From Tzaneen to Magoebaskloof

The morning started with Side-striped Jackals in a glade of the Woodbush Forest. It was just past 6am, we had met up with David Letsoala at the Magoebaskloof Hotel and were making our way to start birding in the indigenous Afromontane forest.

Unlike the smaller Black-backed Jackal which is found on the open grasslands, the Side-striped Jackal is nocturnal and lives in woodland and scrub on the edges of the forest. It is noticably larger too, white tip to its long bushy tail, had a buff-grey colour and the sides are marked with a white stripe with black lower margins. We quietly sat and watched them, all concerns for birding pushed into the background, our first encounter with this carnivore as it is timid and rarely seen.


We spent the night before in Tzaneen with Claire and Don, delightful young people and so generous with their time and space. We passed the evening braaing and marvelling at Wood Owls - Claire has hand raised a Wood Owl which she found abandoned. What I loved was watching the wild bird that visits each night, it sits in the tree as well as coming down onto the roof of the cage. We could not decide what its intentions are, amazing to be so intimately involved with a wild creature.

Must also be one of my favourite owl calls, deep resonating 'hoo-hoo', or something similar. David mentioned that the female has a higher pitch than the male, so I think both birds are males and we were experiencing territorial behaviour.

An African Goshawk, a find in the forest along our drive.

The forest delivered quite a few of my target birds, Blue-mantled Crested-Flycatcher, Grey Cuckooshrike, Yellow-streaked Greenbul, a female Black-fronted Bush-shrike.

As always forest birding is a challenge, straining my neck and eyes trying to get onto birds as they move through the canopy, in some cases over 50 meters in height.

Even more frustrating was working the forest edges for the elusive Barratt's Warbler, thanks to David I did eventually get a fleeting glimpse and we were treated to its call as well. First lifer for August under the belt.

The Bat Hawk was deja-vue, same guide, even more bizarre it is the same bird that we saw in November 2004, the weekend of Claire and Don's wedding, in the same huge Saligna Gum - apparently the tallest tree in South Africa! David was telling us that this bird was ringed in the mid-80's and birders have been watching it for all this time. Fitting to see this bird at one of the only reliable stakeouts in the country, I also had excellent sighting of Lesser Honeyguides in the gums and David pointed out their head bobbing behaviour. Fred has two photos, one showing the white-eye lids of the Bat Hawk and the second photo with its eyes open.The field guides illustrate the birds as being all dark and only the juvenile with white below the breast, well here is one seriously mature bird with white under belly. The white feet are just peeping out from the feathers.

To round off an awesome morning David took us to his favourite spot for Short-clawed Larks, up and over the mountains into the much drier grasslands on the way to Polokwane. We arrived at the stakeout and within a few minutes had my next lifer for August. I was very pleased particularly after the more frustrating Warbler experience earlier in the morning. It's a striking Lark with bold markings.

High-altitude Grasslands of the Steenkampsberg

Early this morning we made our way from Millstream to do some birding along the well known De Berg road beyond Dullstroom. Even though it is not the time of year for the Wattled Crane I arranged a visit to Verloren Vallei Nature Reserve and we met Themba at 8am.

It was surprisingly mild this morning with no wind, a huge blue sky instead of the usual heavy mist and rolling golden grasslands, such a treat to be out. We had some special sightings too, plenty of firsts for the year, Oribi, Black Wildebeest and 3 Serval moving through the grass but at some distance from us. Saw some winter faithfuls in the reserve like Sentinal Rock-Thrush, Ground Woodpeckers, Eastern Long-billed Larks among others.

The plan was to then try and find the Gurney's Sugarbird along the De Berg drive by searching the extensive stands of Proteas along the roadside.

We were rewarded by seeing at least 6 birds in among some mature proteas and Fred had a fine time creeping up on the calling males at the tops of the bushes, taking some great photos.

Here is a photo taken at the start of the Big Birding Year in Kirstenbosch which shows some of the differences between the Cape Sugarbird and our newest sighting the Gurney's. The russet breast and forecrown of the Gurney's is distinctive but the tail of the Cape Sugarbird is fabulously long.

These are the only two sugarbirds of the world and they are found in Southern Africa. Did not know this until right now!

Blurb from Wiki: The sugarbirds are a small family, Promeropidae, of passerine birds which are restricted to southern Africa. The two species of sugarbird make up one of only two bird families restricted entirely to southern Africa, the other being the rock-jumpers Chaetopidae. In general appearance as well as habits they resemble large long-tailed sunbirds, but are possibly more closely related to the Australian honeyeaters. They have brownish plumage, the long downcurved bill typical of passerine nectar feeders, and long tail feathers.

Listing

I am noticing how my Big Birding Year has become about the numbers, this weekend I chose not to be out and enjoying birding but to be out mopping up a bird I still needed for the list, the White-throated Robin-Chat.

Two attempts and two hundred and fifty kilometers later I updated my list and felt the satisfaction of the list growing more than seeing the bird. I suppose this was bound to happen and no doubt the run towards the end of the year will be even more about finding specific birds to swell the list.

Our friend Neil Reinecke dropped off a book for me in our postbox, Dan Koeppel's 'To See Every Bird on Earth', which has opened the world of the Big Lister, and an insight into their obsession, for me. These quotes from the book resonates with me as I am sitting here at the laptop planning the next trip:
'The more birds you count, the more you leave the world of flesh and feather and enter a universe of abstractions, of human-imposed taxonomic decisions...'
'..naming birds is the most important part of counting them because you need to have something to check off on your list, some way to keep track.'

