Borakalalo National Park birding Jan 2010

Links

• List of birds
• Record list of birds

We're back from a fantastic weekend at Borakalalo National Park! Not only did we break our record number of birds in a day, but we saw African finfoot! We arrived at the entrance gate on Friday shortly before our friends Darrell and Liza. We pitched our tents at Moretele river camp and went to bed early, ready to get up at 4am. While the others still slept, Nicola and I got up at 4am and left for the low water bridge below the Klipvoor dam wall. The weather was threatening and before we got halfway it started raining. This did not bode well for our plans for the day but with lightning and thunder in the distance we hoped it would soon pass. It was still very dark and raining when we reached the bridge so we parked the car a few 100m beyond and rested our eyes a little until the rain let up about half an hour later. As it started getting lighter and the birds started singing we added our first few birds for the day. Back at the birdge we scanned the river up and down and got Grey heron and Little egret before Nicola saw an unfamiliar shape on a log above the water, only about 4m away. One look at the bright orange feet and we knew - it was African finfoot! At first we could almost not believe it as it was sitting quite still on the log preening itself, seemingly unaware of our presence. We took a few blurry pictures (it was 05:30 and the light was still terrible) before it entered the water and swam upstream and disappeared in the shore reeds.

We drove up to Pitjane fishing camp and picked up Blackcrowned night heron, Whitebrowed scrub robin, Redbacked shrike and Black heron before returning to the low water bridge on our way to the western section of the park. And what a surprise! There was the same finfoot on the same log! This time we had much better light and took a few good pictures as it blissfully dried itself and preened 4m away from us! It was clearly a juvenile (black bill) and haven't yet read the book on how finfoots are supposed to behave. Satisfied that we had enough pictures, we finally left. There were still many clouds around but the heat rose as the day got on. On the Serolo loop and the two hides at the wetland we picked up Chestnutvented titbabbler, Dusky indigobird, Violetbacked starling, Jacobin and Levaillant's cuckoos as well as many other common ones. We drove past the low water bridge again on the way to the southern section and added Purple roller and Southern carmine bee-eaters. To our dismay, the sectino of road immediately next to the dam where we saw many birds the last time we were here, was closed, possibly due to high water levels. Even so, Redcrested korhaan, Crimsonbreasted shrike, Redbilled buffalo weaver and Longtailed paradise whydah were easy to add and when we did get to the dam shore, Yellowbilled stork, Purple heron and Whitewinged tern helped our list along. At Sefudi dam we added Yellow bishop and Pintailed whydah but our attention was caught when two moorhens on the far shore finally swam into good view and we realized the paler colour and obviously yellow bill meant they were Lesser moorhen! Another lifer for both of us! Unfortunately these were too far away to take pictures. We waited at the hide for a terrific afternoon thunder storm to pass before heading back to camp. With the storm passed, the birds got vocal again and Common and Violeteared waxbills, Sabota lark, Southern pied babbler, Lesser grey shrike, Redbilled oxpecker, Marico flycatcher, Shafttailed whydah and even Doublebanded sandgrouse got picked up.

Yet again we stopped off at the low water bridge on our way to camp. Darrell and Liza arrived shortly after us and we compared notes of the day's outing. Together we walked around the area a bit and added Speckled pigeon, Whitethroated swallow and Yellowbilled kite before heading back to camp for dinner. While preparing dinner, we counted our tally for the day and were ecstatic to find we had 122 on the list - we beat our previous record with a single bird! The next day we planned to leave around noon and didn't hope to break any records. Still, we managed to get six kingfishers (Giant, Pied, Woodland, Brownhooded, Pygmy and Halfcollared) and four woodpeckers (Cardinal, Goldentailed, Bennet's and Bearded) between the regulars. Follow the link above to see some photos of the finfoot.