Dullstroom Flufftail Festival, Feb 2017

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• List of birds 

The Flufftail Festival is arranged every three years to raise money for conservation and to give birders the opportunity to see one of Africa's rarest birds - the mythical White-winged flufftail. Their nesting grounds in Ethiopia are under threat and in South Africa, they occur only at three sites, two of which are closed to the public and only accessible during this festival.

Work forced me to attend a meeting in Cape Town on Friday and I only got back home shortly before midnight. Unwilling to try and drive through to Dullstroom at this hour, we had cancelled Friday night's accommodation and decided to drive through very early on Saturday morning. After just three hours of sleep my alarm went off and the strong coffee and shower did little to keep me awake. We left home just before 4am and arrived at the Highland Golf Estate shortly before 6am. There were lots of cloud and mist - we were towards the end of a week-long rain spell caused by tropical storm Dineo and the locals haven't seen the sun in ten days. Consequently everything was soaked. Our first excursion for the weekend was a morning walk at the Estate with Ben von Willich. By 7am, there was a group of about 40 people and after driving about 3kms to a parking area, we split up into two groups, ours walking towards a large waterfall.
The walk followed the waterfall's stream for the most part and due to the recent rainfall, was swollen and very noisy. Birding was very slow but we did see Bokmakierie, Buff-streaked and Familiar chats, Cape rock-thrush, Rock martin, Cape grassbird, African black duck and Cape longclaw among a few others. The waterfall itself is quite stunning with a precipitous plunge of several stages, altogether close to a hundred metres tall. Descending down it would be a very serious undertaking.

Greater striped swallow collecting mud for a nest

Levaillant's cisticola

Female Amethyst sunbird

Male amethyst sunbird

Greater double-collared sunbird

We returned to the parking area and as Nicola and I still had to go collect keys for our night's accommodation, we drove back to Dullstroom, got our keys, and checked into Nettie's Nook - a very pleasant and comfortable two-bedroom apartment with a full kitchen and lounge. From late morning onwards, BirdLife South Africa had arranged several presentations back at the Highland Golf Estate so we drove back there and attended talks by Duncan McKenzie, Trevor Hardaker and Faansie Peacock - all of them very informative and entertaining. There were some more talks scheduled for the late afternoon but by now I was struggling to keep awake and we decided to call it a day and headed back to Dullstroom. Late afternoon was punctuated by more rain and struggles to switch off the underfloor heating and getting hot water in the shower. It was obviously an early night for us.

Sunday morning's excursion was the main reason that most people attended the festival - an organized flush attempt at Middelpunt wetland south east of Dullstroom. Hundred and twenty people were allowed on the excursion and to try and minimize the impact of so many people, we were asked to join up in groups of four to lessen the number of vehicles driving there. We knew virtually no-one at the initial muster point so we approached a few strangers to try and arrange a drive-together.

A Johannesburg couple kindly agreed to drive and made space for us in the back of their Fortuner. The drive to Middelpunt was quite slippery in places but we all arrived about twenty minutes after leaving Dullstroom. We were not allowed to enter the wetland area - instead, a few trained "flushers" were going to line up, dragging a line with plastic bags and bottles with pebbles in to make some noise. We were then to carefully watch everything they flush in the hope of spotting a White-winged flufftail. It took a good half an hour for everything to be set up and while we waited, we counted some birds: Levaillant's and Wing-snapping cisticolas, Black-headed heron, Grey-crowned crane, Cape longclaw and Cape crow. Finally the flushers started moving forward in line and we eagerly trained our binoculars just in front of them. Almost immediately a small rusty-red bird flew up and excitement pulsed through the long line of people. But it faded almost immediately - it was just a Red-chested flufftail. As the line of flushers started moving past us, all of us started walking single file parallel to the flushers and perpendicular to the line they formed. This was very wet work as the margins of the wetland had expanded significantly in the past week and very soon people gave up trying to keep their toes dry. As we walked along, a few other good birds were seen including Denham's bustard, Southern bald ibis, African snipe and three Marsh owls, flushed by the flushers. No White-winged flufftails though. We walked and walked, and the flushers flushed, but after almost two hours of walking through marshy grassland, we had not seen any. Finally, a halt was called on proceedings and we started walking back to our cars, almost two kilometers away. Arriving back at the cars we discovered that the couple that gave us a lift, had decided to leave early and left our daypack with someone who stayed behind. It was a little inconsiderate we thought but luckily managed to get a lift back with our friend and fellow bird club member, Dave. Dave dropped us off back in town and after dropping our keys off at Dullstroom Accommodation, we headed back home.

