It all started here. We bought our timeshare unit in the early 90's and have been visiting 2 to 3 times a year ever since. My Mom had died and we wanted a complete change of climate after the sticky heat of Natal and what better than the high altitude grasslands of Dullstroom. The rhythm is easy; walking, fishing, sitting on the stoep with a view across Lake Millstream, reading on the couch, loads of cooking and good food for friends and family, the kids with their friends visiting over the years as they were growing up, good conversation - it has always been a favoured place. Idyllic.
Dad and I were on the side stoep one year and a Stonechat landed close by. At that stage I had no clue about birds, so the first question of "I wonder what that is?" has opened a new world for me and has become a passion which has taken me all over Southern Africa and into remote, wild parts of the world and less remote places too, like New York.
I have birded in the Ramble in Central Park alongside New Yorkers watching out for migrating warblers; in Churchill on the Hudson Bay in Manitoba, Canada for waders and Ross' Gull; in the Galapagos Islands off Equador for the Blue-footed Booby and the Waved Albatross; in the Amazon in Equador for Toucans and Parrots; in Australia with Inel; on St. Paul Island of the Pribiloff Islands in the Bering Sea for Puffins and the Alcids; in arctic Norway for the White-tailed Sea-Eagle; in English country gardens watching Tits; in Scotland for Eiders and Puffins, in Fontainbleau Forest in France and in so many other memorable places of the last fifteen years.
Birding has also been about being with friends in these special places, Bri and Di have birded with us in Botswana, Caprivi in Namibia, Phinda in KZN; Sharon walking along the De Mond beach for a Demara Tern; Laura and Anabela at Millstream last year; Bernie and Martie in the Kruger, in Alaska, at Tinley and many other spots over the years of our friendship.
So Millstream is where it started with the dapper, obliging Stonechat.
