This image always reminds me of when I fell in love with the African Snipe. It was late afternoon and we were bird watching at Marievale. The light was right and I was intensely focused on what I was photographing, but a persistent inimitable noise from the sky was distracting me. I was being introduced to a whole new sound vocabulary. The Snipe males where drumming their tail feathers during their display flights to attract a mate.
This is one of the adult Black-collared Barbets that nested within five meters of my Auckland Park office for several years. While working I was able to see them brining food to the young, I got to see the brave young ones sticking out their heads for the first time, tapping on the edge of the nesting hole and demanding food from the ever working parental pair. I also, over the years, got to know that an extended family system would be created, where the adolescents from a prior year would help the parental pair raise the next bunch before going off to find territories of their own.
Hannelie de Klerk 