Southern African Birds ID Request (1 Viewer)

Ok excuses first....
Was travelling southern africa for a month and saw loads of species. Unfortunately my Newmans field guide was a present from some friends which was nice of them but wasnt the best when it came to certain confusion species and it was alos out of date - 1993! Should have just bought a new one to be honest. Illustrations were a little found wanting in some depts. Particularly larks and reed warblers which are not easy at the best of times.
Im in the middle of sticking all my photos on my website (none there at the moment) and obviously want to be technically accurate. Thanks in advance to all who make suggestions as to what you think they are. Appreciated.
All these photos were taken in April 07. Any queries just ask!

Photo 1) This lark was taken on the dunes of Sossusvlei, namibia.

Photo 2) This lark was taken by the Orange river, namibia. Is it the same species as no.1)?? (Sabota Lark?)

Photo 3) This warbler was seen in the reeds by the side of Orange River, Namibia. African Marsh Warbler?

Photo 4) THis weaver species was seen on the camp site by the Orange River, Namibia. s it non breeding/female masked weaver?

Photo 5) This little bird was roughly about the size of a UK wren (maybe slightly bigger?). It was seen at Cedarberg, South Africa. Habitat: woodland by a river.

Thanks again. On my website there will be 65 different species of birds and all sorts of mammal pictures in about 2 months if ever your passing and would be interested...

Ok, don't by any means take my word as gospel, cos I aint got me books with me, but I'll have a stab at a couple for fun, and then you'll get some proper answers when one of the South Africa guys comes across this!

1) possibly one of the Finch-Larks?

2) - 4) I'm not going to attempt beyond Lark, Cisticola & Weaver!

5) Neddicky?

Good luck with getting some proper answers and I look forward to seeing the rest of your photos in due course.

James

Grey-backed Sparrow Lark?

http://www.birdquest.net/afbid/birdspecies.php?func=view&slideno=1&af_bs_id=1169

James

that was quick!
JWN are you suggesting Grey backed sparrow lark for photo 1, photo 2 or both?
Cheers MC

Sorry Mark, just photo 1, seems a close match to the shot of a female on the African Bird club Image database (bill, face pattern, broad pale fringes to wing coverts, black belly etc). Photo 2 (and indeed the others) could be gettable by trawling the same database, but without a starting hunch (as I had with the Sparrow Lark, even if I did misremember it as Finch Lark) it'd take a while, so I thought I'd leave it to you!

James

any takers? dont tell me your stumped!

1. grey backed finch lark

2. sabota lark?

3. african marsh warbler?

4. masked weaver?

not much help i know, the only one i'm certain on is 1.

Hi there,

1. female Grey-backed Sparrow-lark (or Finch-lark if you prefer...)

2. Stark's Lark

3. Zitting Cisticola

4. Southern Masked Weaver

5. Neddicky

I have a number of images of Southern African birds on my website at www.hardaker.co.za if you want to use any of those to compare to your photos for identification purposes.

Cheers
Trevor

Thanks Trevor for that! Appreciated!
Anyone else concur/disagree?

Mark,
Yes, I concur. By the way, if Trevor ID's something from southern Africa you can pretty much bank it!

Thanks again to all who helped out with the IDs.

new identification?

Yesterday I returned from my first trip to Southern Africa, and that'll not be the last trip. Now I am browsing through all of the photos and unfortunatley had to discover that my 80-200 lens is suffering from a prisma (causing something like a cross-eyed camera), so most of the photo's taken with this lens aren't of the best quality.

I added two photos to this posting of what seems a raptor (falcon?) but I hope that anyone can help me identify this one. The shot was taken along the R60 in the Klein Karoo near Montagu in South Africa on the 29th of october.

grtz

sigmund

ps. this is my first post here since I just got interested in birds since my trip to South Africa and am therefor not a pro in any way.

Looks fine for a Booted Eagle (Hieraaetus pennatus) imo

Thanks.... (I disgarded the eagles for the wingtips shown on the photo... but shouldn't have)