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Friday after work we left for Hazyview and drove without incident via Sabie. This was our first weekend out with the Middelburg Bird Club and our chairman arranged some decent accommodation for all of us just outside Hazyview. There was still a bit of daylight left when we reached Sabie and we started atlassing on the last stretch towards Kwambali Riverside Lodge. It was early evening already so not many birds were around but we did pick up some African black swift, Black saw-wing, a great view of a Yellow-rumped tinkerbird and in the dark gloom of a pine plantation, an African goshawk. We checked in at Kwambali at 6pm, met Billy (Middelburg Bird Club chairman) and a few others and enjoyed views of a family of Mountain wagtails in the Sabie river flowing just outside our cottage. Feeling hungry, we decided not to braai and threw a couple of steaks in a pan and some roasties in the small grill in our cottage. It was quite humid but luckily not too hot and the fan in our lounge and bedroom helped a lot. After dinner we headed straight for bed, anticipating an early start on Saturday.
After a quick breakfast just after 4am, we started birding in the overcast dawn. The thick clouds did not help birding but hopefully it would ensure that the day didn’t become too hot. By the time we reached Kruger National Park’s Phabeni gate, we’d already logged twenty birds, including Purple-crested turaco, White-browed robin-chat, Black and Red-chested cuckoos, Sombre greenbul and Black-shouldered kite. Once inside the park, a light drizzle began to fall and we couldn’t hear too many birds. Still, a bedraggled small raptor gave us adequate views to ID it as a Eurasian hobby. We turned north onto the Sabie river road with the drizzle persisting. Despite this, we kept adding new species and just before the road started curving east, we were up to seventy birds for the day. A grassy clearing just on the curve had two cracker Senegal lapwings (our first sighting in Kruger NP) and by the time we reached Paul Kruger gate, we had IDd over a hundred birds and the drizzle had cleared. However, a quick visit to Lake Panic was a bit disappointing – only a single Squacco heron, Water thick-knee and Blacksmith lapwing were added. There was no sign of the usual weaver cacophony and kingfishers were limited to a couple of Brown-hooded and one Pied. We decided to make a quick turn through Skukuza camp to see if we could find more water birds in that section of the Sabie river. This proved fruitful but not because of the water birds! We parked at reception and walked through the gardens where we added both White-browed and White-throated robin-chats, African paradise flycatcher, a stunning view of a Yellow-bellied greenbul and a soaring Martial eagle. At the river things were quiet again but we did see Goliath heron, Wood sandpiper and Great egret before we left. With the afternoon dragging on and getting hot, we re-traced our drive from the morning. At 5pm we reached Phabeni gate again and stood at 133 species for the day. Hoping that we could get a few more back at Kwambali lodge, we rushed through Hazyview and got to our cottage at 17:30. Although we couldn’t find the Mountain wagtails again, we did pick up a calling Little rush warbler and finished the day on 134. It was the rugby world cup semi-finals between us and New Zealand today so we all sat nailed to the TV for the remainder of the game which sadly ended in a narrow loss. The whole group then got together at Kwambali’s communal lapa for a nice braai and chat. We saw some old acquaintances and met up with other members of the club. During dinner we all presented our tallies for the day – there were additional counts specifically for birds of prey, hirundines (swallows, martins, swifts) and club-defined specials. It seemed like we were on top of the birds of prey list and second from the top on the total species count – an excellent day’s birding! As the early morning started catching up with us, we bid a good night to all just after dinner and retired to our cottage.
