The Usuals - Doves, Chickens & Starlings

Yup, you see them almost every day, but they still deserve note.

Emerald Spotted Wood Dove -- not the beautiful Jewel toned feathers on the rump, it has a flash of orange when it flies up. Like most doves, it eats grain.

Namaqua Dove - a tiny delicate dove with a soft weak coo. We witnessed several different plumages - beautiful!

Mourning Collared Dove - Not much to say about this one -- fairly ubiquitous...

Laughing Dove - a pretty but extremely common dove -- I think they were following us around. At one point I refused to start a list for 2 Laughing Doves and they proceeded to swarm (yes, two birds can swarm) the OSV -- we think they were trying to get us to start a list...

Special Chickens

Crested Francolin - noted for a white eyebrow and a cocked tail. If you hear "peter" & "Cheater" there is probably a Crested Francolin(or three) in the vicinity.

Helmeted Guineafowl - I am familiar with this bird because we have domesticated ones in Rhode Island. Love the blue neck material -- it makes them look like a cartoon. I'm assuming they taste like chicken.

Natal Spurfowl - My vote for most beautiful "chicken". We also saw them mating to see that go to the blog post labeled "Blue Edition"

Cape Starling -- Although we were not on the Cape we saw a lot of this species as you can see from the photos. They are fairly common in Kruger too.

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