One month left for the Big Birding Year

Its a good time to regroup and check-in with myself on where I am on this incredible journey.

I am at Millstream physically regrouping after the endless days on the road to Botswana for the African Skimmers. The days have been slow here, with long languid afternoons on the couch reading the 3rd book in the Stieg Larsson Millenium series - the 500 pages only lasted me 3 days.

Days of good food with our foodie friends, Geoff and Nikki, I kept adding a Portuguese spin to his wonderful Italian meals. In fact I just have to share the best Tomato Piri Piri Sauce ever from Tessa Kiros' book "Piri piri *starfish", Shawni and I smother it over our food.

Heat 1cup of olive oil in a heavy-based pan with 50g butter. Add 4 ripe, peeled and sliced tomatoes and 5/6 finely chopped red chillies and simmer for about 25 minutes. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt, a large pinch sugar and 4 finely chopped garlic cloves and cook for another 10 minutes. Puree with a hand-held blender and pour into sterilised jars.

The walks around Millstream are as wonderful as ever, my boots are a little muddy after the rain but what a joy to be able to amble around the grasslands. I have added African Purple Swamphen to my Millstream list, cuckoos are calling and the bishops and widowbirds are making their glorious transitions.


So where am I with my Big Year with one month to go.....

• Started the year with a Life List of 592.
• The Big Birding Year list is at 622,
• Travelled 41 000 kilometers to date, within South Africa as well as to Namibia and twice to Botswana,
• Braved the sea twice for pelagic birding,
• Spent 42% of our days this year birding,
• Added 83 lifers to our life list which is now at 676,
• Have reseen 91% of the birds on my starting Life List,
• Have seen about 80% of the birds that are seen in any one year in Southern Africa,
• Ticked 90% of the Near Endemics and 84% of the Southern African Endemics.
• I have birded with special people along the way, guides who shared their knowledge and friends and family who have shared the passion
• 29 days to go.....

The plan is to finish the Big Year by spending a week in Northern Kwa-Zulu Natal. I will also pop down to Hilton one last time to bird with my sister Doreen. We have a few days of birding planned in Gauteng too. So I sit with some curiosity about how the numbers will fall during this final month of birding as we hit the roads for the last time.

Abundance of the Okavango Panhandle

The Kavango river has a feel of abundance with flocks of birds either flying along the waterways or moving among the papyrus and reeds. I added African Openbill to my list and we saw loads of them along the grassy flood plains.

I was amazed to see about 10 Wattled Cranes on the flood plain too, an unexpected highlight for the trip.

Grunting or snorting hippos and crocodiles complete the scene as we floated past the birds.

We saw one Slaty Egret and flocks of the Black Herons flying side by side with the Little Egrets - why did I work so hard in Gauteng to find one for the list....

"Water: vehicle and idiom of all the inner voyaging that keeps us alive"

In Praise of Water, John O'Donohue

No trip to the swamps is complete without seeing the beautiful bee-eaters. Carmines were breeding along the banks near the Camp.

And the White-fronted seemed to be panting in the late afternoon heat. Loved being in this beautiful place again, another gem of a day for the Big Year.

Okavango Panhandle for African Skimmers

It's Sunday the 25th October, the heat is coming off the Kavango River and I am under the huge trees outside Chalet 4 at Drotsky's Camp in Botswana. Our boat trip up the river with Salvation was idyllic, we had time to take in the bountiful bird life and watch the African Skimmers, our purpose for coming all this way to the north west of Botswana. It is so thrilling to see them dip their unique lower mandible, no other bird has a lower mandible longer than the upper and skim the water surface for prey items.

The water levels are still high and the birds are social, breeding together on the few exposed sandbanks. Fred was able to get take photos of the eggs and chicks.

I have had the priviledge of seeing Black Skimmers too in the USA on a business trip to Amelia Island in June 1998. I was walking along the beach early in the morning before the conference got started and noticed a bird hurtling towards me at knee height. It was my first ever skimmer and I was beside myself with excitement, even called Fred to share the expereince.

The last time I saw the African Skimmer was in December 2004 with Brian and Di, same boat from Drotsky's, also with Salvation, but a very different photographic experience - Fred dropped his camera overboard! Brian did check-in with me to see whether we had any issues this time round, fortunately not!

Finfoot in the Bag

'Ky dya hiku engeta', Shangaan for 'once you have tasted, you will want to return'

Return we did, we are back in Louis Trichardt with a African Finfoot on the Big Year list. Another 4.30am start before meeting up with Samson. We had a fly-over of a group of noisy Grey-headed Parrots before going to a private dam for the Finfoot.


