While I love this blog, I now pretty much only write on my other two blogs: BirdingBlogs.com and 10,000 Birds - I would love to see you there!

Friday, 31 July 2009

Glimpses of Africa - Kruger National Park

Up close and personal with a baby african elephant


Pearlspotted owlet (think that is what it is called now, but they changed all the names so I am not at all sure)


Baby white rhino


Whitefronted bee-eater


Surveying the lie of the land


All digiscoped with my swarovski ATS80HD straight scope and a loaner Canon EOS 1000D DSLR - thanks Whysalls!

Sunday, 19 July 2009

Dinner at uShaka Marine World

Dining with the sharks


uShaka Marine World at night


Cargo Hold Restaurant from the outside – all built in a converted ship, overlooking the ocean

Northern Drakensberg mountains and Cape Griffon Vultures

One night in the northern Drakensberg (between Witsieshoek Pass and Sterkfontein Dam) treated us to stunning scenery;


A breathtaking sunrise


And a few Cape Griffon Vultures




Wednesday, 8 July 2009

Great places to practice digiscoping 3 - your garden bird feeder

A few months ago, I wrote the first two installments of this series on „Great places to practice digiscoping“. The idea behind the theme is that it can be incredibly frustrating if – as a beginner or intermediate digiscoper – you leave all the practice for exciting areas and equally exciting birds because chances are, when that Angola Pita does show, you are going to be so busy mucking about with settings and false starts that you miss the great shots. And then there is the other point:
Rarity birds should be photographed, not used for refining your technique ;-)

That is why you go digiscoping at your local duck pond (part 1) and digiscoping-friendly zoo (part 2) are for.


Crested Barbet (Trachyphonus vaillantii) on a rusty pole. I like the way the rust reflects the colour of the bird.

But another great place to get lots of digiscoping practice in is in your own garden, or a garden of a friend. There is tons of great info on how to attract birds to your garden, from bird feeders and bird baths, to selecting appropriate trees and shrubbery, and how to build a garden pond that attracts and entire bird-friendly ecosystem.

Bird feeder / bird bath
A bird feeder or bath provides a regular attraction to birds.

View of my parents’ garden feeder looking through the lounge window. It is cold outside and I was lazy so I stayed indoors. The room is darkened to minimize reflections on the glass.

  1. Create a natural looking setting for your photographs by using natural materials (wood, sticks, boulders, etc) or structures that appear natural (e.g. fiberglass stones). This will give you a lot more scope in taking and framing your photographs.
  2. Watch the light. Place your bird feeder or bird bath somewhere useful so that the light is in a good position at the time of day you will generally be taking photographs (normally earlier morning or later afternoon).
  3. Avoid artificial objects in the shot. If you can. If you can’t then go ahead and have fun practicing with the plastic dish/plastic bird feeder in the shot - the practice is what counts!
  4. If you have an artificial looking feeder, then set up a branch nearby for the birds to land on and you can take photos of them there.

Pair of African Red-eyed Bulbuls (Pycnonotus nigricans)

Natural vegetation
  1. Choose locally indigenous plants
  2. Focus on plants that produce flowers and fruits that attract birds
  3. It never hurts to have trees, bushes or grasses that make good nesting material
  4. Structural heterogeneity. I can’t stress this enough – the more vertical layers you have, and the more different types of vegetation you can offer, the greater the species diversity.
  5. Dead leaves are your friend. Mulching will both help your garden flourish and provide great habitat for robins, thrushes and other ground insectivores.

Cape Robin-chat (Cossypha caffra) on the feeder. Notice the apple in the background. This could either be darkened in photoshop to make it less obvious, or better still would have been to frame the original photo better so that it did not include apple bits.

Build a pond
Ponds create great natural ecosystems for a variety of birds (and other cool creatures). There are tons of pond experts out there, but you might want to spend some time exploring Mike’s „Weedon’s World of Nature“ blog. Mike has tons of tips and encouraging info on how to create a wonderful garden pond.
If you know of any other great pond blogs/sites, please leave their addresses in the comments section.

Backlit Karoo Thrush (Turdus smithii)

I really liked this shot – the only thing in focus is the crazy un-attached eye. African Red-eyed Bulbul.

Happy digiscoping,
Dale Forbes

Sunday, 5 July 2009

It is wonderful to be back in Africa

I have now been back in South Africa for a few days. After landing in Johannesburg on Thursday, my brother and I had a quick cup of tea with our long-time friend Graham Kearney (the absolutely brilliant wildlife artist) and then headed off South for the 4hour drive down to Bloemfontein in the Free State.

The drive from Johannesburg to Bloemfontein takes one through the large open expanses of the „Highveld Grasslands“ – dry and sleeping in a state of torpor, shades of winter browns filling the landscape. Nearing Bloemfontein, the eye is drawn to the rusty Koppies littering the horizon. Koppies (literally „little heads“) are these small mountains, rising steeply from a flat plain, dominated by boulders and small cliffy sections and usually sporting a flat plateau.

