A cat or a lifer a day keep the doctor away

[Lisbeth]

Back from your Kruger trip?

Tihongonyeni is always worth a detour

Lovely amour falcons and great pics of the jackals

[Richprins]

Spectacular sightings all round, Pumbaa!

Amazing how green it is, I'm always there in winter!

Don't think I've ever seen an amur, do they come in summer?

Grand buffalo, although the one has toilet problems!

[Lisbeth]

Satellite-tagged Amur Falcons fly 30,000 km
Two satellite-tagged Amur Falcons have been tracked on their migration route, clocking up some 29,000 km in the process.

The birds were two of five fitted with the tags in Manipur, eastern India, which is a popular stopover site for the falcon while on migration. One of the birds, a female named Irang, flew more than 29,000 km while the other, a male called Chiulon, covered no fewer than 33,000 km by the time it had returned to the area it had been tagged.



Last year, Manipur's forest department fitted five Amur Falcons with satellite radio transmitters to study the route and flight patterns of the birds. Sadly, the other three are thought to have died. Each year Amur Falcons arrive in Manipur and parts of Nagaland from breeding grounds in China and Russia before they migrate to South Africa for the winter (SA summer) – a voyage of approximately 20,000 km.

However, until a few years ago large numbers of the falcon were hunted in Nagaland's Wokha district during their stopover. This mass hunting prompted the state government to take action; they banned the killing Amur Falcon and warned that they would freeze developmental funds of villages if found guilty.

This has had a positive impact and, nowadays, members of the forest department and local people patrol the roost sites to keep poachers away.

[Richprins]

[Pumbaa]

Have never seen so many falcons in the trees like that

What a productive morning

In that area we saw masses of the amur falcons - It was simply fantastic

[Pumbaa]

Back from your Kruger trip?

Tihongonyeni is always worth a detour

Lovely amour falcons and great pics of the jackals

More to this topic a bit later

Satellite-tagged Amur Falcons fly 30,000 km
Two satellite-tagged Amur Falcons have been tracked on their migration route, clocking up some 29,000 km in the process.

The birds were two of five fitted with the tags in Manipur, eastern India, which is a popular stopover site for the falcon while on migration. One of the birds, a female named Irang, flew more than 29,000 km while the other, a male called Chiulon, covered no fewer than 33,000 km by the time it had returned to the area it had been tagged.



Last year, Manipur's forest department fitted five Amur Falcons with satellite radio transmitters to study the route and flight patterns of the birds. Sadly, the other three are thought to have died. Each year Amur Falcons arrive in Manipur and parts of Nagaland from breeding grounds in China and Russia before they migrate to South Africa for the winter (SA summer) – a voyage of approximately 20,000 km.

However, until a few years ago large numbers of the falcon were hunted in Nagaland's Wokha district during their stopover. This mass hunting prompted the state government to take action; they banned the killing Amur Falcon and warned that they would freeze developmental funds of villages if found guilty.

This has had a positive impact and, nowadays, members of the forest department and local people patrol the roost sites to keep poachers away.

Thanks for thhis interesting information

[Pumbaa]

Spectacular sightings all round, Pumbaa!

Amazing how green it is, I'm always there in winter!

Don't think I've ever seen an amur, do they come in summer?

Grand buffalo, although the one has toilet problems!

Normally we always do have luck with the amur falcons when we are in the park but we had also years were we only spotted very few You must visit the park in summer - It is fantastic with all the birdies around

[Pumbaa]

Some of them started a fight

L

whilst others were simply busy with their morning bath



and meanwhile also our fighters settled their disput.



Must say that we again could have spent the whole day there but we had to carry on and with one last view turned around and whilst driving back to the S50



we noticed again those masses of zebras either close busy in ruthless battles



whilst others were peacefully sharing the grass with wildebeest and masses of buffaloes



needless to say that we soon had masses of flies buzzing around our car.



Nearly the whole place was occupied by zebras



and we had difficulties in carrying on

[Pumbaa]

but finally we could drag ourselves away and it even got a bit quiet until we passed the turn off to the Shibavantsengele look out as we there soon were surrounded by four hyenas



and from passed experiences we are always a bit sceptical when surrounded by hyenas as they do love to bite into tires or into the tow bar



but these were totally interested in something else



in some flowers who were growing plentiful along the roadside. Two of them were totally fascinated by the smell and were sniffing permanently on these flowers



whilst the two others did not understand their behaviour.



Needless to say that we had more than fun to watch them





as they walked from flower to flower and sniffed frantically on same.





to be continued………….

[Alf]

Maybe they smelled another animals marking for territory