Birding in Gauteng - Austin Roberts Bird Sanctuary

[steamtrainfan]

Joan and I popped into the Blue Crane Restaurant and Tea Garden for morning tea. This Tea Garden is situated in the Austin Roberts Memorial Bird Sanctuary. We took the camera with and below are some of the pics we got.

Common Moor Hen


Egyptian Goose.


A pair of E.G. coming in to land.


Another Common Moorhen.


Red-knobbed Coot


Some pics of a Grey Crowned Crane.








Some pics of a Blue Crane.






White faced ducks.


Could this be the Cape Teal.


The Cape Teal diving.


A most enjoyable place to spend an hour or so.

[Toko]

Excellent photos of the cranes - wow

Where is this sanctuary?

[steamtrainfan]

Thanks very much Toko.

It is in New Muckleneuk in Pretoria - in the middle of the suburbs - near Brooklyn.

[Toko]

Is it named after the bird guide Roberts?

I think, the duck is a yellow-billed one

[nan]

nice

I would say Cape Teal... like you IDing
dark legs... red bill

[steamtrainfan]

Hi Toko. Here is the extract from Wikipedia;

Austin Roberts (3 January 1883 – 5 May 1948) was a South African zoologist. He is best known for his Birds of South Africa, first published in 1940. He also studied the mammalian fauna of the region: his work The mammals of South Africa was published posthumously in 1951. The 7th edition of Roberts' Birds of Southern Africa which appeared in 2005, is the standard work on the region's birds.

I think the beak is too red to be a yellow billed duck. I will stick with Cape Teal.

Thank you nan.

[Mel]

What a nice treat, STF! Great birdies (but I'll don't even attempt gettingn involved
in the ID'ing process - not an acquaintant of mine -O )

[Lisbeth]

Lovely cranes

[Flutterby]

Lovely birds.

[Richprins]

Great, stf!

I was a great birder as a youngster, living in Brooklyn, and even bicycled down to the spot often, especially once the hide was built yonks ago!

At an even younger age we used to go down there on Sunday afternoons as a family to feed the birds and fish....massive carp and barbel...BC would have a stroke! -O


But you had to throw the bread over the fence next to the dam on the Northern side! (1980's)