Instead of birding a different area today, we thought that an early morning visit to Lake Panic could get us some new species, especially weavers. It was still dark when we left Kwambali but the sun rose into a clear sky just as we reached Paul Kruger gate around 05:15. The queue was short and soon we were heading for Lake Panic. Thankfully, only four other vehicles were there and we stayed for a good half an hour. The weaver nests were still ominously quiet but we did get a single Lesser masked weaver. A Malachite kingfisher and Wire-tailed swallow were further welcome additions and when we left the hide, we were already over fifty species. On the other side of Skukuza camp we saw a tall circling tower of vultures. Luckily we were able to stick with them as they started descending, finally ending up on a dirt road following the southern banks of the Sabie river. There was obviously a kill but unfortunately it was in the middle of the river and completely obscured. Strangely, there were no other cars and we had the spectacle all to ourselves – we worked our way through every single bird and ticked White-backed, Hooded, Lappet-faced and White-headed vultures, Marabou storks (lots) and a couple of Yellow-billed kites. With the day now heating up seriously we headed back to the Sabie river road and worked westwards to exit the park just after 11am. We had already seen over a hundred species on the day and figured we could get quite a few more on the drive home. A quick stop at Kwambali to drop our completed checklist and cottage keys, got us Cape white-eyes, Yellow-fronted canaries, Kurrichane thrush, Bar-throated apalis and a Long-crested eagle. Then we took a slow drive up towards Sabie, finished off our atlassing and added more birds (Southern double-collared sunbird, Steppe and Jackal buzzards, Bronze mannikin, Pied crow). With Long Tom pass behind us we descended into Lydenburg where we saw a Long-tailed widowbird and a Mallard at a small pond. Through Dullstroom we only added Ant-eating chat and both inland cormorants but in Belfast we were happy to add Pied starling and Speckled pigeon. Feeling confident that the lack of rain so far this season had created good mudflats at Wonderfontein and Leeuwfontein pans, we decided to make small detours to these. Without planning it, we now realized that we actually had a small chance of breaking our own daily record of 153 species. We reached Wonderfontein around 16:30 and it delivered big time! Right in front of us were three White-backed ducks – hands down the best view I’ve ever had of these uncommon ducks. Other birds included both White-winged and Whiskered terns, Wood sandpiper, Red-knobbed coot, Grey and Purple herons, Little and Great crested grebes, Grey-headed gull, Cape shoveler, Spurwing goose and Southern pochard. Surprisingly, no teals or other ducks. Adding a large raft of Greater flamingo from one of the other pans, we ticked twenty new birds for the day just from the pans – we now stood at around 150 species, give or take - we were in for a real good chance to break our record! Screeching to a stop just off the N4 highway at Leeuwfontein, it was obvious that this was going to be good stop. So we made the effort and drove to Alzu’s petrol station from where we picked up the farm track to the pan. Just driving the short 2kms to the pan was fantastic – Cape sparrow, Greater striped swallow, Capped wheatear (!), African stonechat, Pin-tailed whydah and Swainson’s spurfowl were all new. At the pan, the water level was so low that what is normally a small island, had grown into a bridge, splitting the pan in two shallow ponds with lots of waders around. African snipes were the most obvious birds around – there were probably about twenty of them. The waders were more difficult as they were almost impossible to approach on foot and just a bit far for our binoculars in the fading light. The only ones we were confident to add were Kittlitz’s plover, Little stint and Curlew sandpiper – there were lots of these three around and some were close enough to ID 100%. There probably were some Ruff and Common greenshanks too but they were so far off that we just couldn’t tick them with certainty. Other birds seen were African spoonbill, Cape longclaw, African pipit and flying around the bridge over the N4, Little swift and South African cliff swallow. Not entirely sure of our total count at this point, we decided to see what we can find at home. We rushed home as dark and angry clouds built in the west and got to Middelburg just before 6pm. Not expecting too much so late in the day, we were quite surprised to add a further eight new birds: Karoo thrush, Little egret, Cape weaver, Little rush warbler, Fan-tailed widowbird, Yellow-billed duck, Red-collared widowbird and Crowned lapwing. Wew! We parked at home and unloaded the car in the evening gloom and decided to have pizza for dinner. Still unsure of our final count we figured we could have pizza either in celebration or commiseration – time would tell!
Early on Monday morning I quickly entered all our birds into our database and found two duplicate entries we had to delete. But when I ran the final query and the total came back, I was ecstatic! One hundred and sixty eight species! And we weren’t even trying for the record until about 2pm! It was a wonderful weekend and we thoroughly enjoyed the trip so ably organized by Billy and the club. We finished with a total count (for the entire weekend) of 206 species, 17 (!) birds of prey, 11 hirundines and 15 specials (as defined by the club).
