The Southern Banded Snake Eagle’s loud calls kak kak kak-kak-kak-kao, and the Black Sparrowhawk’s persistent rapid chip chip-chip, attracted my attention. The two Palm-nut Vultures were silent.
~~oo0oo~~
A male Southern Mocker Swallowtail fluttered in but wouldn’t sit still.
A Citrus Swallowtail too
On another day, an Olive Sunbird kicked up a huge fuss and I searched, hoping to spot a snake or an owl or whatever was causing such rude language. Nothing. The Sunbird then went quiet and hopped onto this strelitzia flower for a drink.
We took the eastern vlei route northwards, from before Mopane camp – the road less travelled. Lemme check the map: It’s the Nshawu waterholes route and leads past the Grootvlei dam and Shibavantsengele viewpoint on the Mocambique border. I loved it. Some open plains and vleis for a change from dense Mopane trees and Mopane scrub. Many herds of zebra and wildebees, some waterbuck, a few impala, and a few huge ele bulls…
Also Chestnut-backed Sparrow-lark on the gravel roads and flocks of Wattled Starling (some in full wattle).
At Shingwedzi, a Hamerkop, a juvenile Little Sparrowhawk hunting, Green Woodhoopoe, Golden-tailed & Bearded Woodpecker, Red-billed & Yellow-billed Hornbill, Arrow-marked Babbler, and a noisy early morning Hooligan’s Robin (actually White-browed Robin-chat),
A Rock Monitor Lizard came to visit Jess at the chalet. She told it to footsack in ruder language than that.
Rescued! After eight days of blissful peace I started worrying. I remembered the long spanner I need to free my spare wheel from under the bakkie is in the camper in Pretoria. A flat would leave me stranded. I approached a sensible fellow Ford Ranger driver who is headed out on a wilderness walk tomorrow and he rescued me in a jiffy. Now I have a dusty spare wheel inside the cab where I can get to it, the nuisance of its bulk almost guaranteeing I won’t have a flat.
Jessie followed the route of all (OK, this) weevil, calling me across to photograph it. She then bravely also took pics with my camera’s super-macro. In my pic you may notice the bugs eyes are wider cos there was a lot of wheezing in getting down on my knees.
A pair of Bennett’s Woodpeckers foraged right outside our chalet.
That’s it. After ten lovely nights in Kruger we’re on our way home.
We followed the right bank of the Letaba south-eastwards towards Olifants camp, driving with the flow then hit the left bank of the Olifants, flowing even browner and more strongly. Now we’re driving against the flow, the confluence of these great Lowveld rivers somewhere behind us.
Four ‘Thunderbirds’ crossed the road (Ground Hornbill), three of them flying up into trees; new antelope seen: Kudu and Nyala.
Twenty five eles came down to drink below me as I drank coffee at the Olifants camp restaurant while Jess had a nap in our chalet. Five wandered back into the bush while the big Ma led the others, including smallies, across the wide and swiftly flowing Olifants river. Lovely to watch the crossing. Every now and then a little one would disappear underwater and the rest would wait till they found their footing and emerged again, trunk held high.
Tracking & Signs of the Wild
Signs of carnage on our stoep! A kill? Looks like a big eagle caught an old grey and white goat and plucked out all it’s fur.
Oh, hang on, cancel that. I just remembered Jess gave me a haircut. She cuts the parts I can’t see. Back there. Behind me.
We’re back in the Kruger Park as we wait for our camper to be de-rusted. Staying in chalets, to Jessie’s delight.
Late afternoon view across the Letaba from the restaurant stoep.
Restaurant Scops owlet – right above one of the outdoor tables.
Four kingfishers. Here’s the Woodland:
The Letaba eles and squirrels and monkeys were all well-behaved. The daughter not so much when I said Hey, Smile! in the elephant museum.
Lots of tree squirrels in camp. One darting across my path looked different. Turned out to be a Dwarf Mongoose living under the spreading root mass of a palm tree.
Then the peace was disturbed by a flurry of phone calls where we could barely hear each other and a stream of messages I couldn’t reply to. Very poor comms. All were accusing me of getting older on April Fools Day, some using rude language like ‘septuagenerian’ is there even such a thing? Time to move camp…
Zeens has been and gone. She arrived Saturday, we fetched her at the Richards Bay airport and then raided Woolies. We’d heard of the big floods in Natal so it seems we feared famine or being stranded in our cottage on stilts, gazing out, trapped like whats’isname on his ark. We shopped as if we were contestants in a game show, filling a trolley with two suppers and a picnic brekker and lunch. Later we ate like barons at a banquet. Good, filling, easy to prepare food. And dessert.
Saturday afternoon we drove around Umlalazi Nature Reserve, and walked to the beach – a short 100m over the dune on a boardwalk.
Then Sunday we drove about two hours – first north, then west at the Mtubatuba turnoff to iMfolosi, as it’s now spelt.
Found our usual breakfast spot, then the big picnic spot on the Black Mfolosi river for a great lunch.
