Red-Headed Finches at Sunset

These images of the male (above) and female (below) Red-headed Finches were downloaded from the Internet

The Red-headed Finch is a common resident to most of South africa, its range extending into the Namibian interior. It does not occur in the South-western and East coast region of Southern Africa. Favouring arid and semi-arid grasslands, this little bird is endemic to the Free State. Over our town in the Eastern part of the province, these birds, which occur in huge flocks in non-breeding season, are visible overhead every morning and evening. As the sun warms the flatlands, they rise as one man [bird!] from reeds at the town dam and flock to the farmlands beyond the town. Every evening as the sun begins to set, these valient little birds, leave their daytime smorgasbord of wheat and grass seeds, and flock back to the other edge of town to roost.

As can be expected they exasperate the farmers who lose thousands of tons of wheat a year to these voracious little birds. Who is to blame? The raptors, like the Lanner falcons, whose diet is almost entirely made up of smaller birds (such as pigeons, doves and the little passerines ie, finches) have been inadvertantly poisoned by the same farmers who intend to descimate the numbers of the finches, pigeons and doves who wreak such havoc on their crops.

Last night as I waited for my spinning class to begin, I climbed onto my little Nissan (pick-up) roof and snapped away at the amazing phenomenom of these hundreds,no thousands of birds flying over town to the dam to roost for the night. I used my long lens and clicked continuously for 15 minutes. When my instructor arrived and I packed my camera away, I looked up and the stream was still coming in. The previous evening I watched them with my binoculous and timed them. This stream of birds continued for more than 25 minutes before I had to go into my class and still had not let up.

The stream of birds flocking in goes on...

and on...

and on...

and on...

This sequence of photos took me sixteen minutes and the stream of birds was still coming over when I packed up my camera and went into my spinning class

For more beautiful sky images, click here