Marakele NP birding, May 2013

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• List of birds

With a long drive ahead of us, we left on Friday afternoon immediately after work, first dropping off Nicola's cats at the in-laws and then first grunting through Friday afternoon traffic and finally grimacing over the crappy R511 north of Brits. In Thabazimbi it took us a short while to find our B&B for the night which was pleasant enough and after some dinner and finishing off a few emails, it was off to bed.

At 6am we picked up our packaged breakfast, packed quickly and drove to Marakele as the sun still struggled over the eastern horizon. Arriving at the gate around 06:20, we were summarily told that the gate only opens at 7am, despite us confirming on the SANParks website that it opens at 6am. A little huffed, we sat in the car eating breakfast but while doing so, also listing our first birds: Southern pied babbler, Southern yellow-billed hornbill, Brown-crowned tchagra, Cape glossy starling. The reception staff only showed up at 07:10 and after I gave them a piece of my mind we were finally in the park. It was still cool and with high clouds obscuring the sun as well, it didn't look like it was going to warm up much during the day. We made our way north along the roads, adding a number of common bushveld birds including Southern white-crowned, Crimson-breasted and Magpie shrikes, before driving into the eastern section of the park and heading up Kransberg. The drive to over 2000m altitude is still breath-takingly beautiful and around the top we got virtually all the birds we were hoping to get including Short-toed and Cape rock-thrushes, Cape bunting, Mocking cliff, Familiar and Buff-streaked chats, Cape vultures and Gurney's sugarbirds. After a quick bite to eat we headed down again and did the Mbidi loop past Tlopi tented camp - the road here definitely needs a high-clearance vehicle. I think this used to be part of the 4x4 trails of the park and apparently they haven't changed much of it. But it was a pretty drive and we got a nice surprise in the form of Yellow-bellied greenbuls just before Tlopi. Back in the western section we stopped off at the bird hide overlooking a sad excuse for a dam and then made our way to Bontle campsite. The tent was up quickly and after a lazy afternoon we had dinner and then headed for the tent.

The sun wasn't up yet as we left for the picnic site to have breakfast. The birds were very quiet here but as the sun rose, the calls got louder too and we connected with three bird parties, each holding around 15 species or so. Highlights included Southern pied babbler, Crimson-breasted shrike, Chinspot batis, Lesser honeyguide, Yellow-bellied greenbul, Long-billed crombec, Grey-backed camaroptera, Grey tit-flycatcher, Red-headed weaver, African hoopoe, Green-winged pytilia and Great sparrow. By 10am we were back in the campsite to pack up our bedding and tent before making our way home.

A nice little weekend break - Marakele's western section is still one of the classic bushveld birding sites and the eastern section still spectacular. The summer will hold many more birds but we're still a little scared of the heat...

Drakensberg Apr 2013

Links

• List of birds

Brian, Rhona and Tamsyn spent the night at our place and just after 8am on Friday morning we left, driving to first to Harrismith via Bethal and Standerton. In Harrismith we had Nando’s for lunch before spending 2 hours to get to Bergville on the road past Sterkfontein dam. The road is in horrendous condition and although there’s some pretense in fixing it (chevrons in the middle of the road with an occasional Stop/Go section that’s universally ignored), there are actually kosmos growing through the middle of the road in places. What a disgrace – it’s going to be a very long time before I’ll attempt driving this particular route again. Despite the road, we arrived in the Cathkin area in good time and it was a glorious afternoon as we pulled into our accommodation at the Bergview estate just outside Drakensberg Sun hotel. After unpacking the cars and getting settled, we started a fire and soon after Rhona and Nicola’s cousin Richard and his friend Andrew showed up. Our firewood turned out to be miserable braai wood and after getting a smoky flavour we had to stick all our meat in the oven to get cooked. After a great dinner we played 30 Seconds until past midnight, wished Brian a very happy birthday and turned in.

Tentative plans to go for an early morning birding walk evaporated quickly in the morning as we lazed around the house at breakfast and later strolled down to the hotel and its lake. Around 11:30 we drove to the Waffle hut outside Winterton to celebrate Brian’s birthday and then visited several craft and souvenir shops on the R600, eventually getting back home around 3pm. Another lazy afternoon was followed by an excellent dinner. While Andrew and Richard went to watch a local comedian at the hotel, the rest of us had our own comedy session while playing three rounds of 30 Seconds. It was another late night but after 12, not even the coffee could keep us awake anymore and off to bed we went.

