From Central Park to Moreleta Park

I knew that birding was more than a passing hobby when in September 2002 I spent a free day in New York birding in Central Park. I was on a business trip with my friend, Sharon Jansen and she was bemused that with all the possibilities in New York I was making my way to the Ramble to find birders and warblers.

It started with a gem of a book, Red-Tails in Love by Marie Winn, that I had bought at the Rockefeller Barnes and Noble the previous February. I was taken in with the backpage blurb:
'The scene of this enchanting (and true) story is the Ramble, an unknown wilderness deep in the heart of New York's fabled Central Park. There an odd and amiable band of nature lovers devote themselves to observing and protecting the park's rich wildlife. When a pair of red-tailed hawks builds a nest atop a Fifth Avenue apartment house across the street from the model-boat house pond, Marie Winn and her fellow "Regulars" are soon transformed into obsessive hawkwatchers.'

With a map in hand I headed for The Boathouse to find the famed Bird Register. Year round birders catalogue the Park's daily birdlife and other wildlife. Marie Winn writes about Tom Fiore, the most prolific chronicler and many other New York birders. I found the bird book, noted Tom entries and later in the day I too added my entry of sightings, the date was 18/09/02. Looking back at my notes I saw Magnolia Warbler, Black-and-white Warbler, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, American Redstart in its fall colours, a Brown Thrasher in the leaf litter, Gray Catbird, Swainson's Thrush and Ruby-crowned Kinglet. I sat for many a quiet hour watching both the birds and the birders, someone pointed Tom out to me and I came away having shared a small part of the life of New York birders.

I had the same sense yesterday of how an urban space can weave its magic around birders cooped up in a city. Laura and I spent our Sunday morning birding with Faansie Peacock and some Wits Bird Club folks at the Moreleta Kloof Nature Reserve in the heart of suburban Pretoria. You could tell that this was his backyard and he has birded these selfsame paths for 20 years. He talks of nests, views of flufftails and the coming and going of the seasons and the birds. It was a wonderful few hours and we all had superb views of a Black Sparrowhawk flying over the reserve, another bird for my list for the Big Birding Year.

I am now 'atlassing' too. The workshop on saturday was useful and has got me going. As we walked the reserve we were all noting the birds in the order we saw them (or heard them), noted the hour breaks and I am now going to submit my first list to SABAP2 for Pentad 2545_2815. The data being collected across the country by over 500 birders will form the basis of the new atlas for Southern Africa.

Morning at Marievale

Watching the Water Mongoose eating crab out at Marievale along the causeway early this morning was a novel way to start a Sunday morning outing.

We were also remembering past outings to the Bird Sanctuary. One in particular, also a Sunday morning visit, walking the same causeway with the kids about a decade ago. An elderly man asked to join us and he chatted to Barry showing him an otter spoor as we all ambled along to Shelduck Hide, on the far side of the causeway.

The birding was sparce once we got to the hide but I took out my bird book and he then said: 'I see you are using my book'. We had been walking with Ken Newman and there I was about to tell him that it was definitely my book. Of course Fred immediately took him to task about some of the plates in the book not been accurate! Well my signed copy is a treasure and what an amazing contribution he made to Southern African birding.

Marievale is also a memory about rarities and common birds. We saw the Black-tailed Godwit from the causeway on the 8th April 2001. I remember standing with a group of birders, scopes out, thinking this feels too easy to be ticking a rare summer visitor, one of my less satisfying lifers. Another lifer at Marievale was the White-winged Tern which we saw in the April of 1998.

My plan for the outing was to find some of the more challenging water birds for our list and I was most pleased with good sightings of African Rail. Fred took some delightful photos from the hides, particularly the juvenile Malachite Kingfisher with its dark, not red, bill.

.....juvenile Malachite Kingfisher... ...the Black Crake...

....and one of our favourites, the Hottentot Teal...

Quietly Grumbling

Among all the excitement and pleasure of this Big Birding Year are some challenges. Its 2am and my body is fighting the symptoms of Tick Bite Fever and I am decidedly grumpy.

A downside has been endless nights away from home on mostly awful beds, with threadbare linen and bad pillows along with sharing these spaces with unknown creatures. I have been bitten and stung more times in 5 months than I have in a lifetime, leaving fiercely itchy marks and scars as evidence. Never mind keeping an eye out for the infective female Anopheles Mosquito - not sure how I am meant to recognise her anyway...but claustrophobic nights under mosquito nets. I am also mostly frightened by anything much smaller than me that moves...

