Weekend at Borakalalo

The Pearly was calling at dusk and Fred got a good fire going in the boma on saturday night, we had coffee with Italian nougat and I was planning the sunday birding. It all seems quite blissful but looking back I was frustrated most of the time. Each spot that we birded didn't reveal its special, the Quarry for Striped Pipit (yet another weekend with no success on this bird!), the picnic site for Grey Penduline-Tit and the longshot, a Finfoot as we walked at dawn along the Moretele River Walk. I thought I may have seen the Penduline-Tits but when I saw a Crombec in the birding party, I was then not sure about the tits, and of course the party flew off and I was left even more grumpy. It felt as though I am now trying too hard and some of the pleasure was slipping away. Even the antics of the Puffback seemed to be trying to lighten my mood....

It also did not help our mood when the Vervet Monkeys stole our breakfast provisions...

Anyway I did eventually pull myself together, Fred found a store and stocked up, we made a good lunch and then ambled along the Klipvoor Dam waters edge which with a stretch of the imagination feels like Botswana. I spent time enjoying the hundreds of waterbirds and working on the identification of the waders on the muddy banks.

The list by the time we left was over 80 birds and I am now planning a pelagic trip from Hout Bay for this weekend. I am not looking forward to the sea but I am really looking forward to swelling my list.

My friend Sharon sent me this quote which is a special way to herald spring:

Everything is blooming most recklessly;
if it were voices instead of colours, there would be an
unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.
~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke