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Ken Borland



Ndumo Game Reserve 0

Posted on March 16, 2017 by Ken

A spectacular sky over Ndumu after an equally spectacular storm

A spectacular sky over Ndumo after an equally spectacular storm

Ndumo Game Reserve is known as one of the best bird-spotting places in the country, but most of the twitching efforts are concentrated around the sand, fig and riverine forests.

The south-western portion of the park is under-rated Acacia woodland and my latest trip to this Zululand gem produced a sighting that will live long in the memory as one of the most amazing things I’ve seen.

Gorgeous Bush Shrike generally sticks to dense cover and normally only offers a sneak-peek to the many who seek this quite dazzling, aptly-named bird.

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Gorgeous Bush Shrike in one of its typical tangled thickets

It is one of Ndumo’s characteristic birds though, even if the beautiful, ringing “kong-kong-kowit” call is heard far more often than the bird is actually seen.

I had enjoyed an excellent sighting earlier in the day along the southern boundary fence of the park when I heard one calling next to the road. I was expecting to be looking for a bird skulking, as usual, low down in the bush and it took me a while to realise that the member of the pair that was actually calling was sitting out in the open!

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Gorgeous Bush Shrike

But that sighting paled in comparison to what happened later, further down that road in the Paphukulu section as the sand forest thicket starts to open up into more open woodland.

I came across four Gorgeous Bush Shrike, calling and displaying, lifting their heads to expose their bright red throats, and I was able to follow them for a few hundred metres as they continued through the bushes on the side of the road!

One of the Gorgeous Bush Shrike briefly sitting out in the open

One of the Gorgeous Bush Shrike briefly sitting out in the open

This thorny woodland provides handy perches for birds via the boundary fence and the cattle farm outside offers different habitat to the bushveld inside the park, leading to plenty of sightings.

Steppe Buzzard is more a bird of the open habitats outside the park, but seeing as though their migration pattern follows mountains like the nearby Lebombos and this was late October, maybe the one grooming itself on a fence post was just taking a breather from its long journey.

Little Bee-Eater was also on the boundary fence and there were three Redbilled Oxpecker on a telephone pole.

Another migrant raptor, the Yellowbilled Kite, flew over and seemed to be eating something on the wing, while another skulker, the Sombre Bulbul, was kindly calling from the top of a tree for an easy tick.

A Sabota Lark was being unkindly bullied by a Rattling Cisticola (two typical bushveld species), while a group of four Plumcoloured Starlings were dashing about and the black-and-white wings of an African Hoopoe in flight caught the eye.

As the road curves northwards towards what once was the Matandeni Hide, two African Openbill were soaring overhead.

The Matendeni Hide is no more, but the NRC Picnic Spot is a pleasant stop, with Grey Sunbird chip-chip-chipping away in the trees. I was watching a Variable Skink climb one of those trees when suddenly a Redfronted Tinker Barbet alighted on it. What was strange was that the bird looked heat-stressed, with its beak wide open, and it was totally silent – unusual on a day that only reached 33°C for a bird that normally calls incessantly through even the hottest days!

Typical woodland birds like Blackbacked Puffback, Cardinal Woodpecker, Orangebreasted Bush Shrike and Common Scimitarbill were also present, while Crested Francolin and Red Duiker are often seen on the road to Ziposheni.

Another Ndumo special, the infrequent Caspian Tern, allowed for great views as it was flying close to the shore of the Nyamithi Pan.

Caspian Tern

Caspian Tern upperside

Caspian Tern underside

Caspian Tern underside

This fever tree lined oasis is well worth paying closer attention to via a guided walk; on the last two occasions I have been to Ndumo, the drought meant there was no water around the hides, with all the water birds concentrated closer to the inlet near the Mjanshi road. While the egrets, flamingos and pelicans were all way to the left of the hide, where the water has retreated to, a Spurwinged Goose did present itself straight in front of the hide on the bone-dry pan!

As we crossed the Mjanshi Spruit on the guided walk, we were welcomed by a pair of Malachite Kingfisher and as the water pooled in the pan we spotted Wood Sandpiper, Saddlebilled Stork, Greenshank, Pied Avocet and a Grey Heron atop a Hippopotamus!

Smaller waders were plentiful too with Ringed Plover, Kittlitz’s Plover looking mean guarding their bit of dry land, Common and Curlew Sandpipers and a big flock of Little Stint, which looked like tiny dots on the pan. Broadbilled Rollers were in the fever trees.

Both Lesser and Greater Flamingo were present, along with Pinkbacked Pelican and Great White Pelican, which suddenly stampeded off the banks into the water, obviously mobbing a school of fish, although probably only the first ten pelicans caught anything!

Flamingos on Nyamithi Pan

Flamingos on Nyamithi Pan

Pelicans & Yellowbilled Storks on Nyamithi Pan

Pelicans & Yellowbilled Storks on Nyamithi Pan

The Ndumo campsite is also excellent for birds and I was given a very happy welcome to camp by an Nyala female and her ‘teenage’ daughter eating the pods of a Natal Mahogany tree very close to where I was pitching my tent.

As always, Little Swifts and Lesser Striped Swallows were zooming around the buildings, calling contentedly, while a Blackeyed Bulbul called cheerfully from a tree that was not unlike the Whomping Willow from the Harry Potter series.

Emeraldspotted Wood Dove

Hadeda Ibis provided a very noisy start to the next day, while Purplebanded Sunbird was up by the offices, where so many of the sunbirds seem to hang out.

A pair of Pied Crow have commandeered the communications mast in camp and croak loudly as they fly about, even attacking a drone that the staff were trying out!

Woollynecked Stork flew over camp, as did two displaying Cuckoo Hawk, while Yellowfronted Canary foraged on the sparse lawn. A pair of Yellowbellied Bulbul were sitting in a thicket with much wing-quivering going on.

Their Terrestrial Brownbul cousins were having a whale of a time at the bird bath close to my site, while a Bearded Robin sat by and watched.

Even while cooling off in the most-welcome swimming pool, birds can be spotted – a sub-adult African Fish Eagle was soaring majestically high above and White Helmetshrike were also seen.

Outside the main office, there is a lovely Marula tree and barely two metres off the ground, in the fork between two branches, is a Spotted Eagle Owl nest with at least one young, while a Wood Owl was spotted on the lawn next to the ablutions one evening.

The central portions of Ndumo are dominated by what is known as Mahemane Bush, a near-impenetrable thicket of inhospitable spiny trees and plants that must have been a nightmare for early travellers on the route to Delagoa Bay.

But the dense tangle is a perfect home for Apalises and a Yellowbreasted and a Rudd’s Apalis were having a skirmish, and in fact the rarer Rudd’s was more prominent on this trip than its common cousin.

As one heads north towards the Usutu River one comes across the clearing where the Diphini Hide once stood, overlooking the Mtikini tributary of the Usutu, which flows into Banzi Pan. Down below in the shadows amongst the Fever Trees was a Whitethroated Robin and a Greenbacked Camaroptera was busy stripping spider web off what looked like an egg casing. The little warbler-like bird got a bit tangled in the process but made off with quite a decent ball of webbing in the end, no doubt for use in sowing together its nest.

One can then turn south-west into more sand forest, with a giraffe deep inside this unusual habitat surprisingly being the first thing I saw on the Mabayeni Road.

The third day was set aside for the trip to Red Cliffs, one of my favourite excursions in any game reserve, anywhere.

Looking down at the Usutu River from Red Cliffs

Looking down at the Usutu River from Red Cliffs

The main road from camp was drier than usual, with the drought not having broken yet in early summer, but there was still plenty of birding activity, with quite the overnight storm having brought some much-needed rain.

An immature Southern Banded Snake Eagle flew into a leafless tree and stayed a good while, while there were five Purplecrested Lourie in a busy group, interacting and calling.

A five-strong group of Redbilled Helmetshrike included a couple of juveniles, while a Goldenbreasted Bunting went fluttering after an insect (they don’t just eat seeds).

Green Pigeon, Bluegrey Flycatcher, Goldenrumped Tinker Barbet and a little group of Chinspot Batis were present and Blackheaded Oriole was yet another bird gathering nesting material.

Red Cliffs was a hive of activity, with a Marsh Terrapin crossing the entrance road, no doubt coming from nearby Shokwe Pan and looking for a temporary pan made by the rain.

Two Yellowspotted Nicator were really unobtrusive even though they were calling loudly, in stark contrast to some Water Dikkop that were roosting calmly by some foliage on a sandbank of the Usutu River. Until a Southern Banded Snake Eagle flew over and then all hell broke loose!

A pair of Pied Kingfisher were hovering over the river and some Yellowbilled Stork were far upstream, but a Little Sparrowhawk, closer to hand, was given away by a Forktailed Drongo dive-bombing it.

Where is Ndumo?