Allergic reactions have been common place; a head to toe rash (since found out its a symptom of the tick bite fever), streaming eyes and nose from all the time spent outdoors in the 'fresh air'. Our birding has not been sedentary and has taken us straight into virgin bush, no paths or any such convenience so the summer grasses, which have been flourishing with all the rains, have also caused many discomforts. Here is some sage advise to avoid getting Tick Bite Fever - When hiking, stick to the centre of footpaths and avoid bushes. Try that while birding with an avid guide going after a target bird.

Another gripe has to be the weeks of awful coffee and average food, an even bigger sacrifice given my foodie tendencies. Phil sent me an article yesterday about 'transcendental coffee' :
'Garvey McConnell makes world-class coffee flavour, straight out a trailer in Hamburg which is a sleepy coastal hamlet about 50kms from East London.'
I am feeling a Big Coffee Year for 2010 starting in Hamburg, anyone keen to join me?

Its Autumn in Johannesburg

Walking this morning in the crisp autumn air made me appreciate that the season has changed. I am now waking up in the dark and pottering around the house in the half light as the sun seems to slowly rise.

Well the wood is ordered, delivered and Fred cleaned out the chimney, so we are ready for the winter here in Johannesburg.

The colours are beautiful at Delta Park at the moment with the leaves that have turned.

Its hard to believe that I have lived here since I was 17, coming to Wits from my home town of Vanderbijlpark. And in all this time I have never seen the 'alien' but so beautiful Ring-necked Parakeets which are well known in most of our friends' gardens.
In fact both Neil and Martie have invited us to come and see the parakeets at their homes but we never got round to it.
We were out very early today and within 15 minutes we found a pair at Delta Park and reveled in their raucous calling and beauty of their ring and the shades of green and torquoise.

And Hartlaub's completes the Babblers.

Completing certain bird groups have presented no challenge during this Big Birding year, like the 3 Mousebirds, the 5 Cormorants, and the 4 Crows. Others have required some travel such as finding the Bald Ibis on the Wakkerstroom grasslands to complete all the Ibises, or stopping at Sua Pan in Botswana for a Lesser Flamingo.

The Pretoria Birdnet emails this week alerted me to the arrival of a Pink-backed Pelican at the Rooival Sewage Works, so we drove there early this morning to see it, so another group completed for the Big Birding Year.

The 5 Babblers have not been challenging to see but have required real dedication to get to them all. Our first days out in the Waterberg at the start of our year made for easy sightings of the Arrow-marked Babblers, and we continued to see many during our travels through Mpumalanga in February.

One of the objectives of the road trip to Namibia was to find the remaining four babblers. Ghanzi, our western Botswana stopover was good for the endemic Southern Pied Babblers. Endemic meaning they breed almost entirely within Southern Africa.

Our next target was the Bare-cheeked Babblers which are a near-endemic to Namibia as their range extends into southwest Angola. We had spectacular views from the breakfast table at Hobatere Lodge, on the western periphery of Etosha, along with their loud chattering. We also were able to get really close to the Red-billed Spurfowl and the Damara Hornbill, another Namibian near-endemic, while having bacon and eggs! At this stage 3 babblers down and 2 to go.

...Bare-cheeked Babblers and Red-billed Spurfowl at the Hobatere feeder...

Marge from Birding Africa had booked us in to Roy's Camp, 100 kilometers north of Grootfontein on our way up to Rundu. The camp is a well known spot for reliably finding Black-faced Babblers which are a Southern African near-endemic, which means they are largely restricted to our region with about 10 to 15% found outside of the region. We arrived at Roy's Camp at sunset and chatted to our young host, Niki, who pointed us to the waterhole and we watched a herd of Eland arrive to drink while we were having dinner. The next morning we were up early in search of the babblers with not much luck. So we made our way back to the lapa for coffee and when Fred asked Niki about the babblers she walked just around the corner and found them for us snuffling around in the leaves of the undergrowth- an unobtrusive and rather easy lifer, babbler number 4. She had been preparing for our visit and watching their behaviour for a couple of weeks - smart young lady and she is starting to train as a guide.

...the Black-faced Babbler at Roy's Camp...

Our last babbler to see was the Hartlaub's, whose habitat is the woodland adjacent to papyrus swamps, reedbeds and rivers, so the Caprivi and Okavango Swamps is a sure bet for them. We found them along the Kavango during our morning walk with Mark Paxton and they were a noisy feature of our stay at Xaro Lodge.

An otter, a goat and Souza's Shrike!

Every now and again you meet people who make a lasting impression, Mark and Charlie Paxton are such people.

We spent a night with them at their Camp along the Caprivi, about 100 kilometers east of Rundu. Mark has been in the bush his whole life, one of the early ringers in Namibia and is passionate about his patch of land which comes with many specials.

Our morning of birding with Mark took us into his patch - here he is wading into the Kavango floodplain to check on a Cisticola. We didn't get that one but later in the morning we had a good look at Tinkling Cisticola's.

