Indigenous Nursery News Blog

Over 156 species of South African birds live here or visit Random Harvest Indigenous Plant Nursery, but sometimes they’re so difficult to spot!

We love these 5 helpful bird watching tips from an expert birder:

Five favourite bird watching tips
André Marx regularly leads Birdwatching mornings at Random Harvest Indigenous Plant Nursery (check our events page for dates). We asked him to list some helpful bird watching tips when on one of these events. These are our favourite five:

1. Start early – Birds are most active at dawn until about 10 in the morning.  You can do a lot of bird identification early (At Random Harvest Indigenous Nursery, we open our gates at 07h00 or earlier by special arrangement) and then settle down to a hearty breakfast. If you are staying in the cottages accommodation on the premises you can start as early as the birds start singing!

2. Give yourself enough time. There are so many birds that are missed when one doesn’t spend time just quietly waiting and watching.

3. Be well prepared - bring a hat, sunscreen and comfortable walking shoes

4. Binoculars are essential – We have lots of tall trees and open spaces, so birds are often not close enough to observe without binoculars.

5. Use our bird-list – it is always encouraging to see how many bird species you have spotted, and the list of birds helps narrow your search if you are trying to identify one you have not seen before.
 

With over 156 South African bird species, Random Harvest Indigenous Plant Nursery is undoubtedly one of the top birding spots in Johannesburg. We attribute this diversity to creating eight different habitat types for birds.

You can read more about these habitat types on our website. Additionally, you can attract more birds to your garden with the South African indigenous plants that we recommend.

For a concise list of Birds positively identified on the farm, please ask at reception when you are next at Random Harvest, or click on the pdf file below. At date of publishing this article (January 2017), this list was up to date.

Bird List Random Harvest Farm - Rev 8.pdf


Bibliography
www.biodiversityexplorer.org.
Sappi Birds of South Africa
Roberts Birds of South Africa