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Seen in the Kgalagadi, just south of Kannaguas.
Photo was taken by my SO.

Larger view

Hay Caracal,

Guess what.

I am doing some serious cleaning out of documents & papers, and guess what? I came across our animal & bird list for our first Kgalagadi trip in 2000, and on the first afternoon, we recorded a Ludwig's Bustard. I remember now, it was the only one and all the other bustards were Koris.

This lone bird was seen in mid-December 2010 on the 'savannah' of the Nzipondo loop (plz excuse the quality - the bird was very far away), striding across the veld. It was the only bustard that we saw in two days. I see from the SABAP2 cards that Denham's is reported 20% of the time and Ludwig's only 0.3% (one ID). Nonetheless, I, with the help of Frans van Vuuren, have tentatively chosen female Ludwig's bustard as the ID.

One reason is that the lack of substantial white on the wing would normally suggest that it is Ludwig's, but I note a comment in Sasol3 that in both birds the amount is variable. Looking at http://www.arkive.org/, the white on Ludwig's seems to be an even speckling. My Addo bird has a least some suspect blotches. Another issue is that Ludwig's is not supposed to have any white on the crown, and (grotty photo quality acknowledged) this one has vestiges of a white crown in both images - making Ludwig's also less likely than Denham's.

To complicate matters even further, there is the distinct pearl-grey on the rear upper-neck that neither is supposed to have.

Yet the lack of convincing white on the wing, the relatively dark and featureless face other than for the eye "ring", and the relatively dark-seeming front of neck makes me still choose a female Ludwig's bustard over Denham's

Any additional discussion would be most welcome.

Hey PedroinSpain

Interesting ...the bird looks like Ludwig's as you say especially because of the seeming absence of large black and white areas on the folded wing but the confusing thing is what seems to be the white on the crown, again as you mention. I am really confused. Eagerly await the outcome of this one...

Thanx for posting

Most humble apologies for having posted in the wrong section of the forum. Don't quite know what happened.
Pedro

Hi Pedroinspain

Under the Bird ID thread - general on Page 86 I posted an equally bad photo. I thought Ludwig's due to distribution.



Ah those birds don't make it easy for us beginners!!

Thank you very much Cherries. I see a white wing blotch (wind parting?) that exceeds a mere speckle on your bird also. Yet that face seems more patterned than it should be. Nonetheless I suspect that we have to go for Ludwig's and conclude that it is more common in Addo than SABAP2 suggests.

This bird seems to be very difficult to get good shots of. We were unlucky that we found it JUST as the sun was up properly over the Nossob riverbed. Had to make do with what we got.