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Here's another one of the Mokala birds that confuses me, is it a Sparrow (Grey Headed) or for example one of the Canaries (Black-Headed/Damara) or something totally different???

(My guess would be the Sparrow, but want to be sure....)

Thank you again

welcome to the forum Maurice
what a nice Sentinel you posted

Thank you Anne-Marie,

That goes for the first bird I guess? Or do you think both of them are Sentinel?

sorry Maurice I speak about the Sentinel (first one)... never saw this magnificent bird
and not very good in ID

Ok

I hope the Rock-Thrushes are both Sentinel and Short-toed

Lets see what the others make of them

Hi Maurice

I'm afraid both birds are likely to be short toed rock thrush. The habitat and distribution map is wrong for sentinel rock thrush. The clue are the acacia trees in the background. Sentinel rock thrush is normally associated with montaine vegetation (and nowhere near Kimberly).

I think your second bird is a southern grey headed sparrow. What throws you, is the yellow bill. The bill is normally is shown as dark grey in most guides, but is doe sgo quite yellow out of the breeding season.

Thank you Adrian, real happy to have short toed on my list now , Petty the other one isn't the Sentinel, but lucky to be out of doubt after your explanation! Thank you!



I thought so as well, but indeed, the bill, the bird apparently being alone, it's behavior and the colors on the back plus the white on the throat started to make me doubt, then the plates in the books.....

Thank you again for solving that!

Me again!!

Well these are general as opposed to raptors or LBjs, but I still need confirmations please!

Initial thought was Bar-throated Apalis - am I right?


Possibly a female collared sunbird?


Thanks again.

I agree with both your ID's Rookie!

Agree on both

Nice picture of the apalis..... did you use the magic autofocus that does feather recognition, to sort out the bird from the vegetation

Of course I did Adrianp!

I have about another 20 when this feature didn't work, so I can show you beautiful photos of the bushes, but beggar all bird!

Thanks for the confirmation, couple of ticks on the list for me!

My SO and I have been interested in birds since 1987 when we got our first Robert's. We don't usually have problems IDing birds but we don't worry too much about LBJs and when we see a small brown eagle, more often than not we pronounce it a Walberg's Lesser Booted Eagle

I managed to get a couple of pictures of birds that we haven't bee able to ID on our recent trip to the Kruger, the first is an LBJ which we haven't a clue about.



The second one has us both flummoxed The best we can come up with is a Bru-Bru but we really aren't sure.



Please help!

@BluTuna, first one is a Rattling Cisticola and second one is a Back-backed Puffback (probably an immature bird).

Thanks MattAxel.

Puffback! We get them in our garden so we are fairly familar with them. It's certainly not obvious so as you say, it must be a junior bird.

Thanks again.

Is that really a black-backed puffback?

An adult is supposed to have a red eye, and a juvie a brown one (not a black eye).

The tail in the puffback is supposed to be all-black. There is white visible on the edges of the tail of this bird.

The back is supposed to be black. This bird's back is greyish.

And finally, I've found no mention of any brown in the wing feathers of the black-backed puffback, and there are clearly some brown in this bird's wing feathers.





I don't have an alternative ID yet , but I'm not convinced that it's a black-backed puffback...