KZN Birding, Curry and the Half Way Mark

The mornings are cold, mist lies thick in the Midlands valleys as I start my birding here in KZN, along with a good mutton curry to keep warm and to reinforce where I find myself.
I am based in Hilton with my sister Doreen and her family and we are having special times spotting birds along roads - African Harrier-Hawk, Forest Buzzard but no luck with the Wattled Cranes as yet. I have even dragged her to the Pietermaritsburg sewage works. Orange-breasted Waxbills were the reward for the smelly location. An early morning walk here was rewarded with an Olive Woodpecker.

It's the mid point of my Big Birding Year and as I review the last quarter I am quite in awe of what has been achieved and where the journeys have taken Fred and I:

• The far north east of Kruger to bird at Pafuri with Hayley in March,
  
• 7000 kilometers travelling through Namibia and Botswana during April,


• Wakkerstroom birding with Lucky, Nikki and Geoff,
  
• A quick flight to Cape Town and a road trip to Cape Agulhas in March to see the Macaroni Penguin that washed up on our shores,
  
• Trip up to Bela Bela with June and Ross,
  
• Birding in our 'backyard' at Delta, Marievale and in Pretoria with Laura,
  
  
• 

..... over 14000 kilometers during this second quarter and almost 25000 kilometers for the year to date.

My life list has swollen to 655 which
is 63 new birds seen so far and I have now reseen 83% of my list for the Big Birding Year. My number is at 546.









April was a really significant month for lifers with 32 new birds seen in Namibia. I revelled in everthing from Bradfields Swift in the Watsonia Palms, to the beautiful Lovebirds, to chasing Babblers, to dipping on the infamous Herero Chat, to slogging for the Souza's Shrike and the wonder of seeing Pels' Fishing Owls for only the second time in my life.

I have been tracking the days that I spend in the field and to date 57% of my year has been spent birding. Mostly it has been joyous, every now and again I have missed my routine, quite often I have been plagued by the bugs and was laid low by tick bite fever this month.
I am registered as an observer with the Avian Demography Unit in Cape Town and this month I decided to get involved in SABAP2, the atlassing project for South Africa. Ernst Retief and Alan Featherstone from Wits Bird Club navigated me around the process as well as the data management for atlassing and I have submitted data on a couple of Pentads already. I am finding it a good discipline when I am in the field to note everything I am seeing and its rewarding too.

This last quarter has been about birding with amazing people, Callan Cohen in Namibia, Mark Paxton along the Caprivi, Jonson at Pafuri and Lucky at Wakkerstroom. They all taught me so much and I am grateful for shared time together. Callan particularly has deeply influenced me and our two weeks together in Namibia will be a lifetime memory. Its been time with friends too as well as meeting new people along the way. Best of all its about Fred and I being able to spend time together and share my passion.

Next quarter I am spending more time here in KZN, a week at Quantani should be good for the birds of the Drakensberg, particularly for the Bearded Vulture, more time in the Dullstroom area and my first attempt at CAR (CO-ORDINATED AVIFAUNAL ROADCOUNT) with the Wits Bird Club during mid winter at Chrissiesmeer.

The story continues......

A Weekend at Mokaikai

I felt my energy flooding back once I was on a landy again finding birds this last weekend.
Our time out at Mokaikai Private Nature Reserve with June and Ross was a treat, special space, good company and as always, fine food.

Made me appreciate all over again the value of this Big Birding Year, sharing the passion and the story. The Reserve is an easy 2 hours from Johannesburg near Bela Bela and part of the greater Mabula Reserve. The open veld, tree savannah, mountain veld, open savannah, wet grasslands, mountainous rock and old fields all delivered good birding.

'Ranger Ross', who apparently has dodgy credentials, did a great job spending hours in the bush while we clocked up a bird list of over 75 species as well as an impressive mammal list, including rhino with a junior.

The weather was fresh, crisply cold in the early morning and I have decided winter birding is underrated, I love it.

One of our treats was to see a group of 4 Ground Hornbills. At present the Southern Ground Hornbills is considered ‘vulnerable’ and their numbers are still declining from an estimated 1500 - half of which are in the protected areas of the Kruger National Park.The Mabula Ground Hornbill Research and Conservation Project are harvesting and hand-rearing second hatched chicks which would otherwise die of starvation in the nests. The juvenile we saw was the first ever chick that successfully fledged in February 2009 from a reintroduced group.

The parents are a 9 year old Kruger harvested, hand-reared female and a re-habilitated father. This group is free-roaming on Mabula Game Reserve and is totally self-sustaining. We chatted to a young lad who does research on Ground Hornbill behavior and decided its a good way to live.

Big Year highlight was seeing a Lizard Buzzard, cannot remember when last I saw this little raptor, we were quite far away but the features are so distinctive and its always such a thrill to find a special bird.

While the gang was taking in the Bull's game, I was watching a pair of Meyer's Parrots that have a breeding hole in a tree in the parking area of a very busy Mabula Lodge. Amusing really when I think of the effort we made along the Caprivi to get fleeting glimpses and here I was coffee in hand, sitting watching them among all the coming and going of vehicles and people.

Thanks again to June and Ross, Debbie and Rick, Catharina and Adolfo and little Bianca for a fun weekend and all the patience shown to the Birder!

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.