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.
