Hi Gil
what a fantastic place to go for a holiday, Denise and I were there less
than a year ago. I have the Newmans Green Edition and hopefully some answers
for you:
1. Black Kite, Milvus migrans migrans
Yellowbilled Kite, M. aegyptius
2. Forest Buzzard, Buteo trizonatus
Steppe Buzzard, B. buteo vulpinus
3. Cape Sparrow, Passer melanurus, the only reference I could find for
mossie is that it is an Africaans word for sparrow.
We plan to go back there in the not to distant future. I was very impressed
with the value of our dollar and the overall value for money a holiday in
South Africa can be. Not to mention the birds and mammals.
cheers
Chris Dahlberg
I have just returned from a family holiday in Southern Africa (mostly South
>Africa) where I saw just over 300 species of birds. It was good birding
>(and animalling) and I found the South Africans to be very friendly and
>helpful people.
>
>I used Sinclair's "Birds of Southern Africa", First (?) Edition, 1993,
>which was the only guide in Andrew Isles' bookshop at the time. I resisted
>the temptation to buy the Newman's Green Edition while in SA in order to
>save weight. I am now trying to enter my sightings into BirdBase for
>Windows data base and am having the usual troubles since Sinclair uses
>Sibley and Ahlquist/Monroe (1990) while BirdBase uses Clements'
>classification. I would much appreciate some help on the following
>problems from either our South African members or others with SA knowledge.
>
>Black Kite/Yellow-billed Kite: HANZAB Volume 2 suggests to me that the
>Yellow-billed Kite is M. migrans parasitus, a subspecies of the Black Kite.
> Is this the case?
>
>Forest/Steppe/Common Buzzard: Sinclair has a Forest Buzzard, Buteo
>tachardus, and a Steppe Buzzard, B. buteo which must be the local
>subspecies of the Common Buzzard. Is the Forest Buzzard a full species?
>
>Mossie/Cape Sparrow: BirdBase calls Passer melanurus the Mossie and P.
>diffusus the Cape Sparrow. Sinclair has P. melanurus as the Cape Sparrow
>and no P. diffusus. What is the correct common name?
>
>Regards,
>
>Gil Langfield
>Melbourne, Australia
>
>
>
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