A number of birds take advantage of the brief Arctic summer to breed within the region stretching from Greenland through Iceland, Spitsbergen and Lapland, and across Arctic Russia. Most are marsh and water birds; few strictly land birds breed in the Arctic because of the lack of food.
The Red-throated Pipit (Anthus cervinus) is among these. It breeds in the Arctic tundra from northern Scandinavia across Siberia to western Alaska.
During the northern hemisphere winter it migrates to southern and south eastern Asia, eastern Mediterranean coast and to parts of western, north-central and eastern Africa.
Normally not to be found in southern Africa and never before been photographed in the region, the sighting of this extremely rare visitor at the Avis Dam in Windhoek, Namibia, on 7 January caused great excitement that birdwatchers travelled from across Namibia's borders to get a sighting of this vagrant.
No comments:
Post a Comment