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On Friday afternoon I picked Nicola up from work and we drove without incident through to Mkuze. I was dreading all the road works I remember from our Golden pipit twitch in December last year, but they have obviously finished some sections and there were only 5 Stop/Go obstacles. Even so, there was a fair amount of road that's still in very poor condition and the drive took us 5.5 hours. We decided to sleep at Mkuze instead of the B&B we booked outside the reserve - this would give us a head start on Saturday morning.
At 04:15 we got up, and in between packing up the tent and having a quick bite to eat, we recorded our first birds for the day: Fiery-necked nightjar, Red-chested cuckoo, Crested francolin, Grey tit-flycatcher, Gorgeous bush-shrike to name but a few. We were not allowed to drive before 6am so with the car packed and ready to go, we slowly birded the entire campsite. Black-bellied and Violet-backed starlings, Grey-headed and Orange-breasted bush-shrikes, Yellow-breasted apalis, Red-fronted tinkerbird, Cardinal woodpecker and Klaas's cuckoo were among the nicer records to add. By the time we left the campsite, we had 33 species on the list. Unfortunately we now only had 30 minutes to drive the 8km to the Mantuma office from where we would leave for the fig forest. Torn between driving 40km/h to get there, and stopping for the birds, it was frustrating to hear all the calls and not being able to look for the source. But we still managed to pick up 2 Senegal lapwings before pushing on! At the office we were a bit disappointed to discover seven other people already waiting for us. Last time we picked up our birding guide, drove ourselves to the fig forest and spent about 90 minutes in the forest. This time we drove in a reserve vehicle and never bothered to stop for all the birds we heard and saw along the way. At the fig forest we did pick up Rudd's apalis, Yellow-rumped tinkerbird, Trumpeter hornbill, Red-capped robin-chat, Purple-crested turaco and Square-tailed drongo, but with less than 30 minutes spent on the walk and our guide clearly not very interested in the bird life, we missed out on Narina trogon, African broadbill, Blue-mantled crested-flycatcher, White-eared barbet and a bunch of other forest birds we were hoping for. Disappointed that we wasted more than 2 hours of the best birding time in the day on the fig forest walk, we arrived back at the office just before 9am. We checked in quickly and then continued our quest for the record by driving to Nsumo pan, the airfield and then stopped for lunch at the Kumasinga hide. Apart from the common birds we also added Yellow-throated petronia, Striped kingfisher, Osprey, Wattled starling, Marico sunbird, Swee waxbill, Yellow-billed stork, White-browed robin-chat, Lesser masked weaver, Greater honeyguide, White-crested helmet-shrike, Red-billed oxpecker and Green-winged pytilia. After lunch we headed south and added Yellow-bellied eremomela, Bateleur, Little bee-eater, Bearded woodpecker, Gabar goshawk, Brown-crowned tchagra, Brown snake eagle and White-winged widowbird on the return loop. We finally stopped back at our booked hut at Mantuma camp at around 17:15 and saw some Little swifts overhead as our 119th bird for the day - we were still 7 short of our record but with a night drive due to start at 19:00, we were still hoping. We had a light dinner watching the deepening dusk outside and then walked over to the office just before 7pm. There were only 2 Britons on the drive with us and we had a very pleasant and cool drive (it was over 35 degrees during the day) and although we only added a Spotted thick-knee to our bird list, a sighting of a White-tailed mongoose was quite special as neither Nicola nor I have ever seen one.
Sunday, although starting with a cool morning, promised to be hot as well. Apart from the early birds heard, we also added a good sighting of Bearded scrub-robin in the parking area outside our hut. With no plans to break a record on this day, we slowly headed back to the Kumasinga hide, then down to Nsumo pan, back up to the airfield and then out of the park. We added many of the same birds as on Saturday but new ones included Yellow-bellied greenbul, Pearl-breasted swallow, Terrestrial brownbul, African harrier-hawk, Eastern nicator, Broad-billed roller, Pink-backed pelican, Green-backed heron, Collared sunbird, Jacobin cuckoo and Crowned hornbill. We were on our way home just after 10am. Before Pongola town we spotted Yellow-billed kite, African palm swift, Cattle egret, Pied crow and Common myna. A quick count of our daily tally showed us to be just short of a hundred birds already and since we knew of a number of road-side pans on the way back, we decided to stop at these and see if we could still have a serious go at our record. In the 20km radius of Ermelo we added Rock martin, Red-winged starling, White-winged tern, Pied starling, Glossy ibis and Cape shoveler plus a few others and then around Piet Retief, Marsh sandpiper, Cape longclaw, Purple heron, Lesser swamp warbler, Maccoa duck and Squacco heron - we now stood at 119 birds. Back in Middelburg around 4pm, we drove around past Athlone dam and around the leafy suburbs, adding Laughing dove, Cape white-eye, Cape sparrow, Olive thrush, Southern masked weaver, Grey-headed gull and Southern red bishop - we equaled our record! We unpacked and then Nicola went outside to water the garden quickly and spotted a group of Common waxbill in the garden! A bit of an anti-climax to break our record in this fashion but it still stands and give us a good motivation to go back to Mkuze to try again!
