Yesterday I shared the Great Bird Pics I featured on my family’s calendar for 2026 so today I’m sharing the remaining pictures. Hope you enjoy.
We took a family vacation to Custer State Park in South Dakota in June. We stopped in the Ft. Pierre National Grasslands in South Dakota on the drive out and saw lots of Upland Sandpipers perched on the fenceposts and some like this one flying down to the road.
The rest of the pictures were taken during our bird tour to South Africa in October. Eventually I’ll get back to writing up our travelogue and include more of the beautiful birds we saw there but in the meantime these were good enough to make the cut for the calendar.
One of the wildest birds we saw was the Knysna Turaco. It was only seen in the West Cape area of the country but was one of the most memorable. What I couldn’t capture was the bright red on the secondaries of the wings while in flight.
Look carefully and you’ll see a Red-billed Oxpecker feeding on bugs and parasites on the neck of this giraffe. Sometimes we would see 5-10 Oxpeckers on one giraffe. A closeup of an Oxpecker is below.
Whereas the Western Hemisphere has hummingbirds, sunbirds take that ecological niche in the rest of the world. Here is a male Malachite Sunbird in the rain.
The Common Waxbill is anything but common. Such a distinctive red mask contrasting with a bright orange bill made this one of my favorite little birds.
We were wandering through the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens on the outskirts of Cape Town when we came upon this male African Paradise-Flycatcher. It was quite active and flew above our heads for several minutes. Impossible to get a BIF shot but grateful for this perched image.
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