Sunday morning was definitely going to see some birding getting done. Rhona, Brian and Tamsyn left to spend the day at Cathedral Peak while Nicola and I took the trail up to the Grotto birding in the forest along the way. Initially we struggled a little finding the path but when we did it was nice and easy walking. Apart from a few common birds on the way into the forest, we picked up Brown-throated martin, White-rumped swift and Southern boubou. The forest itself had many parties of Cape white-eyes that seemed to follow us because around every corner was a group of four or more feeding in the low and mid stratums. On several occasions these were joined by Yellow-throated woodland warblers and even two Forest canaries that made a quick appearance. A strange looking bird had us perplexed for a short while but after browsing the field guide we discovered it was a ruddy form Olive bush-shrike. We had great views of this pretty bird sitting at times only 2 metres from us. Bar-throated apalis and Cape batis were also common but our sighting of day was certainly a short but cracking view of a Bush blackcap – our first for KZN! Higher up in the forest we also heard Sombre greenbuls before we arrived at the Grotto around 11am and sat down for a quick bite to eat and some water. Then we proceeded up the trail, quickly climbing out of the forest where the Canopy Tour starts. From here it was just a matter of walking down the dirt road back to the hotel and we reached the house some time after mid-day. A shower and lunch was followed by a lazy afternoon before getting another braai fire ready for dinner. Brian, Rhona and Tamsyn arrived around 5pm and we spent the rest of the evening chatting about all the fun we had during the day.

With plans of doing some birding along the way back home, we had to get an early start. At 7am, Nicola, Tamsyn and I were ready to go and after a tearful goodbye, we were on our way. Our first stop was Spioenkop dam Nature Reserve. A few distinctive calls like that from Golden-tailed woodpecker and Chinspot batis greeted us as we entered the reserve and while still on the tarred section we got a nice surprise: Brown-backed honeybird. In the thornveld we added a number of typical bushveld species but nothing of particular interest. The dam itself had very little to offer but as the tracks in the reserve seemed to be much more extensive than indicated on the map, we thought it a good idea to return to the reserve on a future trip. At 10am we turned around and paid a visit to Ladysmith's sewerage works. This was unfortunately quite a let-down. Despite a very helpful lady pointing out where we could watch birds, the place is unsafe, completely overgrown and has zero facilities for birders. After picking up Yellow-billed egret, African purple swamphen, a few White-faced ducks and an African pied wagtail, we left. It was now already almost noon and with a long way ahead of us, we got onto the N11 back home. Between Ladysmith and Newcastle we ran into a 15km section of road works where they forced you to drive 40km/h on average by putting up speedbumps every few 100m. Having bounced over 57 of these in more than 30 minutes it took us to drive this section, we had little pleasant to say about the current condition of SA roads. This was not helped by another stretch of 43km of horrendous road between Amersfoort and Morgenzon. For the past 5 years we have not been able to drive anywhere in the country without running into major road works, pathetic roads or countless Stop/Go sections. We wonder if it will ever end... But there's no point about complaining about this as we had a fantastic time in the 'Berg with friends and family and we look forward to seeing them again, hopefully in the not-too-distant future.

Dar es Salaam birding, Mar 2013

Links

• List of birds

After a business visit to Tanga on Tanzania’s north coast, I was able to add 2 days at the end of the trip to do some birding around Dar es Salaam. I made contact with a local bird guide, Andrew Majembe, but unfortunately he was not available and passed me on to two of his friends, Salvatore and Filbert. On Friday morning, 29 March, disaster struck Dar es Salaam when a multi-storey building in the same block where my hotel stood, collapsed, killing at least 34 people. During my entire stay there was the constant noise of heavy machinery and ambulances, trying to get to trapped survivors. It also made it getting into and out of the area problematic and traffic was an absolute mess. But when the two guides came to pick me up very early on Saturday morning, at least the crowds of people have dissipated somewhat and we were able to get out of the area quickly. We started birding north of the harbour on the beach road but as the tide was in, there were no sea- or shore birds around. The only interesting things we saw were Yellow-throated longclaw and African pipit. We got on the harbour ferry and made our way to Kibugumo where we walked around some woodland patches in between cultivated land. Sombre greenbul, Emerald-spotted wood dove, White-browed coucal, Klaas’s cuckoo, Water thick-knee and Black-collared barbet were all calling in the morning heat and it was not long before I added my first lifer for the day: Zanzibar red bishop. Little bee-eaters were quite common and after we also heard Tropical boubou, Green-backed camaroptera and Black-crowned tchagra, we had fantastic views of Collared palm-thrush. As we strolled across a soccer field I noticed something sitting on a telephone wire that didn’t quite look like the omnipresent House crows. We strolled a little closer until I could definitely see that it was some kind of goshawk. Treading softly to not scare it, we crept even closer and then finally we were able to distinguish clearly the yellow facial markings – it was my second lifer for the trip, an Eastern chanting goshawk. It was an hour and a half's drive from here to Dondwe forest where we parked and had a bite to eat before starting a walk. We had to use one of the local village boys as a guide but the chosen path soon disappeared into heavy tangles and we had to turn around. Choosing a different path we skirted the edge of what turned out to be more slash-and-burn cultivation than actual forest. Even so, birds heard or seen included Gorgeous and Orange-breasted bush-shrikes, my first Broad-tailed paradise whydah and Grey tit-flycatcher. It was a long drive back to Dar es Salaam and the idea of making a quick pass at the woodcarver's market in Mwengi was a bad one as the traffic was horrendous. It took us over 3 hours to get back to Dar, quickly buy a mask at the market and return to my hotel. With only 46 birds ID'd for the morning the birding was not particularly great but considering that we were mostly still within Dar es Salaam and I did add 3 lifers, it was OK. Hopefully next I'd be able to head out a bit further into some proper forest.