We believe that more people should be encouraged to appreciate nature 🍃 and spend time birdwatching 🦅! As such, BirdLife South Africa launched the South African Names for South African Birds (SANSAB) 🇿🇦 project to produce a list of bird names in our country's official languages; to make birdwatching, environmental education, conservation, and the academic study of birds more accessible to South Africans. This September you can show your support and have some fun with the @birda app in the process. Here's how: 📱 Download the FREE @birda app from your preferred App Store. 🇿🇦 Under "Challenges", join the the SANSAB Heritage Challenge. 🐦 Log 12 species during September 2023 (that's one for every official language). 🏆 Stand a chance to WIN a pair of Vortex Diamondback HD 10x42 binoculars + cool Birda merch. 💰For every new South African user completing the Challenge, Birda will donate in aid of the SANSAB project. Help us create a future where all South African children have names, in their home languages, for the beautiful diversity of birdlife they see around them. Join the SANSAB Heritage Challenge on Birda and support SANSAB by making a donation at the LINK IN OUR BIO. #BirdLifeSouthAfrica #GivingConservationWings #HeritageMonth #Heritage #Language #SANSAB #SouthAfricanBirdNames #SouthAfrica #Birdwatching #Birds #Education #Conservation #Diversity

As spring is sprung 🍃, the Southern Carmine Bee-eaters arrive in the thousands! Learn more about these wonderful birds in our latest issue of African Birdlife magazine. NOW ON SHELVES! 📸: @jackiewildphoto

Five African Penguins that were released as fledglings in 2021 at De Hoop Nature Reserve penguin colony after being hand-reared at @sanccob, have been resighted there. These birds are still too young to breed but might be seeking out potential breeding sites, bringing good news for the bold and exciting effort to re-establish an African penguin colony, which is led by BirdLife South Africa, in collaboration with @capenature and SANCCOB. Following the recent installation of a ground reader to detect microchipped African penguins, this resighting is indeed progress. Over 200 African penguin chicks that were rescued either as eggs or as chicks from other breeding colonies in the Western Cape have thus far been released at De Hoop. Since African Penguins only start breeding at three to six years of age, it was unexpected to see any of these birds back at De Hoop just yet. Their return to De Hoop shows the value of penguin chick rescues in collaboration with our partners CapeNature, SANParks, City of Cape Town and Robben Island Museum, and the success of hand-rearing and releasing them back into the wild. Thank you to all partners and funders, especially to Pamela Isdell who supports both SANCCOB and BirdLife South Africa in the organisations' work to save the African penguin from extinction. The transponder project is financially supported by the AZA SAFE programme. #SaveTheAfricanPenguin #endangeredspecies #conservation #AfricanPenguin #seabirdconservation #Conservation #givingconservationwings

LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK of the cover image for our latest issue of African Birdlife magazine, by Zimbabwean 🇿🇼 artist Nicole Sanderson (@artist_nicolesanderson). Check out her amazing portfolio inside, too. Look out for it in stores now!

East Atlantic Flyway Initiative (EAFI): The Series Why do birds migrate? Travelling long distances is energy expensive and dangerous. A species will only do so if the benefits outweigh the high associated costs. While the mechanism behind bird migration is still largely mysterious, there are three general theories: (1) Resource access: to move between sites offering the required resources to feed, breed, rest and raise young (2) Environmental adaptation: escape the adverse effects of seasonal environmental changes, including droughts, cold temperatures and flooding, all of which make it difficult to find food (3) Predator avoidance and competition: to avoid predators and capitalise on reduced predation risk and competition from other species in their destination regions Knowing this, one starts to wonder about the impacts of climate change on bird migrations. Next week, we’ll delve into what triggers migration. #birdlifesouthafrica #regionalconservationprogramme #EastAtlanticFlyway #EAFI #migratorybirds

BirdLife South Africa began a new guide training course this week from our Wakkerstroom Tourism and Education Centre. These six guides hail from the Midlands, Central Berg, Eastern Cape Highlands, and the communities around Ntsikeni Nature Reserve. They will join a long list of people from local communities trained by BirdLife South Africa over the last 25 years to become professional bird and nature guides. This course will be led by Wayne Johnson of African Edu Eco, who has a 35-year history in nature guiding, conservation, and training. The guides began their course with a birding trip led by the legendary Lucky Ngwenya. They saw 53 species on their first birding trip, including Blue, Wattled, and Grey-crowned Cranes, and a Secretarybird. We wish them well for the next 50 days! In the photo: Bird Guide trainees at Wakkerstroom with the Avitourism Project Manager, Andrew de Blocq (on the right), and Wayne Johnson, the trainer (on the left). #avitourism #birding #gobirding #birdlifesouthafrica

