A Word on Guiding

The success of my year of birding owes so much to the quality of the guiding I experienced along the way. It feels right to acknowledge the knowledge, the energy and the passion of these guides.


It started with Otto Schmidt and a national rarity on the first of many visits to the West Coast National Park, when he pointed out the Common Redshank in December 2009. Our two pelagic trips from Cape Town were guided by Alvon Cope in December 2008 and Bruce Dyer on the return trip in September 2009. Here guiding is critical, I am too wretched out to sea to use my binoculars, so having someone call the birds is the norm, highlights for me were the Shy Albatross for lifer number 600 and seeing the sheer number of seabirds that flock around the trawlers.

Early February was time to get to the Kruger National Park and we spent the day with Peter Lawson birding around Nelspruit and Kaapsehoop. The target bird was the pair of Blue Swallows, the glimpse I got as it flashed past us after waiting for ages on the hillside was frustrating and so was trying to get onto a calling Red-faced Cisticola, so some lifers are less rewarding than others and that has been a pattern throughout the Big Year. I enjoyed seeing the Cut-throat Finches in Nelspruit more than I did the Swallow.

Another challenging bird was flushing Harlequin Quails at Selati Game Reserve. Pete Backwell had organised Marius Swart for the weekend, the three of us were determined to find the quails which had made an influx into the area. So instead of languishing on the deck of the lodge we were out in the midday heat trekking through the grass to get an elusive glimpse.

Who can forget our morning walk at Delta, meeting Geoff Lockwood as he was birding his patch from the roof of the Delat Environmental Centre, when he called a Ovambo Sparrowhawk, another new bird for the year.

Frank Mabasa at Pafuri Picnic Spot helped us with the Bohm's Spinetails and Johnson from Pafuri Camp was a great help with the Green-capped Eremomela and getting Fred to a rural clinic for stitches after cracking his head on a fall down the mountain.

Lucky Ngwenya is a legend in Wakkerstroom and we have had good days with him over the years. No less so in late summer this year with Nikki and Geoff, it was an 'uber twitch' with everything from crows to Botha's Larks on our lists. Wakkerstroom added 6 lifers and 17 birds for the Big Year.


The guiding highlight of my year was undoubtedly the holiday to Namibia in April. I had booked a specialised birding holiday with Limosa, a UK tour operator, which was a first for both Fred and me, to access time with Callan Cohen.


I loved the whole experience, finding the Namibian specials like the Dune Lark in the Red Dunes near Walvis Bay; the gorgeous Rosy-faced Lovebirds; watching Callan 'at work' mimicing a Pearl-spotted Owlet to call in bird parties; doing our lists of an evening over supper; ringing birds at Hobatere with Steve Brain; the vastness of Etosha; the list is endless and the birding was spectacular.


As you can see in the photo I am happy, raring to go and waiting for Callan to get all his equipment organised.


After the couple of weeks of birding with Callan and the group, I felt quite bereft to be alone again in the Jeep and felt incompetent to find my own birds! Young Salvation from Drotsky's Camp in Botswana soon put that right though. We had a few glorious days with him on the Kavango River, first time was for the Pels Fishing Owl and on our return trip in September for African Skimmers.

I suppose Mark Paxton from Shamvura Lodge would rate as the most eccentric guide for the year, fearlessly thrashing through the reed beds while I am keeping an eye out for the wildlife and back at the camp feeding his pet otter a bottle. He did deliver us one of the most spectacular birds of the year, the Souza's Shrike.

David Letsoalo showed us around Magoebaskloof and a big thrill was seeing the Side-striped Jackals along with the many forest specials of the area and the secretive Barratt's Warbler made it onto my list. The Soutpansberg was a revelation for me having never stopped long enough in Louis Trichardt as we rushed further north to Zimbabwe. Samson Mulaudzi loves showing people his special spots and we came back twice. The African Broadbill and African Finfoot had been once off fleeting glimpses on my life list and we were able to really spend time watching both these species with Samson.

Drummond Densham from Howick kindly spent time with me one morning in winter in the Midlands and we had an amble around the beautiful Benvie Gardens. Stuart Groom also gave up a morning of his time to guide us to his stake out for the Yellow-throated Sandgrouse, what a thrill to see the 'squadrons' coming in to land and drink at the waterhole.

Birding with Japie Claassen and sharing his love for the great open spaces of the Karoo was an iconic experience and once again the birds captivated us, finding a pair of Burchell's Coursers with chicks in the barren, vast rock strewn gravel plain was serendipitous and yet another memorable moment for all of us, as was the scrumptious lamb braais.

