Inspiration from Bogart's "Here is looking at you, Kid"

I am suffering from separation anxiety. My trusty binoculars have left our shores, kindly taken to the British Birdfare by Marje Kemp and Callan Cohen from Birding Africa and they are somewhere in Europe now being serviced. And all of this while spring is bringing all the favourite migrants back too!
Fred took these delightful images while on business near Hoedspruit recently.

Crisp mornings and the dry grassland of Millstream

Walking at Millstream in a bracing August dawn we watched the resident Kite devour its prey, sit back and preen. The Kite is such a regular sighting in South Africa that I tend to take the bird forgranted and somehow I was seeing it again with fresh eyes. It is striking and Fred has captured some interesting views of the small raptor below.   

Black-shouldered Kite at Millstream

'A' is for Aardvark

Aardvark at Mokaikai

How many of my children's books started with A is for Aardvark...

It has taken us decades to see this enigmatic nocturnal animal, night drives in the Karoo National Park came up empty handed, as did years of visiting the Kruger National Park.

So we were on the afternoon game drive at Mokaikai this weekend with our hosts June and Ross as well as with Howard and Jenny when we all had clear views across the grassland plain of an aardvark! What makes the sighting even more unique is that we had been talking about how challenging it is to see aardvarks and of the group on the vehicle only Howard had seen one before. He had just mentioned that in winter they are sometimes crepuscular when we realised that the creature we were looking at in the last hours of the afternoon sun was this highly priced mammal.

B is for Birding from the Bath.

Go Away Bird from the bath at Mokaikai

A singular pleasure of a Lodge experience must be the space created around the bathroom and its interaction with nature on its fringe.

I now have a bird list from the bath - early morning calling of a Freckled Nightjar, then rowdy Crested Francolins, as the sun was rising the visitors were prinias, waxbills, an oriole, go away birds, sunbirds, hornbills, drongos, camaropteras (still bleating), calling Ring-necked Doves, Crested Barbets, confiding male Mocking Chat...

A gentle way to bird and along with morning coffee and a rusk, does not get any better (except of course that Aardvark).

The Red-crested Korhaan on the grassland plain at Mokaikai