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.