Martials and Ostriches

To all my readers I must apologise for the long delay between posts but i have been busy engrossed in admin and so have not spent much time in the field but when we did finally get out we had a great sighting of a family of ostriches

 These little guys are usually seen around Nyamandhlovu pan at about the same time as a Martial eagle pair nest there and their numbers dwindle daily until usually only a couple survive and that is how it has been over the years.

This last season the Martials failed to nest and a record number of Ostrich chicks were seen. I think it was 16 or so to this one pair of adults.

Yesterday we went out looking for lions and bumped into the adults with 7 sub-adults all dusting in the road. They are all large and healthy and are no doubt set to disperse to keep Hwange's ostrich population alive.

Predator - Prey interactions are so important to a population.

 

The Hwange Birder