Not much game, as there’s lots of surface water and the grass is high, the bushes and trees thick with beautiful greenery. But the giraffe, zebra, wild beasts, impala, nyala, wartpigs all looking plump n healthy. Five rhino wallowing. No eles till I worked out a plan to lure them out of hiding. ‘Open the Liquorice Allsorts, Jess. Eles can’t resist the sound of the rustling of Allsorts packets.’ Jess rolled her eyes but within a minute of us chewing the sweets she said, ‘There! On that hillside!’ Just like I said, eight eles as we were leaving.
Action shot: A swallow, a butterfly and some rhino.
Our best – and unusual – sighting was a very large herd of vultures on the hoof. Over a hundred I’d guess, on the ground.
We decided it was a VAN – Vultures Annual Necrofest, something like a funeral undertakers convention, like AVBOB. After they’d done caucussing and some lobbying for more lions in the park, they were going to change into their mournful tuxedos for the dinner and ball that evening. Offal on the menu.
On the way out, an oncoming car waved to attract our attention, then pointed up to the sky. There they were, lots of them, wheeling around lazily in the thermals, doing the Nekhbet waltz at the sky ball.
Hat tip to Jess, sitting quietly in the back: We would not have spotted the vultures or the eles, as both were far away, and me n Zena were nattering about the olden daze; but Jessie’s eagle eyes did.
Another big supper, a good night’s sleep, followed by a Jessie breakfast and then we had to take Zeens back to the metropolis of Richards Bay already. She came in on a 30-seater, but as Jess and I left, a short 737 flew in, so I think Zeens left in a bigger plane.
We were lucky with the weather – not too hot for us, tho Z felt the heat and humidity. We stuck her in the aircon’d room so she got good sleeps. And she’s always welcome – she’s kind to Jess!
In the big Albizia tree outside the kitchen door. Two beautiful Southern Banded Snake Eagles calling loud and animated. Roberts says, ‘Highly vocal, a loud, crowing kok-kok-kok-kwaaa-a-ak, usually at dawn.’ They were also clicking their bills.
I’m drinking my first coffee, I rush to fetch my binocs and get a good look at both, close-up, right above me. The camera! Fetch the lil Canon, but they’re gone.
Luckily they’re really worked up so I can still find them by their calls. One in a neighbour’s tree, one in the big Albizia off our front stoep/deck. Closer, but more hidden in the leaves.
Uncommon to rare resident. Status: Critically Endangered. In South Africa, estimated 25-35 pairs, with ca.20 pairs in St Lucia region, KwaZulu-Natal. That’s just north of where we are, in Umlalazi Nature Reserve.
Wish I’d been sharper, with my photography and in remembering to record their calls! Note to self: Have first cup of coffee earlier.
Twice I heard it coming from the forest in front of my deck. A deep rough short growl. Some sort of animal. Maybe bushbuck can growl too, not just bark? I thought.
Both times a pedestrian was walking past at the time, so maybe it was humans weirdly clearing their throats? Dunno. Mystery noise.
Later around sunset, sipping red wine and scanning around with my binocs I spotted a Palm-nut Vulture right on top of a tall Douglas Fir. Yay! I love it when birds sit still. Time to show off my little camera’s zoom.
The Palm-nut Vulture Gypohierax angolensis is a real Mtunzini special and I hadn’t seen one yet in the seven weeks we’ve been here.
Reading about it on my Roberts Bird Guide app, I suddenly realised that strange call I’d heard this afternoon may have been the vulture! They say, “Call:Deep grah, ahrrrrr call, also grog-grog-grog notes,” so probably.
Told Jess about the bird, showed her the pics and described it’s call. Bladdy terrible child said: Ah, like you when you’re clearing your throat.
No supper for her. Oh wait, she’s cooking tonight . .
Forty years ago on my River Drive stoep in Westville, a Narina Trogon landed on just the right branch on the tree straight in front of me.
Same thing again this morning in Mtunzini.
Lovely.
~~oo0oo~~
Today I was happy to spot a Lesser Honeyguide and a Golden-tailed Woodpecker in that tree. And again. And again.
Then I realised it was a mother and daughter! The Woodpecker was feeding the Honeyguide.
Roberts says the Scaly-throated usually parasitises the Golden-tailed Woodpecker, so that’s probably what it was: A juvenile Scaly-throated. I’ve been hearing both Honeyguides, but more of the Scaly-throated.
~~oo0oo~~
Latest is a pair of Grey Waxbills. Hoping to see their nuptial dance!
– I just got a peek of her scarlet bloomers –
A couple weeks later I got a few blurry shots of a Trogon pair against the harsh light. My lovely little compact zoom Canon sx740hs is not good at focusing where I want it to. My photography got one admiring comment from an envious deskundige, who chirped, “Looks like one of my favorite branches that. I like the way it keeps the bird modest and doesn’t allow full frontal exposure.”
When the male did pose full-frontal, my modest lil Canon decided to focus on a tree trunk, left-edge!
After two years and nine months of sad stoeplessness, order has at last been restored. I have a stoep, a LaZboy, my coffee and my binoculars in place again as they should be.
Aaah
~~oo0oo~~
stoep – porch, patio, deck, veranda
And: My coffee got an upgrade – and a Narina Trogon is hooting as I sip n scribble.
