Etienne Marais discovered a Pacific Golden Plover while birding at Borakalalo National Park on 19 Oct 2014. With me traveling to Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban during the week and Nicola on standby over the following weekend, there wasn't really any hope for us twitching this summer vagrant. But when Nicola confirmed they'll be shutting down over Friday/Saturday, we decided to give it a go.
Saturday morning started with the awful sound of an alarm clock at 03:30. With 270kms to drive, we only took the time to make a flask of tea before jumping in the car. Luckily the roads were quiet so early on a Saturday morning and despite the horrendous road surface for the last 50kms north of Brits, the drive was incident-free and we arrived just after 06:30 at the Borakalalo entrance gate. There was already a queue of cars and I chatted to a few hopeful twitchers before we got let into the park. With the rush over, we reached the "parking area" where everyone's been leaving their vehicles to take a walk for a few hundred metres along the shore of a very empty Klipvoor dam. People who have already seen it, were leaving the viewing spot and confirmed that it was still there. Ten or so people, including park rangers, were standing about 40-50m from where the bird was standing on one leg just inside the small lapping waves of the dam. It was fantastic! It was fairly easy to make out the identifying characteristics but due to the distance, getting good photos was out of the question. Scared of disturbing it, we didn't want to approach any closer. After about 15 minutes watching it and trying to take the best possible photos, we left and took a short drive around the edge of the dam. Unfortunately we still had some other commitments to attend to that afternoon and at 10am we started the drive back to Pretoria. We stopped for an early lunch break along the Zaagkuildrift road and then paid a quick visit to Wonderboom Nature Reserve. After a visit to the parents, it was time to head home. Threatening thunder clouds urged us on and by 6pm we were back in Middelburg, very happy with our seventh successful twitch!