#ScienceSavingSpecies: Scenes from the BioSCape field, courtesy of Dr Alan Lee. A perfect moment to appreciate the beauty of the natural world we are striving to conserve. #Conservation #BirdLifeSouthAfrica #GivingConservationWings #CitizenScience #BioSCape

🌳🐦We're hiring a Landscape Conservation Programme Manager! 👇 This is your chance to help give conservation wings and make a huge difference in the conservation space. Among other things, the Landscape Conservation Programme Manager will assist with: • Leading and overseeing BirdLife South Africa’s site and habitat projects, including a focus on the conservation of former Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs) and bird-priority Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAS), securing Protected and Conservation Areas using biodiversity stewardship mechanisms and Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs), as guided by the National Protected Areas Expansion Strategy. • Overseeing flagship landscape conservation projects related to protecting key sites for birds in South Africa’s high-altitude grassland, mistbelt grassland, wetland and estuary habitats throughout the provinces of Mpumalanga, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape. • In collaboration with government and other partners, lead BirdLife South Africa’s contribution to deliver on the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Global Biodiversity Framework Target 3 (to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030). ⏰ Closing date: Friday, 25 August 2023 ✍️ Assumption of duties: As soon as possible To view more information, including how to apply for this role, click on the link in bio.👆 #Jobs #Vacancies #ConservationJobs #Conservation #Landscape

Tonight on #ConservationConversations we are joined by Mike Webster and Cullen Hanks of Macaulay Library. Bird song is not only beautiful but it is also loaded with information for other birds as well as for scientists. Join us at 19h00 (SAST) for an exploration of how birds communicate and how scientists are using bird sound in research. Discover the art of sound recording, not just as a way to improve your birding skills, but also as a tool to aid efforts to conserve bird populations. 🐦🎶 @team_ebird @cornellbirds Join us for another fascinating episode of #ConservationConversations. Simply register at the link in our bio. ⬆️ #ConservationConversations #BirdLifeSouthAfrica #Birds #Sounds #BirdSong #Research #GivingConservationWings

#MarineMonday: We have just added another Automated Penguin Monitoring System to our existing array - this time on Robben Island! We now have four of these systems up and running, and we will use them to monitor how African Penguins respond to changes in their environment and anthropogenic pressures such as fishing pressure and marine noise pollution. Thank you to @mandelauniversity, the University of Exeter, SANCCOB, Saving Animals From Extinction (SAFE) and Robben Island Museum for their ongoing support and help with this project. #AfricanPenguin #BirdLifeSouthAfrica #seabirdconservation #Conservation #givingconservationwings

East Atlantic Flyway Initiative (EAFI), the series For the next couple of weeks, the Regional Conservation Programme will be highlighting the importance of EAFI and what it entails. To kick-start the series, we’re delving into the word “flyway”. Approximately 1 800 of the world’s 11 000 bird species migrate across numerous country boundaries. The route they travel during this migration is generally referred to as a flyway, a vast area encompassing the whole life cycle of migratory birds. Within the flyway are incredibly important stopover sites required by these birds to breed, feed and rest. Of the four flyways recognised by BirdLife International, BirdLife South Africa (BLSA) works within the African-Eurasian Flyway, which includes the East Atlantic Flyway. The East Atlantic Flyway Initiative (EAFI) was established in 2015 by several partners to facilitate the monitoring of birds and sites, identify conservation priorities and increase capacity for conservation along the Flyway. This initiative truly emphasises the importance of cross-collaborative efforts throughout the flyway, specifically through a connected landscape lens. Next week, we’ll investigate why birds migrate 🐦 #regionalconservationprogramme #birdlifesouthafrica #KeyBiodiversityAreas #EastAtlanticFlyway #EAFI #migratorybirds

BirdLife Lowveld hosted a BirdLasser and Southern African Bird Atlas Project (SABAP2) workshop last Saturday, which was attended by nearly 40 keen citizen scientists. The workshop was presented by Ernst Retief, who demonstrated the BirdLasser application and how to record and submit data to SABAP2. BirdLife Lowveld has already made valuable contributions to SABAP2 through regional atlas projects. We thank them for their continuing participation and hope that even more club members will now contribute to SABAP2! #SABAP2 #BirdLasser #Atlassing #FWF #fordwildlifefoundation #BirdLifeSouthAfrica #GivingConservationWings #CitizenScience