Swaziland and Ndumo Game Reserve birding Jan 2010

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• List of birds

Arriving back from Lesotho we had a day to relax and watch movies before we left first for Swaziland, then for Ndumo Game Reserve in northern Kwazulu Natal. At 04:30 on the Wednesday we were on our way and entered Swaziland shortly after 8am at the Sandlane border post. We had a poor section of road to negotiate before getting to better surfaces that led to Mlilwane Game Reserve. Although they don't host the Big 5, its one of the Royal game parks in Swaziland and we spent the rest of the day driving up mountainous roads and counting birds. We didn't add any lifers here but spent a relaxing night in a hut. On New Year's eve we exited through the Luvamisa border post, drove over the Pongola dam wall and a potholed 50km to get to Ndumo. It was literally hot as hell. After we checked in we drove around for a while, but with humidity at 100% and temperature averaging 40 degrees C, it wasn't long before we fled to our airconditioned hut for the afternoon.

The next morning we took a guided walk down to the Pongola river and got Yellowbellied greenbul, Redfronted tinkerbird, Woollynecked stork, Saddlebilled stork, Orangebreasted bush shrike, Yellowrumped tinkerbird, White-eared barbet and Yellowbilled stork among others. It was hot and sweaty and the forest floor came alive with clouds of mosquitoes. The rest of the mornig we drove around the park and added a few more before going on an afternoon/night drive at 4pm. At one of the pans we picked up a lot of waders including Common, Marsh and Wood sandpipers, Kittlitz's, Common ringed and Threebanded plovers. There were also Openbills, Blackwinged stilts, Greenshanks, Water thickknees and Yellowbilled storks. However, the sighting of the trip was undoubtedly a single Broadbilled roller, easily identifiable with the thick yellow bill. We drove until 9pm that night and although we saw Squaretailed and Fierynecked nightjars, none of them were calling and no owls presented themselves either.

On the 2nd of Jan we did another early morning walk at Shogwe and got another Broadbilled roller, Gorgeous bush shrike, Blackbellied starling, Rudd's apalis, Bluemantled crested flycatcher, Collared sunbird, Narina trogon, African green pigeon and quite a few others. After the walk we drove to the hide at Nyamithi pan, then walked across the flood plain to another hide on the opposite shore. We added Thickbilled weaver and a few other common birds but as I was trying to identify a flitting sunbird, a bittern flew right in front of my binoculars. Although I had a pretty good look at it, I barely had time to shout "Bittern!" before it disappeared. Roberts field guide identified it as Eurasian bittern, quite a rare bird in South Africa. Nicola was upset that she didn't see it, and I was sorry it didn't really sit still for us all to have a good look at it.

Next morning we were up and away early. We had a long drive home so didn't do any birding. Besides, it was cloudy and drizzly. It was an uneventful drive home and although our daily tallies didn't exceed 100 birds, we added 2 lifers.