The pied starling or African pied starling, is a bird endemic to South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland. It is common in most of this range, but largely absent from the arid northwest and the eastern lowlands of South Africa. It is found in open habitats such as grassland, Karoo scrub, thorn-bush and agricultural land, and often associates with farm animals.
Swallows are able to produce many different calls or songs, which are used to express excitement, to communicate with others of the same species, during courtship, or as an alarm when a predator is in the area. The songs of males are related to the body condition of the bird and are presumably used by females to judge the physical condition and suitability for mating of males. Begging calls are used by the young when soliciting food from their parents. The typical song of swallows is a simple, sometimes musical twittering.
There are two species of Zebra in Southern Africa, the Plains or Burchell’s Zebra and the Mountain Zebra. As the names suggest they occur in vastly differing habitats, although they are known to occur together in places where plains and mountains overlap. A third species, the Grevy’s Zebra is found in East Africa. No two Zebra have the same striping, as in fingerprints in humans the stripes of Zebra are unique to an individual.