The target bird was Souza's Shrike. We spent a good couple of hours in the morning heat trampling across the sandy, dry savanna looking for a pair that Mark knows breeds where we were walking. Souza's Shrike is an uncommon and difficult to see bird, occurring from the Congo through southern DRC to much of Angola and Zambia, extending marginally into southern Africa. In Southern Africa it is recorded in the Caprivi Strip, hence our stopover at Shamvura.

It is a very shy and retiring bird, usually seen in the mid canopy, but it sits still and once we were onto them they are 'confiding' as Mark says - we spent a good while watching the pair and had wonderful photo opportunities.

...a special lifer, Souza's Shrike takes me up to 650 birds on my life list...

So, birding was good, but the storytelling about Mark and Charlie is more about their unusual choice of pets - an otter and a goat among the 3 rather regular dogs.

Ottie is a much loved Cape Clawless Otter, spends his time in the pool, or under the huge fish tank in his lair sleeping on his back, and here he is with Mark having his morning milk....

Then Goat, here he is watching an IPL Twenty20 game with Charlie. When Fred, starved of TV and cricket, sat on the coffee table to chat to Charlie and to catch up on all the cricket news, he blocked Goat's view so had his clothes nibbled and a quick head-butting attempt. The goat lost however as Fred is an Aries and 'knows' goats....

Oh my, I quietly sat at the pub, had my tea and shortbread, took it all in and nursed my ever worsening hayfever.

Owls make an impact.

There is something about Owls and their forward-facing eyes that make them look intently at me as I watch them. Both Fred and I feel this being noticed which makes being around an owl intriguing.










....watching the intruder in the canopy of a huge jackelberry tree...




Of all the birds on my life list, I initially thought that reseeing all the owls would be one of the biggest challenges, not least of which is to find the Pel's Fishing Owl. The Southern African list has 12 owls, of which we had seen 10, having yet to find Cape Eagle Owl and African Grass Owl.














Well 5 months into the Big Birding Year the task of reseeing the list is done, 10 owls found and appreciated.


My only ever brief glimpse of the Pel's was in April 2003, on a trip to the Okavango Swamps with Bri and Di. I had booked a trip to Nxabega for Fred and I and had mentioned it to Di. Unbeknown to us, she then organised the flights at the last minute, booked into the lodge and we all met up on the bus transferring us to the flight to Maun out of Johannesburg! Legend, and we still keep meeting up all around the world -Scotland, Italy, London, Caprivi, Cape Town and next year is Spain.

Six years ago we landed in Maun, took a quick flight into the swamps, transferred to a land-rover, dropped the luggage, hopped into a mokoro, floated down a channel to an island, walked along the bank under the huge Jackelberry trees and glimpsed the Pel's. And all the years since its been my wish to really see this bird and until this week have not done so.

After leaving the Limosa tour in Windhoek we drove up to the Caprivi and into the Kavango Panhandle to spend time on the river. The flood plain is the highest its been since the early sixties. Salvation, the bird guide for Drotsky's Cabins and Xaro Lodge, took us out for a morning on the river and we eventually had our special time with a pair of Fishing Owls. It's a huge owl, with large mesmerising black eyes that definitely watch your every move and a glorious cinnamon colouring.

...mythical Pel's Fishing Owl...




As appealing are the small owls. One of the highlights for me of birding with Callan was listening to him mimic the 'Pearly' and watch the birds come in. During one of our stops his calling attracted over 20 different species (his record is over 30!). So 'Pearly' and its false eyes is always a favourite and they tend to show up to see what all the fuss is about.



The Halali camp in Etosha was a treat for Scops Owls, both the diminuitive African Scops, which is perfectly camouflaged against the tree-bark and the White-faced. Later we also found the African Barred Owlet on a walk with Donovan from Xaro Lodge before our G&T one evening, so all the small owls seen.


...the tiny African Scops Owl
completely camouflaged against the tree-bark...






...a sleepy White-faced Scops Owl...





....and another keeping an eye on us...




Another impressive owl has to be the Verreaux's Eagle Owl and we have had wonderful sightings so far, silhouetted on a night drive at Selati and up close on our night drive from Pafuri Camp.




Spotted Eagle Owl was our first owl for the year in Kirstenbosch Gardens.









Pafuri Camp was also the spot for African Wood Owl, calling from the trees around our tent. All along the Caprivi we heard and saw Wood Owls. Barn Owls too, with a particularly good view one evening at a waterhole in the Etosha and of course seeing one fly over our boma fire in Greyton.

Closer to home I have watched Marsh Owls flying low over Elandsvlei, so owls have made their mark on our Big Birding Year and I hope will continue to do so.
Next challenge is to seek out the 2 owls that we have not yet seen....