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Maybe a juvenile Burchell's as I see they are said to have buffy underparts?

If you want serious attention, you'll have to give serious detail of the sighting, arks...

Otherwise this is a Burchell's coucal with dirty underparts...

Not sure what you mean by "serious detail", but I did fail to mention that it was seen on the S92 south of Olifants and on 25 April 2012. Since that's 4 months ago, I don't remember any further 'details'

@Elsa: thanks for that 'clue'!

That's the detail I was referring to

Elsa has it spot-on

Thanks JvR and Elsa

This one really has me stumped To me it looks most like a fawncoloured lark — BUT I saw it at Strandfontein in Cape Town (on 6 May 2012), which is well out of range for that

African pipit

Thanks, JvR, I should have thought of that

Arks, the bill shape of pipits and larks are very different. Your bird shows a pointy narrow bill immediately ruling out the lark family.

Larks have a far more robust bill.

Here are some photos of a Fawn-coloured Lark for comparison.

http://www.laine-dirk.co.za/photos/497/497.html

Thanks for that tip, WTM. I should have realised that by now, but methinks I'm a slow learner ... and I sometimes have a hard time seeing the obvious!

I know that these birds are likely too too far away to ID, but I'm still wondering if they might just be black storks? Seen in the Langebaan lagoon at WCNP on 24 May 2012.

They look like whimbrel to me...

I'd thought that they were larger, as they are very far away, here's the uncropped image taken at 300mm zoom.



I could (easily! ) be misremembering, but I thought that these were almost as large as the greater flamingos that I often see in the lagoon. Then again, I see the curved bill .....

Could someone either confirm that this is a Brimstone Canary (very thick bill) or put me right? Thanks. Seen in August this year at Lincoln Meade Pietermaritzburg KZN