Flushers lining up to start the flush

Missing out on the White-winged flufftail was definitely disappointing. While driving back with Dave, we discussed this and came to the conclusion that all the rain of the past week has most likely forced the birds onto drier areas. Despite the dip, it was still a fairly pleasant and relaxed weekend and we really did enjoy the presentations on the Saturday. But unless we make plans to visit Ethiopia again, it looks like we'll have to wait another three years to try and see this bird.

Cycad hiking trail, Feb 2017

Hikers: Pieter, Nicola, Shirley, Lawrence, Lorraine

It was a blissfully short drive we had to do to Cycad’s basecamp – just 40kms! Just before we left home, Shirley phoned with a request to bring along a gas stove, in case threatening rain forced us to cook inside. Nicola and I arrived at the basecamp almost an hour before the others and discovered that another group would also be hiking the trail – they had the use of the second hut. When Shirley, Lawrence and Lorraine arrived it took us over an hour to catch up on all the news and happenings since we haven’t seen each other in over a year. The dark clouds that threatened earlier turned into nothing and by 5pm we had our braai fire going. A beautiful sunset accompanied our dinner and after, we played our video of Iceland and reminisced about one of our best holidays yet.

 

At the basecamp hut, Lorraine, Shirley and Nicola almost ready to go

Day 1 (18 Feb): We were doing the trail as a basecamp, rather than sleeping over at the Arendsnes camp – the other group was doing the trail as a backpack. It was slightly annoying that there were only two toilets and two showers for all of us together especially when the other group started hogging both sides despite a verbal agreement that each of our groups would stick to one side. Nevertheless, we all finished up and were walking by 7am. It was a very pleasant morning but the trail that was neatly mowed for the first hundred meters, very soon disappeared entirely. It was well-marked though and only occasionally we had to stand still a little to look for the markers. This did annoy me somewhat – if you need that many markers to be able to follow a trail, then it's not a good trail. Good trails you can follow without having any markers. Nicola and I birded as we walked as well. By 10am we had reached the lip of the Olifants river gorge and had nice views up and down the valley. We could see the Arendsnes camp on the edge some distance away but first we had to descend down to the river.

Olifants river gorge, Arendsnes camp perched on the edge in the upper left corner

Lawrence looking down the Olifants

With the trail so badly unkept, it was a little slippery and dangerous in places but we got to the bottom safely. Here another obstacle awaited us though: fields and fields of blackjacks. By the time we reached a spot where we could access the river, most of us spent almost half an hour cleaning off blackjacks while Lorraine took a dip in the river. Soon after we started the climb up to Arendsnes and reached it at noon on the dot. It really was a fantastic location for a camp, perched on a cliff edge, overlooking the Olifants valley. We sat on the braai deck to have lunch and not long after, the first of the other group arrived (this was their overnight stop).

Trail-side butterfly

 Our tummies full, we headed off again, walking through some convoluted boulder fields and grassland, arriving back at our basecamp at about 2pm. Although the morning was cool and pleasant, the afternoon had turned hot and nasty and we all headed for the shade on the hut’s verandah. The rest of the afternoon we rested and started our braai fire again around 5pm. Around 7pm we watched bats leaving the eaves of our hut with Nicola’s infrared phone camera and listened to the Fiery-necked nightjars calling.

Trail-side lizard

Day 2 (19 Feb): The night was a bit warmer than the previous one and sleep didn’t come too easy. But today’s walk was a bit shorter and we were on our way again by 7am, initially following the same trail as the day before. Soon we were at another viewpoint over the Olifants valley and this time descended into a side kloof that was a little more pleasant than the slippery non-maintained path of the previous day. Thankfully our path joined up with the other trail past the blackjack fields but the climb back to the top of the gorge was possibly a bit worse, at least at first, because again there was just no path whatsoever and we just walked marker to marker through the tall glass and scrambling over rocks and boulders. The steepness did eventually ease up as we walked in a side valley that started higher up on the plateau. From here we joined again the same trail back to the hut and reached it by 11am.

African pygmy kingfisher

Middelburg cycad

Looking upstream in the Olifants river valley

It was a pleasant weekend and really great to see good friends. The location and views on the hike were great, but the path, not so much.