Yesterday marked the launch of a new e-journal, Ornithological Observations - http://oo.adu.org.za/. This journal is published online, by BirdLife South Africa and the Animal Demography Unit at UCT and is of a semi-scientific nature. It is edited by Arnold van der Westhuizen, PhD student and ardent ADU/BLSA project participant.

Its main aim is for scientists and citizen scientists alike to submit interesting observations of bird related matters (behaviour, nesting activities, foraging behaviour, annotated checklists etc.) in a reader-friendly format that is accessible to the public and the scientific community. One regularly encounters interesting bird behaviours, or nesting habits, or movement patterns  and it is these anecdotal observations which often do not get into the broader scientific and popular literature. But by getting these observations published in a short, user-friendly format they contribute valuable information to our bird knowledge base that can be used in future editions of Roberts's Birds of southern Africa. 

Submissions for OO are encouraged from southern Africa but articles and short papers can be submitted from anywhere around the world. Getting the article from submission to publication is hoped to be a quick process as papers will not be peer-reviewed but the editorial committee will ensure that a high-standard is maintained. Templates have been provided to make the writing process as streamlined as possible. And even if you do not want to write anything you can visit the site frequently for interesting reads on our birdlife.

For more information please visit the OO website. There are already two articles that can be viewed and downloaded as pdf files. These will give you a nice feel for the style and format that is used for OO submissions.

We look forward to receiving your contributions and making OO a successful media platform for birders and scientists!

One of the most recent recoveries reported to SAFRING was a White-backed Vulture. This bird was found by Themba Nkuna who wrote: “I found a dead White backed Vulture outside our White Lion Boma today (11/08/2008). I am at Hoedspruit at the White Lion Trust farm coordinates. It seems the bird might have died from colliding with our diamond mesh fence two to three days ago after being scared by lions when stealing the meat. The bird had two Yellow tags code: A028 and 027216502621 at the back of the tag. The code on the ring which was on the right foot is G 26512.  Unfortunately I didn't have a tape measure to measure the bill, feet and wing span, I believe you have that.” This vulture was ringed by Andre Botha of the EWT Birds of Prey Working Group at Moholoholo Rehabilitation Centre on 29 January 2007. The vulture moved at least 28 km and this movement may be viewed here.

Not only is this vulture one of the most recent recoveries, the first birds ringed in southern Africa were vultures. 31 Cape Vultures were ringed exactly 62 years previously in August 1948. 

Vulture ring G26512 was recovered less than a month before the International Vulture Awareness day on 4 September 2010. This awareness day will focus the attention on the dire plight of many of the world's vultures and highlight the awareness and regional activities of organisations who participate in vulture conservation. Details are available on the BirdLife SA web.

The 13th Pan-African Ornithological Congress will take place in Jos, Nigeria, from 14–21 October 2012. Jos is right of the middle of Nigeria, in the central highlands of the country, on the Jos Plateau. The A.P. Leventis Ornithological Research Institute (APLORI) is located on the outskirts of Jos, adjacent to the Amurum Forest, one of Nigeria's Important Bird Areas. Two range-restricted species occur in the forest: Jos Plateau Indigo bird Vidua maryae and its host the Rock Firefinch Lagonosticta sanguinodorsalis. The area has an impressive species list, and more than 260 species have been recorded breeding within the Amurum Forest. So save the dates. Further details to follow.

Google Maps streetview has recorded weaver colonies close to roads that they photographed. One example is of a Cape Weaver colony at Rondevlei, Cape Town. Find the colony here and zoom in at the marker until the streetview appears. You can view the colony from different angles. About 13 nests are visible, but unfortunately no date is available for this record. This particular colony has been monitored since 2006 and several times photos were taken. These photos may be viewed at the ADU Virtual Museum - click on "Projects" in the menu on the left, click on the project header "Photos of Weaver Nests", then enter 70 in the "Search" box at the top to see the first record of this colony - enter any number from 70 to 75 to see all the current records of this colony, spanning from 2006 to recently.

To take part in PHOWN read here. 

The 25th International Ornithological Congress (IOC) is currently taking place in Brazil, in the town of Campos do Jordão in the state of São Paulo. One of the most conspicuous birds flying around this town is the Maroon-bellied Parakeet Pyrrhura leucotis, pictured alongside.

The six-day conference has 1200 delegates, with a total of 20 from South Africa, of whom two, PhD student Yahkat Barshep and myself are from the ADU. This is the first time the IOC has been hosted in South America. Africa had its first turn in 1998, when it was held in Durban. The IOC is the world's oldest scientific conference; the first was held in Vienna, Austria, in 1884. IOCs take place every four years; the previous one in 2006 was in Germany and the next one, in 2014, will be in Japan.

I did my presentation yesterday – it was in a symposium on climate change. A symposium consists of five linked presentations on a theme, and at any one time there are seven symposia to choose from! My talk was about the timing of Barn Swallow migration, using year-by-year results from SABAP1 (1987–1991) and SABAP2 (2008–2010). With eight years of results on the timing of departure, five from SABAP1 and three from SABAP2, there appears to be no change in when Barn Swallows leave South Africa. There are seven years of arrival results (five from SABAP1 and 2008 and 2009 from SABAP2) – tentatively it looks as if arrival is about two weeks later now. But we will need a few more years of data before we can come to a statistically valid decision.

My audience was greatly impressed by what SABAP2 is achieving on a year-by-year basis. In other words they were impressed at the achievements of Team SABAP2, and this is why the SABAP2 mini-projects, which measure the time of arrival of migrants in autumn and spring (LAMP, WHAMB, PHEAT and the current PHESTIVAL) are so important – nowhere else is anything on quite the same scale as SABAP2 being done, and nowhere else is able to present crisp results.