This Big Birding Year is certainly taking me in surprising directions and it is still evolving.

Winter specials in Gauteng

...a confiding garden bird here in Johannesburg, I have noticed the Fiscal Flycatchers in my garden this year...

Seeing that we were home this weekend it was time to tackle some of the winter migrants to Gauteng. The target was the diminutive Fairy Flycatcher which comes to us from the Karoo. I dipped into Etienne and Faansie's book 'Birding Gauteng' which gives really good insight into where one has the best chance of seeing these beautiful birds.

So early Saturday morning I dragged Fred off, with the promise of being back for a mid-morning rugby game, to the gardens of the Voortrekker Monument on the outskirts of Pretoria. It was certainly one of my more bizarre birding attempts, we arrived along with 100's of runners, live bands, spectators and the intercom system blaring out instructions and encouragement to the runners. Needless to say, no Flycatcher.

Sunday, along with a still rather reluctant Fred, was the next attempt this time at Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve, which is a special place of Highveld grasslands, rolling hills and rocky outcrops south of Johannesburg. We particularly love the cabbage trees dotted around the grasslands - or Kiepersols as they are also called. Our 10 kilometer hike through the reserve was a treat and very good training to get me fitter for our planned walk in Spain next year. Also had good views of another winter migrant, the Sentinel Rock-Thrush, along the trail.

Our early morning drive was very successful, great views of Red-winged Francolins calling from a rocky knoll and then quickly disappearing into the grass.

Further down the road, along a burnt grass verge, we had our first views of Grey-winged Francolins for the year.

A group of about 10 birds were moving quickly away from us and I needed to make sure they were the Grey-winged, so much panic to get ahead of them and confirm the black and white neck pattern before they disappeared over the hill. Much fist pumping when I confirmed the sighting. Suikerbosrand is about the only place to find Grey-winged in the greater Gauteng region too, so an important tick for the year.

The Fairy Flycatcher was also added to the list just before we started our hike and I noted that we had first seen the bird at the same picnic spot in 1998!

I have just finished reading Sean Dooley's book 'The Big Twitch' about his record breaking big year in Australia, loved his quirky humour and dedication.

Certainly has hardened my resolve and I have been booking trips, just confirmed access to the Bearded Vulture Hide at Giant's Castle for September seeing that I dipped on this bird in June because of the howling winds around the Sentinal. Holding thumbs, cannot do a Big Year and miss this amazing vulture.

Kwa-Zulu Natal North Coast Birding

Its Monday morning and I am watching sunrise over the Indian Ocean here at Tinley Manor, Martie's home away from home at the coast, with Gannets and even the odd Albatross making an appearance.

This must be one of the few trips I have made this year that has not been about birding, I am down here with friends and our purpose is designing quilts. We are up to our elbows in gorgeous fabrics, there are sewing machines dotted around the huge table and fabric is slowly being transformed into quilts. Our group has been friends for two decades and our annual retreats have become a feature of our shared interest.

Even though I have been cutting and sewing with the Tour de France on in the background, what an amazing event, I am quietly birding too. I dragged Martie and Jan to Dlinza Forest near Eshowe early on Sunday morning to find some of the Kwa-Zulu Natal forest specials. Our time with Jotham Maduna as our Birdlife Guide was very rewarding - eventually saw the Spotted Ground-Thrush on our second attempt near Bishops Seat, we had almost given up for the morning when Jotham heard their low pitch winter call, a faint scratchy sound!

We started the morning with a sighting of an African Goshawk calling from the entrance to the Aerial Boardwalk, such a treat to see the raptor but he spoilt our chances of seeing the Narina Trogon which usually hangs around the entrance.

A Green Malkoha showed itself too high up in the forest canopy and I was so pleased to get onto the bird quickly as it is so secretive and a difficult bird to find, Olive Bush-Shrikes, Square-tailed Drongoes and the White-starred Robin made for a most productive morning of birds for the Big Birding Year list.

Talking about the list - I have less than 100 birds between my Life List of 659 and the Big Year list which is on 566. Great motivation to keep going.

The Splitting of Birds.

The splitting of birds is a reality world-wide as research happens, Phoebe Snetsinger's book 'Birding on Borrowed Time' mentions that in the 1990 publishing of Sibley and Monroe's 'Distribution and Taxonomy of the Birds of the World', approximately 500 new species were added. It is no mean feat to keep abreast of all these changes in the bird world.

Here in South Africa our list has also been swelling over the last decade and I had not paid enough attention to these splits.. So I have been in catch-up mode this year to see the birds such as the split of the Long-billed Larks (to date seen 4 of the 5 in this group which has taken me from Agulhas to Namibia to do so), as I do not keep rigorous field notes like the professional birders do.

Etienne Marais' website Indicator Birding has an article on one such split-
'Karoo Thrush and Olive Thrush were split on the basis of genetic work conducted a few years ago. However fieldguides have been rather vague and even error-prone in attempting to guide birders in relation to the identification of these related species.'

Fred's photo of the Karoo Thrush clearly shows the grey flanks, Orange Eye-ring, the plain yellow bill without dark base to upper mandible; so I had quite a rude awakening to realise that the birds I was seeing on our Sunday morning trip to the Wonderboom Nature Reserve in Pretoria were in fact Karoo Thrushes rather than Olive Thrushes!

Suddenly we had a new species to record that has been in the Johannesburg gardens all along. I did find the field guides confusing as well but I think we have the measure of these two birds now. We also climbed the hill up to the Wonderboom fort trying for the Stripped Pipit but with no luck so need to keep trying.