The BDI’s ninth bird ringing course, and the fourth at New Holme, was held at the New Holme Nature Lodge, in the heart of the Karoo, between Hanover and Colesburg, about 700 km from both Johannesburg and 700 km from Cape Town. This was the team:
We have ringed at a variety of sites on the farm New Holme multiple times since our first ringing trip here in 2019. Three of the 87 birds ringed in November 2019 were retrapped during the 2024 course. The most interesting was the single Southern Fiscal ringed during the 2019 trip on 12 November. It was retrapped three times in 2022: on 29 March, on 9 April and during the ringing course 1 November. In 2023 it was retrapped on 2 September. It was retrapped again during this ringing course on 10 September. The original ringing and the five retraps have all been in the gardens surrounding New Holme Nature Lodge.
The table below shows the numbers of birds ringed or retrapped during the course. Those in red and underlined have structured species texts on the BDI website. Click on them. and you are transported to the species text! The total number of retraps was 70.
| Species number | … | New Holme and surrounds | Windpump | En route (Leeugamka and Three Sisters) | Total |
| 245 | Blacksmith Lapwing | 1 | 1 | ||
| 311 | Speckled Pigeon | 1 | 1 | ||
| 383 | White-rumped Swift | 1 | 1 | ||
| 391 | White-backed Mousebird | 6 | 6 | ||
| 474 | Spike-heeled Lark | 1 | 1 | ||
| 485 | Grey-backed Sparrow-lark | 8 | 8 | ||
| 488 | Red-capped Lark | 4 | 4 | ||
| 495 | White-throated Swallow | 3 | 3 | ||
| 502 | Greater Striped Swallow | 1 | 1 | ||
| 506 | Rock Martin | 3 | 3 | ||
| 544 | African Red-eyed Bulbul | 1 | 1 | ||
| 568 | Capped Wheatear | 1 | 1 | ||
| 570 | Familiar Chat | 1 | 1 | ||
| 576 | African Stonechat | 2 | 2 | ||
| 581 | Cape Robin-chat | 2 | 2 | ||
| 604 | Lesser Swamp Warbler | 3 | 3 | ||
| 606 | African Reed Warbler | 3 | 3 | ||
| 621 | Long-billed Crombec | 2 | 2 | ||
| 637 | Neddicky | 1 | 1 | ||
| 686 | Cape Wagtail | 6 | 6 | ||
| 707 | Southern Fiscal | 7 | 1 | 8 | |
| 722 | Bokmakierie | 1 | 1 | ||
| 735 | Wattled Starling | 2 | 2 | ||
| 746 | Pied Starling | 27 | 3 | 3 | 33 |
| 784 | House Sparrow | 3 | 3 | ||
| 786 | Cape Sparrow | 74 | 74 | ||
| 803 | Southern Masked Weaver | 58 | 1 | 1 | 60 |
| 805 | Red-billed Quelea | 38 | 38 | ||
| 808 | Southern Red Bishop | 16 | 14 | 30 | |
| 865 | White-throated Canary | 4 | 4 | ||
| 1104 | Karoo Thrush | 3 | 3 | ||
| 1172 | Cape White-eye | 2 | 2 | ||
| 1183 | Eastern Clapper Lark | 3 | 3 | ||
| 4139 | Karoo Prinia | 1 | 1 | ||
| 4142 | Southern Grey-headed Sparrow | 3 | 3 | ||
| TOTALS | 277 | 34 | 5 | 316 |
We had some bitterly cold mornings at the Waterpump and the nearby waterhole!
… but once it warms up a bit and the waterhole defrosts, many birds come to drink here, and it is good spot for larks …
… at one point, we had four species in the hand at the same time: Grey-backed Sparrow-lark, Eastern Clapper Lark, Red-capped Lark and Spike-heeled Lark.
The big privilege of being a ringer is to see birds close up. The patterned eye and wrinkled red skin of this Speckled Pigeon add a new level to our appreciation of birds. Likewise for the wing below:
One night we put nets up on the mudflats along the large dam at New Holme. The reward for a huge amount of effort was one Blacksmith Lapwing …
… but that is the way ringing works, sometimes. But it was the only Blacksmith Lapwing of the course.
Cape Bird Club sponsorship
Joel Simons, of the Ingcungcu Sunbird Restoration Project on the Cape Flats of Cape Town, was sponsored by the Cape Bird Club to attend the ringing course. Joel wrote about his experiences in an article in the March 2025 edition of Promerops, the Cape Bird Club’s newsletter. This comprehensive account is reproduced here in full, and supplements the brief report above!
… and here is a paragraph about Joel, from the Ingcungcu Sunbird Restoration Project website:
