African Ringing Expeditions

The Biodiversity & Development Institute (BDI) is a non-profit research entity in South Africa. We are offering unique and immersive bird ringing expeditions in South Africa, designed to provide opportunities for ringing African birds. The bird ringing taking place during these expeditions contributes to long-term research projects.

We have designed these expeditions to run for ten days in either of two unique habitats. Our primary expedition runs year-round and occurs in the Fynbos Biome in the Cape Floral Kingdom, an area rich in biodiversity with 70% endemism. Our secondary expedition runs during the Austral summer and occurs in the Savanna Biome, a quintessential African habitat with its associated suite of bird species.

Our expedition leaders are vastly experienced ringers who have PhDs based on ornithological topics. For both expeditions, we have carefully selected sites to maximise the number of species that can be netted and ringed. We have also gone out of our way to provide safe and comfortable accommodations, hearty South African food, and a superb overall experience.

We facilitate all the logistics of such a trip from when you land at the airport until your departure. We take care of transportation, accommodation, food, and all of the bird ringing equipment. All bird ringing occurs under our permits and under the auspices of the South African Ringing Scheme (SAFRING).

Our bird ringing expeditions provide wonderful opportunities to ring African birds, to interact with local ornithologists and conservationists, to contribute to important long-term citizen-science projects, and to experience delightful accommodations in spectacular landscapes.

In this series of linked pages we will highlight some of the details of our expeditions, including more information about who we are, what we do and why we are passionate about these bird ringing expeditions, what happens during an expedition, where the expeditions occur, and when they occur. More details can be obtained by contacting us directly.

We hope that you will join us on one of our future expeditions, and that you’ll use the expedition as a springboard for exploring other parts of South Africa.

Find out more about the expeditions:

General:

Fynbos expedition:

Bushveld expedition:

Greedy southern pale chanting goshawk
April 20, 2019
Franke-Bryson U. 2019. Greedy southern pale chanting goshawk Melierax canorus. Biodiversity Observations 10.8:1-7 Biodiversity Observations is an open access electronic journal published by the Animal Demography Unit at the University of Cape Town. This HTML version of this manuscript is hosted by the Biodiversity and Development Institute. […]
White-throated Swallows in Cape Town
April 17, 2019
White-throated Swallows are common in Cape Town in the summer months, building their nests under the multiple bridges that cross canals and rivers. They migrate north in Africa for the wet winter. Ringing of these swallows (both adults and nestlings) has been opportunistic most of the time, while ringing weavers in wetlands around Cape Town. […]
Longevities of kingfishers
April 5, 2019
Kingfishers are colourful and interesting, and it is a great pleasure to hold one in the hand (Figure 1). Catching them also provides valuable data, and here longevity data will be highlighted (data that can only reliably be obtained from ringing efforts). There are 10 species in southern Africa, and the greatest longevity record is nearly 9 […]
Establishing a long-term bird ringing site. Part 2: some birds
March 5, 2019
Part 1 of this series described the bird ringing site at Fynbos Estate. This property, partly wine farm and partly nature reserve, is in the northwestern corner of the Paardeberg. The closest town is Malmesbury, in the Swartland region of the Western Cape, north of Cape Town. The bird atlas grid cell into which Fynbos Estate falls is called pentad […]
Establishing a long-term bird ringing site. Part 1: the place
March 4, 2019
Bird ringers in Europe and bird banders in North America will both be familiar with the concept of a “bird observatory”. The concept even has an article in Wikipedia; no bird observatories in Africa are listed. That is the gap that the Biodiversity and Development Institute aims to fill. But for the time being, we are just going to […]

Find more of our ringing posts here.