Lesser black-backed gull twitch, Korsman Bird Sanctuary, 08 Jun 2014

With news since the start of June that a Lesser black-backed gull has been hanging out at the Korsman Bird Sanctuary in Benoni, we thought it might be a good twitch if it was still around over the weekend of 7-8 June. Reports on Friday and Saturday indicated that it was, so at 4am on Sunday morning we were up and quickly drove the 140km stretch to Benoni. At the edge of the sanctuary, other birders were already waiting in the freezing cold and together we stomped our feet, carefully checking each and every gull that approached a series of posts about 30m away. By 07:00 there was nothing yet, so we took a slow drive around the sanctuary, also looking for White-backed and Maccoa ducks. We didn't get either of these but did see Purple, Black-headed and Squacco herons, Cape shoveler, White-faced whistling duck and heard Lesser swamp and Little rush warblers. Back at the gull's supposedly favourite post, it was still freezing and no sign of the gull. Other people started showing up and tried to optimize our chances by positioning themselves at other spots around the perimeter of the fence. Around 8am we got news that it was spotted on a small rocky island on the western side so we rushed off to join another three groups looking for it. The island was unfortunately a fair distance away and the angle of the rising sun made viewing worse - none of us could re-locate it. Then another call came in that it was again sitting on it's favourite post and we all dashed around the corner and found it casually perched perfectly next to a Grey-headed gull for comparison. We took a number of pictures but to be honest, it's not the world's most exciting bird and with Nicola still having some work to be done at home, it was time to go. Another quick drive around the sanctuary netted African wattled lapwing and after our fellow birders directed us to Bullfrog pan for Black-necked grebe we paid a quick visit to this pan as well. At Bullfrog we found both Maccoa and White-backed ducks, African purple swamphen and Malachite kingfisher. There were a number of birds on the opposite side of the dam and another group of birders with a scope picked out what might be Black-necked grebes but it was so far away, even in the scope, that we just couldn't be comfortable with the ID. But three new annual list species, including a lifer, was a great success for a few hours birding on a Sunday morning and we headed home feeling very satisfied with the day's work.