Sad Swellendam discovery

In Swellendam this week with my new colleague Eugene.    Teaching him all about bird walks, vantage points and bat transects.  After being in a high intensity sales job for a while, this kind of thing is very calm and laid back and may take a bit of getting used to for him.  So, welcome to new colleague, Eugene Fuhri.

Yesterday, we did a 50km bird drive transect and were very sad to come across this horrible sight!  Sorry, not for sensitive viewers.

It was a beautiful bird, dangling by one leg and some binding rope from a barbed wire fence.  Any guesses as to what species it is?

Its foot had some of the binding rope around it and the rest was firmly attached to the wire.  Have a look at that impressive foot and those nails!

Of course, it is a Karoo Korhaan and its eyes were still fresh so it could not have died too long ago, within the last few hours probably.

This is the pic you may not want to look at

However, this is the poor creatures leg.  The flesh was cut by the wire as it obviously struggled to get free and it must have been doing this for hours.  The flesh was cut right through.  I cannot even begin to imagine the pain this bird must have been in.  We found it on a very busy road between Swellendam and Bredasdorp and I am sure that hundreds of cars must have passed by while it was flapping and screeching trying to get free.  I cannot believe that no body bothered to stop and try and help this poor thing and it was left to die an extremely painful death.  Shame on all of them!  Earlier last week, David and I saved a Blue Crane on the Gouda site from certain death by helping it get its leg untangled from another barbed-wire fence.  If we could do it, why can't others?  It seems there is no compassion left in the world.

We eventually cut the bird down from the wire and left it on the side of the road for the crows or Jackal Buzzards to eat.  It may as well serve as food for one of the many other birds that frequent this road.  There are many juvenile Jackal Buzzards around that need food.  Such a sad discovery.  Today, we found a single Karoo Korhaan walking around a field at one of our vantage points.  As these birds are usually in pairs, I think it is a good guess that it is the mate of this bird.  The field is along the same road we found this one.

On a much happier note, we found many Blue Cranes on our drive transect.  This is one of the families.  The bird in the middle is a juvenile.  We have noticed that all the juveniles are as big as their parents already except for their tails which are much much shorter.  Really love our national bird!

Next stop is Springfontein which is close to Bloemfontein on the N1 so look out for the next instalment.  Having a few days off at home in between first.