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.
At a distance birds may be hard to distinguish, but this close up view of a African Spoonbill clearly shows the reason for its name. The pale ring around its eye, furthermore, is the perfect reflector for the watery surrounds within which it can be found. They are found throughout most parts of Southern Africa, as long as there is shallow water for them to wade through while swinging their “spoons” from side to side delicately picking up edibles.
Hannelie de Klerk 