Birds of the Magaliesberg 2023

This area is characterized by rolling hills and valleys mostly covered in grass. Winters are cold and the area is prone to bad grass fires during this time.There are a number of lodges, hotels and nature reserves dotted over the landscape with most areas being privately owned and with limited access. Its best to plan a weekend stay over so that you can enjoy the landscapes and birding Many of the lodges have well established gardens making them ideal islands for a wide variety of bird species. The Cradle is centered around dolomitic limestone that stretches along the northern and western edge of Greater Johannesburg. It’s a surprising blend of untouched wilderness, with access to wild game, and lightly developed areas for tourism. World renowned paleoanthropological site which was self-proclaimed as the Cradle of Humankind is located about 50 km northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa, in the Gauteng province. Declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1999, the site currently occupies 47,000 hectares and contains a complex of limestone caves. The registered name of the site in the list of World Heritage sites is Fossil Hominid Sites of South Africa. The Sterkfontein Caves were the site of the discovery of a 2.3-million-year-old fossil Australopithecus africanus (nicknamed “Mrs. Ples”), found in 1947 by Robert Broom and John T. Robinson. The find helped corroborate the 1924 discovery of the juvenile Australopithecus africanus skull known as the “Taung Child”, by Raymond Dart, at Taung in the North West Province of South Africa, where excavations still continue. Nearby, but not in the site, the Rising Star Cave system contains the Dinaledi Chamber

(chamber of stars), in which were discovered fifteen fossil skeletons of an extinct species of hominin, provisionally named Homo naledi. Sterkfontein alone has produced more than a third of early hominid fossils ever found prior to 2010. The Dinaledi Chamber contains over 1,500 H. naledi fossils, the most extensive discovery of a single hominid species ever found in Africa. Within this area are several dedicated lanes for cyclists and is especially popular over weekends and holidays. A site of interest and well worth a visit is the Maropeng Visitor Centre. Maropeng is a Setswana word meaning “returning to the place of origin”. Maropeng’s unusual grassy dome, a design intended to make it blend into its grassland surrounds looks very much like an ancient burial mound, which in a sense it is if you consider the skeletons unearthed in the nearby Sterkfontein Caves. This Centre is an award-winning, world-class exhibition, focusing on the development of humans and our ancestors over the past few million years. Take a journey through time, starting with the formation of the planet and moving all the way through the evolutionary processes that culminated in the world as we know it today. See fossils, learn about how humankind was born, view stone tools that are up to one million years old, and much more.This self-guided, interactive tour allows you to take all the time you need to ponder humanity’s fascinating origin story. Note: All tickets must be booked online.

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