News & Field Notes

Notes from the study as the season goes on: nest news, behaviour we did not expect, and what the sightings are adding up to.

Latest updates

30 August 2026

The project is up, and we are looking for sightings and nests

This is the start of a study, an initiative from the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology at UCT, into how the African Harrier-Hawk lives and breeds in Cape Town.

The first job is collecting sightings and finding active nests. Each one we locate becomes somewhere to watch across a season, which is how we get at the questions that matter: breeding success, hunting, feeding and other behaviour.

If you have seen an African Harrier-Hawk anywhere around Cape Town we would like to hear about it. Sightings without a nest still count. Repeated records in one area are usually what leads us to the nest in the end.

Adult African Harrier-Hawk facing the camera with its crown feathers raised, Bellville © Rowan Wolfe 2026, Bellville
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Coming soon

What will go up here

A running field diary. Nests confirmed, without locations. Behaviour that is interesting. Prey items recorded. Photos and video sent in by observers. Short pieces on what the data is starting to show once there is enough of it to say anything.

If you would rather follow along on social media, the same updates go to Facebook and Instagram.

What we leave out

No nest location will appear on this page. Posts describe findings in general terms. A pair in the southern suburbs, never a street or a park or a mapped point. Photographs get checked before they go up so that no identifying landmark is showing. Raptor nests are vulnerable to disturbance and to deliberate harm, and no update is worth that.

Keep up with the latest