- 4,145 records received in July
- Highlights include more than 1,800 spreadsheet observations from Ronelle Visagie & Bram Piot
- Total records now at 172,966
This month we received two large contributions to the data bank via spreadsheet that swelled the observation tally; Ronelle Visagie provided 1,084 road survey observations from South Africa and Bram Piot sent us 803 incidental observations from Cameroon, Niger, Ghana, Cote D’Ivoire, Liberia, Guinea and Senegal. Regular contributor Andre Botha contributed 527 observations from a road survey along the M9 from Mongu to Lusaka in Zambia, a distance of more than 600 km. Hartmut Kolb also provided great coverage for the Etosha area and beyond in Namibia and Karin Nelson contributed 133 observations from KwaZulu Natal and the high velt regions of South Africa. It’s always great to receive observations from the Peregrine Fund team on the fabulous island of Madagascar where they observe species seen nowhere else in the world; this month they supplied observations from various road surveys.
Pictured this month is an Osprey, photo by Mark Schwall as reported by Bram Piot from various coastal areas of Senegal.
Clive Barlow asked us to tally up the number of Hooded Vulture sightings by country. Top countries for this species emerge as Ethiopia, The Gambia, Senegal, Cameroon, South Africa and here is a graphic. Of course these numbers are influenced by observer effort and the area of the countries. From Clive: Graham Greene apparently described the wet Hooded vultures he saw in Senegal as broken umbrellas. Great description.
We hope to show you more vulture results in the near future when the work for the MSAP becomes publicly available.
Keep up the great recording everyone!
Thank you and best wishes
The ARDB Team
