Links
With the good rain we and Zululand had in October, it looked like a perfect plan to drive down to Mkuze Game Reserve for a weekend's birding. However, things went a bit pear-shaped on Friday afternoon shortly after I picked Nicola up from work. We had 5 hours to drive the 400 odd kms to Mkuze before the gate closed at 7pm - not a lot of breathing space considering that most of the road there has a speed limit of 100km/h and frequently down to 80km/h. Ten minutes after we left Nicola's work, just on the other side of the N4 towards Ermelo, the X-trail's front left brakes suddenly seized up completely. Thinking fast, we decided to take the wheel off and smack the disk brakes a couple of blows to loosen whatever was going on, drive back home and swap cars. In a flat panic of blurred action, Nicola jacked the car while I loosened the nuts and then took the wheel off. We couldn't see anything wrong so I just gave the brakes a few hits with the tire iron, put the wheel back on and literally in less than 10 minutes, we were on our way back home. Hitting the brakes seemed to have helped as the car didn't lurch to a stop now if I eased off the accelerator and we couldn't smell the burning brake pads anymore. But now we started to worry about getting to Mkuze before the gates closed. Driving as fast as I dared, we got back home safely and in about 6 minutes tossed all our stuff from the Xtrail to the Jazz, washed hands re-set the alarm and were off again by 14:35. But now we had lost a very precious 45 minutes or so and it was going to be tight. The next four hours flew past at breakneck speed as I sped and overtook the countless trucks on the Mpumalanga roads. It took us a frustrating 30 minutes to get through Ermelo, now in such a state of poor traffic control and endless road works that we swore to not drive through there again in at least 3 years. Outside Ermelo I was able to pick up some speed and also made up some time once we hit the KZN roads. Finally, as dusk became night, we drove the last 20km gravel road to the entrance gate, entering the reserve at 18:45 just as the gate guard was walking up from the camp site to lock up for the night. Incredibly relieved, we relaxed as we drove the last 10kms to the reception and found our hut open with the keys in the door. Nicola's snackwich dinner was gulped down before we passed out after a stressful afternoon.
When my alarm woke us at 04:30, the first birds had already started calling and before we left the camp at 5am, we had Red-chested cuckoo, Emerald-spotted wood dove, Crested guineafowl, Chinspot batis, Green-backed camaroptera and Grey tit-flycatcher on the list. We first headed down to the kuMasinga hide but found it occupied by a family noisily having breakfast and didn't stay long. We then followed directions to a flowering bush south of the kuMasinga hide where Brian Wilson has possibly seen a Plain-backed sunbird the previous weekend. The directions were perfect but unfortunately the weather wasn't. Although pleasantly cool, a stiff south-easter had started blowing and we found the flowering bush devoid off any birds, let alone a Plain-backed sunbird. However, the birding was still reasonably good and we ticked the usuals at regular intervals, including Orange-breasted and Gorgeous bush-shrikes, Black- and Brown-crowned tchagras, Senegal lapwing, Common scimitarbill, Sombre and Yellow-bellied greenbuls, Terrestrial brownbul, Black, Diderick, Klaas's and African cuckoos, Collared, Marico, Purple-banded and Scarlet-chested sunbirds among many others. At the Nsumo pan hides, the wind howled across the lake and it was decidedly unpleasant. We stuck around long enough to pick up Wooly-necked and Yellow-billed storks, African openbill, African jacana, Glossy ibis and an excellent sighting of an Osprey. We turned north and made a quick pass of the airstrip where a single African pipit was seen and a few Crowned lapwings harassed a passing Yellow-billed kite. We spent lunch at the Inhlonhlela hide but this yielded nothing new. On our way back to Mantuma camp we heard our sixth cuckoo for the day: African emerald cuckoo. A quick stop at Mantuma for our exit permit for the next day was followed by a drive back towards the entrance gate. Large sections of Mkuze had burned this year and after some good rains, the entire Mkuze looked like paradise - it was incredibly green with new shoots all over, dense grass and bush having burned away so you could scan deeper into the veld and it seemed that all the animals were also enjoying this bounty tremendously. We paid a visit to the Thaleni picnic site and Malibala hide that has unfortunately seen better times but added a number of good birds like Rufous-naped and Sabota larks, Red-fronted and Yellow-rumped tinkerbirds and then spent 10 minutes watching a very tame Black-bellied bustard picking up grasshoppers and calling it's peculiar champagne-cork pop. We were back at our hut just after 5pm with dusk starting and the strong wind still blowing. We made a quick dinner in the shared kitchen and heard Fiery-necked nightjar calling before heading for bed. We ID'd 99 birds for the day - certainly not the best Mkuze can offer but then the wind we had all day definitely hampered birding, especially at Nsumo pan.
Sunday morning we were up at 4am, packed the car after breakfast and were off by 5am. Our hope was that the wind would die down overnight so we could spend some time at the Nsumo pan hides. This was not to be as the wind was still going and had brought some heavier clouds with it too. So instead of making for Nsumo pan, we enjoyed slow birding towards the hides and picked up all the common birds we expect plus also Grey penduline-tit, lots of Yellow-throated petronia, Lesser honeyguide and heard a Jacobin cuckoo calling. At the pan hides we added Water thick-knee together with all the other birds we saw the previous day. it was however now already 9am and time we started heading back. We made another quick turn at the Plain-backed sunbird bush but again not a single sunbird in sight. KuMasinga hide proved an excellent last stop with Crowned hornbill, Yellow-bellied greenbul, African cuckoo, Swuare-tailed drongo, and undoubtedly our entire weekend's highlight: a cracking good view of two Pink-throated twinspots - only our second time ever and more than five years since we last saw them, also at Mkuze! With such a high, we had to turn our backs on another excellent Mkuze trip and headed home, this time driving a much more relaxed (although 30km longer) route via Amsterdam and Carolina, arriving to a Middelburg plunged in yet another complete power black-out. Thank you Eskom!
No comments:
Post a Comment