team once again ventured out at 4am, against unfavourable weather warnings, erecting 280m of nets before 6am when the first people started to arrive.  He drew an excellent crowd of 18 people which included a contingent all the way from Pennington Conservancy, Scottburgh.

His “special” of the day was a Knysna Warbler about which he had this to say.  "So one of today's highlights at the ringing was this recapture of a Knysna Warbler that was ringed by a good friend of mine Johan Snyman in the same forest on 21/09/2014, almost 2 years ago, this is a bird that was thought to be extinct from KZN until some were discovered in Mbumbazi Nature Reserve near Paddock. This is the third location where I have caught and ringed them on the South Coast, all in indigenous forest patches on sugar cane farms. To confirm the identity of this bird today we played the call from the Roberts Multimedia and the response from the bird was immediate".


Other specials were a male African Goshawk recapture and an adult male Green Twinspot, named Andrew tells us, because each feather has a double spot.

In total 33 birds were caught consisting of 10 recaptures and 23 new birds.

Birds ringed:
  • 1 Tambourine Dove
  • 1 Lemon Dove
  • 2 Chorister Robin-Chat
  • 4 Red-Capped Robin-Chat
  • 3 Brown Scrub-Robin
  • 1 Greenbacked Cameroptera
  • 5 Olive Sunbird
  • 1 Collared Sunbird
  • 5 Green Twinspot (4 imm and 1 ad male)
Recaptures were all from 2014 or 2015 so nothing much in longevity for them, the 2 best are the Goshawk and Warbler
  • 2 Brown Scrub-Robin
  • 1 Chorister Robin-Chat, interesting as they are a winter visitor so they come back to the same forest
  • 1 Squaretailed Drongo
  • 2 Red-Capped Robin-Chat
  • 1 Knysna Warbler, one of only 18 birds ever ringed and the 4th ever recaptured, ringed in Sept 2014 at the same spot
  • 1 African Goshawk
  • 1 Cape Robin-Chat
  • 1 Terrestrial Brownbul
  Thanks Andrew and Team for all your hard work.