Dawie de Swardt (HOD, Ornithology Department) and Zingisile Mbo (WBE Intern) again held a very successful bird ringing demonstration at Oliewenhuis Art Museum on 16 May 2026. This even done now annually by the Ornithology Department at the National Museum, in collaboration with the Oliewenhuis Art Museum and BirdLife Free State, celebrating our birdlife and BirdLife South Africa’s annual “Bird of the Year”. This year, it is the Black Harrier, listed as Endangered by BirdLife South Africa’s Regional Red Data Book 2025, which is confined to the grassland areas of South Africa and is regularly observed in the Free State.
We have a record attendance of 41 adults and a couple of young children who joined our annual bird ringing demonstration at Oliewenhuis us for the morning. The educational value of birds and bird ringing to the public and especially children is important, and the enthusiasm of the kids of eagerly wanting to release the ringed birds has been experienced again. We managed to show them a total of 11 birds and two recaptured birds, which include a few Orange-river White-eyes, Karoo Thrush, Chestnut-vented Warbler, Red-eyed Bulbul, and a Southern Masked Weaver. The recaptured birds were a Cape Robin-Chat, recaptured after a year, and a Black-chested Prinia after nearly 6 years. All of them originally ringed at Oliewenhuis.
The event was enjoyed by the visitors and seemed this yearly event was a huge success! Diarize Heritage Day, 24 September 2026, when the Ornithology Department will do again a bird ringing demonstration with additional bird display and study skin specimens displaying our bird heritage. All photos by Monde Sithole (Design Dept)
Figure 1: The crowd at the ringing station looking on while Dawie de Swardt and Zingisile Mbo is processing the captured birds and demonstrating the ringing process to them.
Figure 2: A Chestnut-vented Warbler in the hand, one of the most common and frequent captured birds over the years at Oliewenhuis.
Figure 3: One of the Orange-river White-eyes in the hand. We managed to capture 6 birds at the net in the koppie.
Figure 4: Zingisile Mbo at the one net site in the koppie between the bushes.
Figure 5: Zingisle Mbo busy taking out a Karoo Thrush in the spring trap (baited with a meal worm) with two keen assistants watching him closely.
Figure 6; Photo session time – after the captured birds being ringed, it is time to take pictures of the ringed bird (or the crowd!)