The dam is quite beautiful, restful, quiet and we waited quietly too for well over an hour before Samson noticed a female out in the dam feeding. Incredible to be seeing this bird at last and we were treated to special views. At one point the bird left the water and climbed onto the dam wall with a fish in its mouth. Yet another quite extraordinary moment in a year of many such moments.



We have just put in petrol and are headed for Botswana and will stop over in Francistown before going up to Shakwe....

Much Anticipation

I was up early this morning quietly at my desk with its view into the front garden, finishing off some work commitments. The irises are in flower in the pond, the Cape White-eyes are loving playing in the fountain and I can feel the excitement building. We are on the road again this afternoon.
Fred had lunch with Bernie and Neil a little while ago and Bernie had seen African Skimmers and Slaty Egrets on his trip up to Chobe. When Fred was relating the story to me I thought how can I have a Big Year without Skimmers! Immediately I got onto the phone with Piet at Drotsky's and we are booked in for this weekend. What a treat to be going back to the Kavango River, in April it was in flood conditions and I look forward to seeing it six months later.
We are driving to Botswana via Loius Trichardt, nothing like a small detour, to bird again with Samson and to have another go for African Finfoot.
I had a frustrating morning last Sunday birding along the Zaalkuildrift Road, my heart was not in it and my birding felt like an effort, I am now rested, ready to do this trip and to be in special places.

African Broadbill before Breakfast.

By the time we stopped for breakfast on Saturday morning at Roodewal Nature Reserve we had already seen the Scaly-throated Honeyguide, African Firefinch and African Broadbill which brought the year list to 610. We had been joking about the possibility of breakfast as a certainty whereas seeing a Broadbill seemed such a long shot. And that's when we had magnificent views of both the male and female.

The destination this weekend was the Soutpansberg to meet up with Samson Mulaudzi. I had been following his emails on the Birdnet and noticing the specials he clocks up for his clients, so could not resist a trip that held the potential of a Broadbill, Trogon, Finfoot, Blue-spotted Wood Dove. As luck would have it, as we were unpacking our breakfast Samson when pointed out the Narina Trogons too. Such a treat and well worth a 1200 kilometer round trip.

Samson then tried for both the Green Twinspot at Entebeni and for the Dove at Muirhead Dams but no luck. We will just have to go back at some stage which is no hardship as we found such a wonderful mountain farm lodge called Madi a Thahvu, run by Marcelle and Aart which is a keeper.

This little Painted Reed Frog is a gem that I noticed while walking along the trail around Muirhead Dam. In November 2001 Martie and I organised a Frogging Course out at Chrissiesmeer. It was one of my more daft outings that the family still teases me about and I decided that wading through water at night, with a flashlight, to catch frogs was not going to be my next 'big thing'.

I am now going to pass on my book and CD to Samson as he can make better use of it.


We dipped on Sunday for the Grey-headed Parrot too, so I was feeling rather flat, but nothing that a good breakfast on the veranda didn't solve though. I nagged an unwillingly Fred to stop on the way home to attempt to find Fawn-coloured Larks along the roads of the Seringveld Conservancy to the north-east of Pretoria. Armed with the 'Birding in Gauteng' recommendation and our PDA we did manage to call out a lark and get a lifer for the weekend.

Good to be on the couch at home again, a treat of home-cooked soup from Anabela's Mom, 'Strickly Come Dancing' and Shawni's Malva pudding. .

Samsons post:

This past weekend I was out with clients Sharon Kersten and husband from Wits Bird Club.

On Saturday morning 10th October 2009 I took out Sharon Kersten and husband to Roodewal Nature Reserve and their main target species wereAfrican Broadbill,Scaly Throated Honeyguide,Narina Trogon and AfricanFirefinch.

By the time we stopped for our breakfast we already had agood close up sightings of a pair of African Broadbill, Scaly Throated Honeyguide, African Firefinch, African Crowned Eagle, Purple Crested Turaco and Lesser Honeyguide.

While sitting in the picnic site having breakfast the cherry on the cake were a magnificent views of both male and female Narina Trogon.We went to Muirhead Dams and Entabeni Forest. I tried for both BlueSpotted Wood Dove and Buff Spotted Flufftail but had no luck but nevertheless amongst other birds we had a beautiful sightings of a pair of Bat Hawk, Grey Cuckooshrike, Jackal Buzzard, Lizard Buzzard, African Goshawk, African Fish Eagle and all the species brought their year list to 610.