Here are some newly documented bird tracks to share with you all in our Tracker Mentoring community.
The Burchell’s sandgrouse is a desert dwelling bird, whose tracks we recently encountered in the Okavango Delta of Botswana. These dry country birds are beautifully camouflaged, and you could walk by them unnoticed, unless they fly up! Their explosive take-off and noisy wing-beats have caused us to jump on many an occasion!
Burchell’s sandgrouse tracks are 3 cm long, and they walk in a short-strided, shuffling gait, with their toes pointed inwards.
This one is so “hot” that it didn’t even make it into the newly published Birds of Southern Africa and their Tracks & Signs, by Lee Gutteridge (Feb., 2020). Below is Lee’s drawing of this newly documented track.
Featured items from the Tracker Mentoring shop:
We have been developing a new series of life-sized tracking posters, using the new drawings of bird tracks, in conjunction with the original Louis Liebenberg sketches from his amazing book. Tracker, Nicholas Knott-Craig, has been working hard in the design department, developing these amazing products.
We currently have available a hoofed-animals poster, and a padded-foot animals poster, both are A0 sized and laminated on a sand coloured background.
In addition, Nic is working on a series of life-sized, bird tracks posters, with the name of each bird and the actual centimetre measurement for each track under the sketch. These will be available soon.
Any proceeds that we charge, above the costs for production and shipping, for any of these posters will go towards sponsorship of trackers on our courses, tracker training, and to Louis Liebenberg’s Elder Master Tracker Fund. In this fund, Louis identifies talented indigenous trackers in San communities and mentors them to become the next generation of Master Trackers and CyberTracker Evaluators.
Learn more about this on the Sponsorship page of the Tracker Mentoring website.
Other articles you may find interesting
- Introducing Tracker Mentoring! (And, introducing the tracks of the Crested Barbet!)
- Green Pigeon Scat, South Africa
Useful Products
- SA Bird Tracks Poster
- Birds of Southern Africa and Their Tracks and Signs
- SA “Hoofed” Animal Tracks Poster
Useful Courses
