ID A South African bird from a description

[mummymonkey]

My daughter, Kate is on a gap year in Gauteng and sent me a description of the following birdie:

K. I saw the weirdest bird yesterday, you might know what it is, it was quite small and dark brown with a black head and the longest thinnest beak I've ever seen! Any idea?

MM. Was it in a tree? Running along the beach? Pecking at a wildebeast's corpse or what? Details Kate, details.

K. It was on the ground pecking at the grass

MM. Was it a wader then? A shorebird? Or was it more like a lark? Was its beak curved or straight and did it have long legs or a long tail?

K. It had short legs and a long straight beak, it was small too, no bigger than a blackbird

Any South African birders want to take a stab at that? Bit of a long shot I guess.

 

[sphenisc]

My daughter, Kate is on a gap year in Gauteng and sent me a description of the following birdie:



Any South African birders want to take a stab at that? Bit of a long shot I guess.

Haven't been to S.A. in my puff, but I'd suggest starting with an immature green wood hoopoe and honing the description from there.

This may help?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Gauteng_birds

Why does your daughter not have a mobile phone camera with 10X zoom? Don't you love her?

 

[mummymonkey]

Why does your daughter not have a mobile phone camera with 10X zoom? Don't you love her?

She wanted an iPad. She obviously values Candy Crush and facetiming her mates more than documenting the local wildlife. I have failed as a parent.

 

[mummymonkey]

Haven't been to S.A. in my puff, but I'd suggest starting with an immature green wood hoopoe and honing the description from there.

This may help?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Gauteng_birds

Thanks - will take a peek.

 

[Sockor]

This one?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Curlew

 

[mummymonkey]

This one?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Curlew

Well she said it was small with short legs and the beak was straight. So probably not. Thanks though.

 

[mummymonkey]

I wonder if it might have been a hoopoe? I lived for a while in the middle east and people, knowing I was a birder often came up to me and said - "I saw this weird bird the other day" I always stopped them before they got any further and said - "It was a hoopoe". It always was. I'll send her a link to a picture.

 

[Floyt]

The various hoopoes have the longest beaks around here and like to poke around in the soil. There's also many species of sunbird, but they would presumably provoke a hummingbird comparison (and they don't go in for ground foraging much).

 

[mummymonkey]

It was indeed a hoopoe.

 

[Senex]

If your daughter hangs around exotic birds she should learn this life saving techniique

 

[EHocking]

Well she said it was small with short legs and the beak was straight. So probably not. Thanks though.

I think your daughter has led us on a snipe hunt...

 

[Senex]

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The rarely sighted Trump canary.