Tag archives for percy fitzpatrick institute
Posted by As with most wild parrots, the story of the Cape parrot of South Africa, is a tale of people and parrot over many generations… We have been fascinated by parrots, their colors, characters and voices. for thousands of years. A longtime ago in prehistory the ancestors of today’s Cape parrot Poicephalus robustus specialized their behavior…
This 1-minute video clip is the first-ever footage of the Endangered Cape parrot (Poicephalus robustus) feeding in the high canopy of a yellowwood tree over 40m above the forest floor.
One of Africa’s most influential conservationists and our top ornithologist has died at the age of 57. Professor Phil Hockey joined the Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology in the same year I was born (1979) and became the Director in 2008. He had an honours degree from Edinburgh and obtained his PhD at the…
Every time we test blood from new endangered parrot species with small, isolated wild populations, we find Psittacine Beak and Feather Disease (PBFD) virus, a particularly nasty airborne circovirus that destroys the skin and feathers while opening large, painful fissures in the beak that eventually breaks it apart. Cape parrots, black-cheeked lovebirds, Carnaby’s cockatoos, New Caledonian parakeets,…
Zambia’s Bangweulu Wetlands are recognized by the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (the “Ramsar Convention”) as one of the most important wetlands on earth. This vast, shimmering landscape is home to one of Africa’s most unique residents, the African shoebill (Balaeniceps rex). Shoebills are listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN and are threatened by excessive burning by…
Most people are surprised and alarmed when they are told that the Okavango Delta is not a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This is about to change with nomination scheduled for February next year and declaration in 2014. The word, “Okavango”, like “Amazon” and “Congo”, evokes the powerful sense of place in the “wilderness” and imagines an untamed place characterized…
The National Geographic-funded Cape Parrot Project was launched in 2009 to support CONSERVATION ACTION for Africa’s most endangered parrot and one of South Africa’s most endangered birds. Ongoing research over the last 15-20 years has established that Cape parrots were previously dependent on yellowwood trees for nesting and roosting sites, as well as 99% of…
We received over 2,000 photographs for this week’s “Top 25″… Join our Wild Bird Revolution and introduce your friends to freedom and splendor of birds in the wild! Wild, free-living birds are ambassadors of the natural habitat they depend upon. Some eat only meat, while other eat only nectar. Some migrate from Cape Town to Siberia…
After a few hours of poling on the morning of Day 7 of the 2012 Okavango Wetland Bird Survey we were just about to leave the “People’s Delta” that had become home and turn E to Madinari (“Mother of the Buffalo”) Island on our way across impenetrable reed beds, thick papyrus, and a maze of small…
