African Birds

Caption: Close-up of a captive bateleur eagle (Terathopius ecaudatus), profile view, African Bird of Prey Sanctuary, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Camera: Canon EOS 400D (Digital Rebel XTi); Lens: Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM; Focal Length: 300mm; Shutter speed: 1/250; Aperture: f5.6; ISO: 400.
The bateleur, with its bright orange face surrounded by a dark, shaggy cowl, [...]

Caption: A young martial eagle (Polemaetus bellicosus) scans its surroundings from a lofty perch atop an old tree, Kruger National Park, South Africa.

Soon after this picture was taken, we heard the mother eagle calling anxiously for her offspring to return to the huge nest, which we could see in the upper branches of a tree [...]

Caption: Portrait of a Cape Vulture (Gyps coprotheres), African Bird of Prey Sanctuary, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Vultures in southern Africa, already under threat from habitat loss, poisons, and power-line electrocution, are being further threatened by people seeking lotto riches who believe that smoking dried vulture brains brings visions of winning numbers.
According to a report in [...]

One thing you don’t normally associate with bird photography is a wide angle lens. So it was fun trying an experiment during a recent visit to South Africa’s Kruger National Park.
We were staying at Talamati Bush Camp and, as in many other camps in Kruger, the birds are fairly tame and come scratching around the [...]

Photo Details: This hamerkop (Scopus umbretta) was standing motionless on the river’s edge when, without warning, another one flew in and landed on its back (below), where it remained for a few moments with wings outstretched before flying off again.

I’d never seen such behavior before and my travelling companions (we were in the Kruger National [...]

Photo Details: A female saddle-billed stork (Ephippiorhynchus senegalensis) comes up empty-handed (or empty-billed) while wading and hunting for fish and other aquatic morsels, Kruger National Park, South Africa.
Camera: Canon EOS 400D (Digital Rebel XTi); Lens: Canon EF70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM; Focal Length: 300mm; Shutter speed: 1/640; Aperture: f8; ISO: 200; 28 Oct 2009, [...]