Dipping on Striped Pipits

I had no success with finding Striped Pipits on the rocky slopes of the Walter Sizulu Botanical Gardens early saturday morning and it certainly was not for want of trying either. We eventually settled into our legs as my friend Natalie says, packed water and KitKat, and had a glorious walk along the perimeter. We spotted a pair of Pipits on the rocky ridge and I willed them to be striped with yellow-edged wings - but no luck.
The Verreaux's Eagles were soaring above us and are always an impressive sight over the gardens. We watched the juvenile on the nest from the videocam in the office and it seems about to fledge, it is special considering how built up the area is around these birds.
Hamburgers and rugby were the next distraction before we took a drive to Northern Farm. We had never been there and have heard about the Farm mostly from cyclists and wanted to get a sense of the space. Enjoyed the late afternoon light on the dams, watched a Greater Kestrel and added Capped Wheatear to the Gauteng Challenge before heading home.

Yellow-throated Sandgrouse

It was surprising cold in the field near Sun City as we were quietly waiting with Stuart Groom for the first of the Yellow-throated Sandgrouse to make their fly-over. The stakeout was along a stream in the open savanna that is fed from the Sun City overflow very close to the main access road to the complex. The area has sandy patches as well as water pools with low-angle approaches that attract the sandgrouse as an early morning drinking and sand bathing spot.

I had connected with Stuart via his blog and he kindly agreed to meet us, share he knowledge and take us to this particular stakeout. We were treated to wonderful views of the birds flying in, some 30 to 40 birds over the couple of hours we spent at the stakeout, their characteristic calls and their flying actions making them so distinctive. We were treated to good close-ups of both the males and females of this large sandgrouse and I was completely taken in by them, the beautiful colouration and their behaviour made them one of my special lifers for the Big Birding Year.

The plan for the rest of the day was to explore the lesser known nature reserves to the North-West of Gauteng - Vaalkop Dam and Borakalalo. I was well organised with coffee, a picnic and a reasonably willing Fred to amble around back roads and explore and I also had some target birds to tackle for the year.

Vaalkop was quiet, felt unspoilt and the muddy edges of the dam was a treat for water birds - spoonbills, storks, cormorants, heron, ducks, crakes, gulls, fish-eagles, bee-eaters, kingfishers made for a good place to sit, to watch and just to be without listing. Walking along the edge for Black Heron came to an abrupt halt when I disturbed a hippo! We then birded from the various approaches roads from the car and I did find 3 Black Herons canopy feeding, an interesting hunting method, they use their wings like an umbrella and the shade it creates, to attract fish. The photo below shows the canopy feeding, bit far away but I was cautious about the hippos and crocodiles....

We got into Borakalalo late afternoon and did not have much time to explore, so drove straight to the picnic spot in the broad-leaved woodland along the game drive. The plan was to find a birding party and patiently wait for Bennett's Woodpecker which is known to be around this spot. As we turned into the picnic area, I saw a flash of olive green and Fred saw a woodpecker. We were out the car, creeping up to the bird, saw the spots and the brown facial markings of the female and we had our Bennett's! All in a few seconds.

I was hoping our luck would hold for an African Finfoot along the Moretele Walking Trail. We kept a vigil until dark at their known breeding sopts but it was not to be, so looks like I need to book into the tented camp and try again soon. Sixteen hours later we arrived home, the joy of birding.

Bird in the Hand

The only bird I held at the ringing session at Melville Koppies on Saturday morning was the Cape Robin-Chat, the bird of the year here in South Africa. It felt fragile in my clumsy hand and I could feel its racing heartbeat.

I was pleased to read this piece in our Wits Bird Club email:
Gail Schaum reports that at the ringing morning at Melville Koppies on Saturday 12th September an “old” Cape Robin was ringed and Safring confirmed that it was ringed 9 years ago at Melville Koppies by Jumbo Williams, who was a Wits Bird Club ringer at the time. That’s one of the things that make ringing so exciting.
This was the little bird I held for a moment!

Ringing will not be something that grabs hold of me, I felt all thumbs trying to hold the terrified bird, glasses perched on my nose, handling the weighing and measuring equipment, it all did not quite come together. I enjoyed meeting Malcolm Wilson though, a well-known ornithologist and ringer, who showed us all the details on feathers relating to moulting, age as well as diet. His stories about forays into Africa are intriguing, maybe its time to start thinking about venturing north.
The Wits Bird Club outing to Modderfontein this morning got me walking and enjoying the milder weather, first time my arms have been exposed for quite some months. We all had good sightings of some raptors in the alien trees- Long-crested Eagle, Black Sparrowhawk, Gabar Goshawk and after our coffee break I saw the resident Spotted Eagle-Owl. Very pleasant outing and I few more birds for my Gauteng list. Also saw my first swallows of the season, White-throated Swallows over Dam 4.

Jan and I spent our Women's Day public holiday riding the Rust de Winter roads to the far North-East of Pretoria. I am still mopping up some missing birds and was looking for the Yellow-throated Petronia. The birds obligingly showed up exactly where suggested in 'Birding Gauteng'. We had a good walk along the Dam edge, even started to complain about getting hot and a welcome picnic of camembert sandwiches and coffee. Jan added loads of birds to her list and it was a good day out.

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.