The wide open plains of the Free State

It is wonderful to be back in Africa.

My 90yr old grandmother (Oma) had knitted scarfs, a jersey and house socks for me and nearly had a heart-attack with excitement when she first saw my brother and I (Barry had also just gotten back from working in China). The folks were naturally also well pleased to have both of us back in South Africa and all together again.

My first evening back, I gave a talk at BirdLife Free State and it was wonderful to meet such an enthusiastic and friendly crowd of bird and nature lovers, and it was great to see Rick Nuttall again after so many years. Rick and Birdlife Free State are really in to the Southern African Bird Atlas Project 2 (SABAP2) – a grassroots bird serveying and sensusing project run throughout Southern Africa. One of the coolest things about SABAP2 is that you can see your data almost in real time as you add it. Check out the website to see the map of sightings of the Lesser Kestrel (by way of example).

I know I can do it! I will not fall. Just watch me. mmm... I wonder if I can find an even smaller branch to perch on?

Yesterday we took a drive out towards Maselspoort Dam. I naturally took my digiscoping setup with – just in case. We saw tons of Blackbellied Korhaans, some Whitefronted Bee-eaters and Spotted Dikkops, the ubiquitous flocks of little brown jobs (LBJ’s – mainly widos, bishops and redbilled queleas) and a good number of Crowned Plovers. We also came across a group of the cooperative breeding Anteating Chat, and a pair of Doublebanded Coursers.

Doublebanded Courser (Rhinoptilus africanus) - my brother's first digiscoping photo. Not bad at all - the boy has a massive creative streak and more than a small dose of brilliance.

The great surprise of the day was to find some sort of game farm along the road with lions, including my first White Lions – the famous leucocystic white lions of Timbavati. Beautiful.


A stunning male white lion

Digiscoping Today - week 9

It is Saturday again so Welcome to the 9th installment of Digiscoping Today!

[See Digiscoping Today - week 8][
More info here]

The idea behind it is to share my (and probably your) passion for digiscoping and nature. Nature gives us so much joy in so many ways and digiscoping - as with other forms of photography - gives us a reason to be outdoors.

Add your name and web address and tell your friends to join in too.
Write a comment to tell us what you have posted.

Last week we had:

  1. Corey of 10,000 birds added some great shots of an Arctic Tern in Cupsogue beach county park - a great find for New York!




Happy digiscoping!
Dale Forbes




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It is wonderful to be back in Africa

I have now been back in South Africa for a few days. After landing in Johannesburg on Thursday, my brother and I had a quick cup of tea with our long-time friend Graham Kearney (the absolutely brilliant wildlife artist) and then headed off South for the 4hour drive down to Bloemfontein in the Free State.

The drive from Johannesburg to Bloemfontein takes one through the large open expanses of the „Highveld Grasslands“ – dry and sleeping in a state of torpor, shades of winter browns filling the landscape. Nearing Bloemfontein, the eye is drawn to the rusty Koppies littering the horizon. Koppies (literally „little heads“) are these small mountains, rising steeply from a flat plain, dominated by boulders and small cliffy sections and usually sporting a flat plateau.

The wide open plains of the Free State

It is wonderful to be back in Africa.

My 90yr old grandmother (Oma) had knitted scarfs, a jersey and house socks for me and nearly had a heart-attack with excitement when she first saw my brother and I (Barry had also just gotten back from working in China). The folks were naturally also well pleased to have both of us back in South Africa and all together again.

My first evening back, I gave a talk at BirdLife Free State and it was wonderful to meet such an enthusiastic and friendly crowd of bird and nature lovers, and it was great to see Rick Nuttall again after so many years. Rick and Birdlife Free State are really in to the Southern African Bird Atlas Project 2 (SABAP2) – a grassroots bird serveying and sensusing project run throughout Southern Africa. One of the coolest things about SABAP2 is that you can see your data almost in real time as you add it. Check out the website to see the map of sightings of the Lesser Kestrel (by way of example).

I know I can do it! I will not fall. Just watch me. mmm... I wonder if I can find an even smaller branch to perch on?

Yesterday we took a drive out towards Maselspoort Dam. I naturally took my digiscoping setup with – just in case. We saw tons of Blackbellied Korhaans, some Whitefronted Bee-eaters and Spotted Dikkops, the ubiquitous flocks of little brown jobs (LBJ’s – mainly widos, bishops and redbilled queleas) and a good number of Crowned Plovers. We also came across a group of the cooperative breeding Anteating Chat, and a pair of Doublebanded Coursers.

Doublebanded Courser (Rhinoptilus africanus) - my brother's first digiscoping photo. Not bad at all - the boy has a massive creative streak and more than a small dose of brilliance.

The great surprise of the day was to find some sort of game farm along the road with lions, including my first White Lions – the famous leucocystic white lions of Timbavati. Beautiful.


A stunning male white lion