Detailed map of Ndumo

Sightings List

Vervet Monkey

Nyala

Crested Guineafowl

Southern Banded Snake Eagle

Forktailed Drongo

Little Swift

Lesser Striped Swallow

Emeraldspotted Wood Dove

Blackeyed Bulbul

Hadeda Ibis

Purplebanded Sunbird

Brownhooded Kingfisher

Impala

Crowned Hornbill

Purplecrested Lourie

Southern Black Flycatcher

Browncrowned Tchagra

Little Bee-Eater

Fantailed Flycatcher

Southern Black Tit

Cape White-Eye

Redbilled Oxpecker

Gorgeous Bush Shrike

Egyptian Goose

Whitebellied Sunbird

Steppe Buzzard

Yellowbilled Kite

Whitebrowed Scrub Robin

Sombre Bulbul

Longbilled Crombec

Yellow Weaver

Sabota Lark

Plumcoloured Starling

Glossy Starling

African Hoopoe

Yellowbilled Hornbill

African Openbill

Grey Sunbird

Spottedbacked Weaver

Variable Skink

Redfronted Tinker Barbet

Blackbacked Puffback

Cardinal Woodpecker

European Swallow

Orangebreasted Bush Shrike

Common Scimitarbill

Crested Francolin

Red Duiker

Redbilled Helmetshrike

Bateleur

Striped Kingfisher

Blue Wildebeest

Plains Zebra

Goldenbreasted Bunting

Pied Crow

Woollynecked Stork

Pallid Flycatcher

Rattling Cisticola

Grey Duiker

Kurrichane Thrush

Yellowbreasted Apalis

Rudd’s Apalis

Whitethroated Robin

Greenbacked Camaroptera

Giraffe

European Bee-Eater

Goldentailed Woodpecker

Black Kite

Rock Monitor

Redeyed Dove

Goldenrumped Tinker Barbet

Yellowfronted Canary

Yellowthroated Sparrow

Cuckoo Hawk

Yellowbellied Bulbul

African Fish Eagle

Paradise Flycatcher

Great White Egret

Lesser Flamingo

Spurwinged Goose

Pinkbacked Pelican

Trumpeter Hornbill

Striped Skink

Blackheaded Oriole

Chinspot Batis

Marsh Terrapin

Yellowspotted Nicator

Blacksmith Plover

Water Dikkop

Threebanded Plover

Yellowbilled Stork

Blackwinged Stilt

Blackbellied Starling

Greenbacked Heron

African Pied Wagtail

Little Sparrowhawk

Pied Kingfisher

White Helmetshrike

Cape Dwarf Gecko

Wood Owl

Green Pigeon

Bluegrey Flycatcher

Malachite Kingfisher

Wood Sandpiper

Saddlebilled Stork

Greater Honeyguide

Greenshank

Broadbilled Roller

Pied Avocet

Grey Heron

Ringed Plover

Kittlitz’s Plover

Common Sandpiper

Curlew Sandpiper

Little Stint

Hippopotamus

Nile Crocodile

Greater Flamingo

Goliath Heron

Collared Sunbird

Caspian Tern

Great White Pelican

African Spoonbill

Whitebreasted Cormorant

Little Egret

Terrestrial Bulbul

Bearded Robin

Spotted Eagle Owl

Warthog

Bonamanzi 0

Posted on November 22, 2012 by Ken

An inquisitive Crowned Hornbill at Bonamanzi

My second trip to Bonamanzi – situated between Lake St Lucia and Hluhluwe – saw me armed with my newly-acquired 4×4, a Hyundai Tucson 2.0 diesel automatic, which I call the Serval, but my wife calls Catalina.

Sadly, Lauren could not get leave to join me on this trip (she is forced to take leave over Christmas when her company is closed, which is most unfair I believe) so I was accompanied by Stidy, the renown cartoonist, my long-time birding mate and the sharer of many dramatic adventures with me.

Stidy was particularly pleased that I now had a 4×4 to ferry him around in, because it allowed me to track down a lifer for him – Lemonbreasted Canary.

Next to the entrance gate at Bonamanzi is a little track heading northwards along the boundary fence, into some pristine Lala Palm Savanna, the perfect habitat for the little canary Stidy was so eager to get … particularly since he had missed the ones I saw several years earlier heading into Crook’s Corner at Pafuri in the Kruger National Park!

But, given the amount of rain that had fallen in Zululand in October and November, this track was something of a quagmire … ideal to test out the capabilities of my new 4×4!

Marico Sunbird was a nice first sighting heading down the track and some Lesser Blackwinged Plover gave us a foretaste of the more exotic treat to come.

And there they were: Half-a-dozen Lemonbreasted Canaries cavorting on the trees hanging over the boundary fence. I allowed Stidy the agony of convincing me that they weren’t just washed out juvenile Yellowfronted Canaries, but there was no denying the greyish backs and the cute little black-and-white face patches.

It was a fortunate sighting because, shortly thereafter, the track disappeared beneath a large, muddy pool. Walking through it, I quickly became mired in the mud and there was no way I was going to risk the Serval ploughing through that and getting stuck on her first real outing!

It seemed harder, more slippery going on the way back … mostly because Borland forgot to engage the 4×4 properly! Sigh … must have been all the excitement of the canaries!

