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Thread: Help - bird identification
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03-01-2021, 17:19 #1
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Help - bird identification
Hello everyone.
Can someone please help me identify this bird.
Location is jackel creek Golf estate Johannesburg.
Excuse the poor quality picks max zoom on my phone.
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03-01-2021, 17:22 #2
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Re: Help - bird identification
It's a Kakelaar in Afrikaans... green wood hoopoe in English
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03-01-2021, 17:28 #3
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Re: Help - bird identification
Your bird is called a Kakelaar or Katlagter in Afrikaans. I dont know the English name sorry.
They often move around in groups of up to 6 or 7 and do a mexican wave type of thing while making "cackling" (ka, ka, ka, ka, etc. etc.) noises building up to a real loud thing. They use their long beaks to dig insicts out from under tree bark and they are masters at stealing small birds out of nests. They usually fly from one tree to the next and are difficult to spot (until they start putting up their mexican wave show) other smaller birds usually put up a racket when Kakelaars are in the area raiding nests.
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03-01-2021, 18:15 #4
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Re: Help - bird identification
Awesome stuff thanks for the response everyone, yeah the masked weavers were going at when the bunch arrived about 4 of them ... now I can impress the wife with my extensive knowledge lol.
Thanks again
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03-01-2021, 19:50 #5
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Re: Help - bird identification
It looks like a redbilled woodhoopoe (gewone kakelaar). They are noisy and smelly, but very interesting birds.
PS. I just googled it and GeneraalGert is correct, its name has been changed to green woodhoopoe, my bird books still show it as redbilled woodhoopoe.
Your bird is called a Kakelaar or Katlagter in Afrikaans.
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03-01-2021, 21:22 #6
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Re: Help - bird identification
I always thought it was two names for the same thing... I googled Katlagter just now. They are vicious little fuckers. There is a nice video on youtube "Katlagter het die laaste lag" showing a family of them dragging a snake out from under a tent and beating the shit out of the poor snake...
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03-01-2021, 21:31 #7
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Re: Help - bird identification
Red Billed Hoopoe
Yours is the original one with black and white in tail (latin wrong spelling = purporeous purporeous ), there is a later identified sub species thats more green than black (latin wrong spelling =purporeous damarinsis)
If every anything sounded like a cauldron of witch's laughing it would be these birds, demented , mindless laughing.
I would call these birds in collective form, a Cackle of Red Billed Hoopoe.
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03-01-2021, 23:55 #8
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Re: Help - bird identification
No, it's not a Katlagter. I should know, Katlagter being my "handle" here :). The Katlagter in English is a Babbler, the most well-known one being the Arrow-Marked Babbler. My Boer ancestors called the Maxim machine gun a Katlagter, after its sound (known as an onomatopoeia). The first time I heard a Katlagter while hunting in the bushveld, I heard a bird call and immediately knew it must be a Katlagter, as it sounded exactly like a machine gun.
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04-01-2021, 00:26 #9
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04-01-2021, 00:37 #10
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