21 January 2024: Day 3, Marievale Bird Sanctuary — Road Scholar Southern Africa Birding Safari. Click here to see (generally) where I am today.

Today we’re birding at Marievale Bird Sanctuary southeast of Johannesburg. In the third week of January it’s mid-summer in South Africa, similar to July in the U.S.

Many of the birds at Marievale are similar to those in Florida. For instance, the African spoonbill pictured above resembles our roseate spoonbill. (I prefer the roseate spoonbill because it is beautiful pink.)

There are also several species that are native in both places: fulvous whistling duck, common moorhen, cattle egret, great egret, glossy ibis, barn swallow and peregrine falcon. At Marievale not every bird is a Life Bird for me.

See Marievale’s birds in the 8-minute video below and you, too, may conclude that South African marsh birds are the same as Florida’s and yet they are different. After the video I’ve provided a table with the names of similar North American species.

List of Birds in the Marievale video above and their familiars in North America.

vid#	Species at Marievale	Similar to Eastern N.American bird...
1	Red-billed Teal	resembles Ruddy duck, but related to mallard
2	Cape Shoveler	Northern Shoveler
3	Malachite Kingfisher	Belted Kingfisher
4	Pied Kingfisher	Belted Kingfisher
5	Red-knobbed Coot	American Coot
6	Reed Cormorant	Double-crested cormorant
7	Spur-winged geese in flight	Canada geese in flight
8	Yellow-billed duck	Mallard
9	Sacred Ibis	resembles Wood Stork, not related
10	African Swamphen	Gray-headed Swamphen, introduced in FL
11	African snipe	Wilson's snipe
12	Common /Eurasian Moorhen	Common gallinule
13	Grey-headed (or Gray-hooded) gull	Bonaparte's gull
14	Three-banded plover	Killdeer or Semi-palmated plover
15	Blacksmith Lapwing	Northern lapwing
16	Black-winged Stilt	Black-necked stilt
17	Red-eyed Dove	Rock pigeon
18	Blue-billed teal	Blue-winged teal
19	Speckled dove	Rock pigeon
20	White-breasted cormorant	Subspecies of Great cormorant
21	Great crested grebe	Horned grebe
22	Purple heron	Great blue heron
23	Squacco heron	resembles Green heron
24	African spoonbill	Roseate spoonbill
25	Black-headed heron	Great blue heron
26	Glossy Ibis	the same bird is in Florida!
27	Goliath heron	Great blue heron
28	Grey heron	Great blue heron
29	Ruff	Eurasian; sometimes visits US (NY, OH)
30	Egyptian Goose	introduced to US & Europe
31	Cape Wagtail	Eurasian; white wagtail is in AK
32	African Rail	Virginia rail
33	Little Egret	Snowy egret
34	Black Heron	Snowy egret wearing black
35	Burchell's (White-browed) coucal	nothing like it in the U.S.
36	Long-tailed Widowbird	nothing like it in the U.S.
37	African Stonechat	nothing like it in the U.S.

(credits are in the captions)