Our last week of the Big Birding Year was spent in the company of the guides who work the Zululand Birding Route - Themba Mthembu, Michael Blose, Junior Gabela and Jotham Maduna. We waded into the Richards Bay Estuary with Michael for my first glimpse of Greater Sand Plovers, the grasslands of St. Lucia with Themba for the Rosy-throated Longclaw, the misty Engoye Forest with Jotham for Green Barbets and successfully flushed quails with Junior. Such good days among the very different habitats of Northern Kwa-Zulu Natal.

The last words to everyone who helped me, thank you.

It's not about the Birds

So much of the pleasure I experienced during my Big Birding Year was listing, recording and writing about my travels once I got back from our trips. So to take a lead from Lance Armstrong's book, this year has not been about birds.

It has taken us to wonderful places, we have spent time together (at times stressful and at other times restful), we have met interesting people along the way and we are more in tune with the seasons and the world around us. I have birded in the cold, the wind, the heat, the rain, the mist, the dark and on land and out to sea. It has not all been pleasant either, I found the pelagic trips very challenging, I have been bitten by any number of unknown insects and had a bad case of tick-bite fever too.

I have kept detailed records of all my sightings, both birds and mammals, throughout the year as well as recording the distances we travelled to get to all our targeted birds and the days we spent in the field birding. The main purpose of the Big Birding Year was to resee my list and I only missed reseeing 30 birds, I got to 95%!

I worked consistently on the list and birded throughout the year, weekends at home we would pop out to local hotspots here in Gauteng or I planned trips to key destinations around South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. As can be seen in the graph below the numbers ticked up slowly and surely all year and I ended up seeing 657 birds, way beyond my expectations given my starting point of 592.

I added 95 lifers to my list which was a real bonus to the Big Year, highlights for lifers were Namibia and Botswana in April with Callan Cohen where I added 32 birds to my list , the dreaded pelagic trips added 16 birds, the Shy Albatross was bird number 600 for me, just incredible. The Karoo in September with Japie Claassen which added 7 and our final week birding the Zululand Birding Route where I got another 9 lifers. Some birds were ridiculously easy like the splitting of the Olive Thrush and 'ticking' the Karoo Thrush in our garden, to really challenging birds like finding the single pair of Blue Swallows at Kaapsehoop with Peter Lawson or spending several frustrating hours following the calling Harlequin Quails at Selati Game Reserve.
I learnt about commitment this year in a different kind of way. The singlemindedness of the task at hand required determination to keep going no matter whether I wanted to or not or how I was feeling at the time. I spent 153 days birding or 42% of the year.....
And we certainly did the hours and hours on the road in the trusty Jeep, more than 45000 kilometers on road, in the air and out to sea. Our spring month was a biggie with a trip to Cape Town for a pelagic outing and the West Coast National Park, then to Giants Castle in the Drakensberg with June and Ross for the Bearded Vulure as well as the Karoo trip!

Well its official, we could have circumnavigated the earth, we did over 45000 kilometers for the Big Birding Year!

Amatikulu

Amatikulu at dawn from the whale watching tower...

The sms came through just after 2am that the rain had stopped and we were to meet Junior at 4am at the Tollgate on the N2 just before the turn off to Amatikulu Nature Reserve. So for the last time for the Big Birding Year we were up at 'sparrow's, in fact before any sparrows were even calling, having coffee and a rusk and packing our picnic basket for breakfast.

Our destination for the day was Amatikulu a small reserve which occupies a narrow strip along the coastline north of Durban. It has an intriguing number of habitats - coastal, riparian and sand forest, grasslands, lala palm bushveld, an estuary and a (now dry) freshwater pan. We tackled both the walking trail and the 4x4 trail - Fred is in his element each time there is a trail for the Jeep.

Well the Jeep won over the day as all our birds for the morning were out in the grasslands, like this Little Bee-eater.

We have spent a good many hours over the last days with our bird guides looking and phishing for Grey Waxbills. Such a delight to eventually find a pair, they looked beautiful with their dove grey and red rumps against the moody sky.

The drive across the grasslands was amazing with Black-rumped Buttonquail running ahead of the Jeep on the dirt track and stopping to hide in the centre grass. We also flushed a Common Quail which we identified in flight. Such a treat to add these birds to my life list and along with the Grey Waxbills made the day a real success and an appropriate way to round off the Big Year.

The stars of the day though were a pair of Crested Guineafowl, who must be our most comical bird in Southern Africa and these photos are a fabulous tribute to these birds of the sand forest and a really wonderful week of birding along the Zululand Birding Route.