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1 November 2006. Just back this evening from the Kalahari. I had returned to the Hotazel field camp after 3 weeks away to find that the old woodpecker nest-holes in the camelthorn above my trailer that I had hoped might be occupied by the African Scops-Owl had been re-inhabited by a pair of Bennett's Woodpeckers (see Hotazel gallery). A pair of Cape Glossy Starlings that seem to think the camelthorn belongs to them, chase the poor male unmercifully whenever he puts in an appearance.
On the owl front, though, as I was unpacking my bakkie on arrival, the call of Red-billed Buffalo Weavers caused me to look up into the camelthorn and see that the weavers were starting to rebuild all but one of last summers' abandoned nests - the other already had an occupant! A Southern White-faced Scops-Owl had found itself a very cosy roost (see Hotazel gallery).
The summer migrants are arriving. In the first half hour after my arrival I'd already chalked up one Jacobin, two African and three Black Cuckoos without even moving from the trailer! I'd also heard a Diederik. I've played cat and mouse with the cuckoos for a week trying to get photos - its actually more like Tom & Jerry, because I now know how poor Tom feels. A whole week and only one photo to show for it (the only one I was able to get!). It shows, well it's a large cuckoo, but not even good enough to tell if it's an African or Black! Unlike the smaller cuckoos and even the Jacobin and Levaillant's (Striped) the Black and African sit inside the tree canopy and not perched in the open, so when you can see it, well it can see you. It then takes off with a giddy weaving flight around trees and it is usually only when it starts to call again that you re-locate it - not just a few trees away but more likely a few hundred metres.
European Bee-Eaters, Common (European) Swifts (lifer) and Barn Swallows are everywhere and I've seen my first Spotted Flycatchers and Dusky Larks of the summer. The joys of the breeding season are also upon us and I've added both Desert Cisticola and Eastern Clapper Lark to my Hotazel list (now at 116, or 50% of all birds recorded for the sheet) due to their display antics. Three weeks away and the Black-chested Prinias are now just that!
Some 63mm of rain in the past few weeks has transformed the winter veld and several species that were absent or only poorly represented through the winter are now proving very common, such as Black-throated Canary (absent), Speckled Pigeon (absent) and Red-headed Finches (sparse) (see Hotazel gallery). The opposite is also true, with no Black-faced Waxbills in evidence, presumably moving back to drier climes, and the pairs of Short-toed Rockthrush and African Pygmy Falcon that were regular visitors to the exploration yard are nowhere to be seen.
Also, the young of several species are now conspicuous, particularly Swallow-tailed Bee-Eaters (see Hotazel gallery). A pair of South African Shelduck with 7 juveniles has set up home at the main waterhole. In the same vein, the Springboks are starting to lamb. I had not before realised just how small a newly-born Springbok is. This has led to an increased number of Black-backed Jackal sightings - their entree now being freely available! Also on the Photography Forum is my "shot of a lifetime" - a Pangolin, which I have not seen before outside of the pages of a book or a David Attenborough wildlife documentary!
Last Sunday morning I paid a visit to the vulture restaurant at the North-West Parks Board's Molopo Nature Reserve on the Botswana border near Vorstershoop. It was a truly amazing spot, with between 200 - 250 vultures feeding on the carcasses, and sitting on trees around the waterhole nearby (see Molopo gallery). Only 4 Lappet-faced among that 200+ (an addition to my North-West list), and I gave up trying to work out which, if any, were the Cape Vultures amonst all the White-backed. Well worth a visit, but really out of the way and its unlikely you'd make a special trip just to Molopo. Must be combined with something else - perhaps that trip into the Botswana side of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. An added bonus lifer (see Molopo gallery) was a Caspian Plover on the roadside in the small dorp (if it even qualifies as that) of Vorstershoop on my way back to Hotazel.
Between a week in Mapungubwe/Kruger, my back garden in Boksburg, a morning at Marievale and the past week and a bit near Hotazel, my species total for the calendar month of October clocked in at 289! This was the first time that I have passed 250 in a calendar month, and there have been several occasions in the past few years when I have combined a week in the Kruger with a week at some other venue. I suppose a good spread across Kalahari, Bushveld, Lowveld, Highveld and wetland habitats is the reason for this high total.
Neil Gray
P.S. I wrote this last night and just to make me eat my words, on the way off the farm this morning en route to Jhb I got a very long shot of an African Cuckoo sitting out in the open on top of a dead tree! |