It was only the next day when we discovered we weren’t meant to be on the track at all … the No Entry sign had disappeared at the start, which perhaps explained the perplexed look of the guard at the main gate as we ducked off down the road.

Bonamanzi has a couple of the best camping sites I have ever had the pleasure of staying in and fortunately we were allocated the same one as on my previous visit – beautifully tucked away in the sand forest with your own ablutions and scullery.

That makes birding highly rewarding even when sitting on your camp chair and Yellowbellied Bulbul, Crested Guineafowl and Forest Weaver were all seen close to home.

On the second morning, Redchested Cuckoo obliged us with some lovely views and a Greyheaded Bush Shrike came to visit as well, while we also picked up Bluegrey Flycatcher.

There is a fantastic dam just below the main office block, which is fenced off because of the large Nile Crocodiles that lurk ominously therein. The island in the dam was frantic with three species of weaver nesting – Thickbilled, Lesser Masked and Yellow – and they were predictably attended by Diederick Cuckoo.

We also picked up Blackcrowned Night Heron, Water Dikkop, African Jacana, Black Crake and African Spoonbill. The facilities include a wonderful wooden walkway over a portion of the dam leading to a functions area, where we took shelter from a sudden squall and picked up House Martin and Lesser Striped Swallow.

Once it cleared, we then had our lunch under the Fever Trees, next to the crocodile enclosure. One of them took a liking to me and gradually inched its way closer to the fence and me … it was close enough for me to hear the malevolent hissing of the ancient reptile.

We then went on a good long walk that took in a couple of hides and waterholes, returning back to the main camp through the sand forest, and picked up Natal Robin, Purplecrested Lourie, Woollynecked Stork, Bearded Robin, Purplebanded Sunbird, Wahlberg’s Eagle and Malachite Kingfisher.

Back at camp and after dinner, I tracked down a pair of Wood Owl calling near our camp, enjoying the sense of natural wildness as I then turned off my spotlight and stood under the tree from which they were hu-hu-hooting.

Our last morning was spent driving through the myriad of tracks through the sand forest and some determined birding rewarded us with sightings of Sombre Bulbul, Yellowbreasted Apalis, Southern Boubou, Yellowspotted Nicator, Pale Flycatcher and Greater Honeyguide, all of which had been calling and calling but had evaded being actually seen.

The Nicator was an especially good sighting as he sat on the outer edge of a thick clump of bush, chuckling away beautifully.

Bonamanzi is that kind of place … exotic, beautiful and rapidly becoming a firm favourite of mine.

The other great thing about Bonamanzi is that although there are Vervet Monkey around, they are very well-behaved ones that never bother your campsite!

 

Sightings list

Nyala

Yellowbellied Bulbul

Blackbacked Puffback

Crowned Hornbill

Crested Guineafowl

Goldenbreasted Bunting

Kurrichane Thrush

Forktailed Drongo

Red Duiker

Terrestrial Bulbul

Yellowbilled Kite

Yellow Weaver

European Swallow

Little Swift

Forest Weaver

Moreau’s Tropical House Gecko

Redchested Cuckoo

Greyheaded Bush Shrike

Blackbellied Starling

Squaretailed Drongo

Bluegrey Flycatcher

Impala

Grey Heron

Thickbilled Weaver

Lesser Masked Weaver

Nile Crocodile

Blackcrowned Night Heron

Diederick Cuckoo

Water Dikkop

Yellowthroated Sparrow

African Jacana

Egyptian Goose

Black Crake

Redeyed Dove

African Spoonbill

Warthog

Hadeda Ibis

African Pied Wagtail

House Martin

Lesser Striped Swallow

Natal Robin

Purplecrested Lourie

Woollynecked Stork

Great White Egret

Whitefaced Duck

Blue Waxbill

European Bee-Eater

Speckled Mousebird

Blackeyed Bulbul

Marico Sunbird

Crowned Plover

Lesser Blackwinged Plover

Blue Wildebeest

Glossy Starling

Lemonbreasted Canary

Common Waxbill

Bearded Robin

Emeraldspotted Wood Dove

Goldentailed Woodpecker

Brownhooded Kingfisher

African Fish Eagle

Purplebanded Sunbird

Greenbacked Camaroptera

Rattling Cisticola

Wahlberg’s Eagle

Malachite Kingfisher

Collared Sunbird

Hamerkop

African Palm Swift

Southern Masked Weaver

Spottedbacked Weaver

Wood Owl

Foam Nest Frog

Sombre Bulbul

Yellowbreasted Apalis

Southern Boubou

Yellowspotted Nicator

Steppe Buzzard

Pale Flycatcher

Greater Honeyguide

Paradise Flycatcher

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