And now a Bronze Caco is going creep and a Bush Squeaker is going sweep. Paradise.
And now even guest beds! OK, now it’s getting a bit worrying ..
Nearly three weeks on my stoep and here’s the birdlist:
Mtunzini, Zululand, KZN North Coast. A new chapter begins after eighteen months in the metropolis of Mtwalume, KZN South Coast.
We’ve had a very friendly welcome, a common refrain being, ‘Watch, Now You’re Here You’ll Never Leave.’
Also my landlord must have spoken to Brooose, my previous landlord. He said, Now that I’ve met you I’ll send a gardener once a week to mow the lawn, as I can see it’s not your thing. How else could he have worked that secret out?
Jess was surprised that unfurnished meant zero furniture, but I said, ‘We Have Plenty Jess’ and unpacked our fine aluminium folding camping table, two comfortable camping chairs and the mattress from the camper. Manie took a good look at that and offered to return the furniture he’d just schlepped off to store in his garden cottage after his last tenant left. Another bonus! These are kind people.
Meantime Willie had almost beaten us back home to deliver the fridge and microwave from his second-hand store.
In Feb I spotted at last what I’d been hearing regularly from my stoep – A Yellow-streaked Greenbul, coastal forest special.
It’s the annual Westville fair and the Chinese crafts are on full display. Tom has wheedled some extra pocket money and has made a fine investment: A BB Gun. Plastic pellets. ‘But a much better one than the last one Dad, this one’s metal.’ The plastic gun had lasted one day.
Right TomTom, you know that a gun is ONLY for shooting at a target, right? ‘Yes, Dad.‘ You set up a target, put your eye protection goggles on and make sure no-one’s in harm’s way, right? ‘Yes, Dad.‘
Pring pring. This is your neighbour the lawyer speaking. Do you know YOUR SON is shooting at MY DOGS?
Well no, actually, I didn’t know that. I’ll be right over.
The boys are nowhere in sight so I call them – Tom and a neighbour friend – and present them to the neighbours: the lawyer, the businesswoman wife and the adult son. I get an immediate confession and an apology from the boys, and they repeat their apology directly to the man. So I dismiss them. Off you go now.
Is that the end of it? No. Bitch Kvetch, Blah Blah, Blah bloody blah . . Well, I say with a smile, Boys will be Boys. Well, I never did anything like that, he says. Well, I certainly did, I say, and with all due respect your dogs DO bark incessantly and are extremely annoying, and the little plastic pellets didn’t actually hit them. Never mind the fact that there are a few too many of them. Still smiling. Three dogs maximum allowed in Westville and the lawyer has seven!
Well, says the vrou: THESE KIDS play outside the gates and the blacks walk past and make the dogs bark.
Mistake.
Firstly, I say with a much broader smile creasing my dial, chest out and going red in the face, These actually aren’t “the blacks.” They’re my son and OUR NEIGHBOURS, and they’re walking HOME. They live here; Secondly,these kids have every right to play in the street and on the pavements. I’m still grinning, trying to keep it light. You need your neighbours, if possible.
Ooh, he says, We’re not racist, when I go to the townships the dogs there bark at me cos I’m white. Kak cover-up, but nice to see you batting for the old bat. She herself makes no attempt to explain her “the blacks.” She’s the tough one here.
I repeat, Let’s just understand very clearly that these kids have every right to play RIGHT in front of your gates. Up to one millimetre from your gate. And YOUR responsibility is to keep your dogs in your yard and not let them run out and menace the kids. One of the girls is absolutely terrified of dogs. And her Dad happens to be a Metro cop and I will join forces with him in seeing to it that you are held responsible if your dogs do ANYTHING to my kids or the neighbourhood kids when out of your yard! . . smiles sweetly . .
Bloody hell! Well, according to the law I have the right . . . I am not a lawyer but I’ll tell you right now your dogs should not be out of your yard. Period. I get the kids off the streets as often as I can, they play at our place most days, so let’s just work together, okay? And anyway, nice weather if it doesn’t rain, and thanks very much for calling me and I apologise again for the plastic pinging of your puppies and let’s be adult about all this as we’re stuck with each other as neighbours. Kay?
Big smile hopefully covers up my eff you thoughts and we withdraw.
We still wave at each other. Him. She doesn’t.
~~oo0oo~~
Later: I was telling friend Stephen in Aussie about the seven barking dogs on my one side and the two barking dogs on my other side: White alsatians bought by non-dog people cos ONCE an intruder jumped over their low fence.
He said: As you probably know, one thing about not living in SA is that mysteriously the dogs do not bark. Except our neighbour’s when there are tradies (workmen) around. But he can only keep it up for about one and a half minutes. A very old labrador. Our other neighbour gets irritated on the rare occasion that the dog barks. So he sits out on the deck and shouts “shuddup.” Then the dog barks more.
Then she thinks it’s me shouting. And when I try to have a chat to her about this, she disappears. I will have to collar her sometime. Or as they say here, “bail her up.”
~~oo0oo~~
This evening I had curry and an ice cold beer on my new stoep with my children, checking out the birds; especially the black flycatchers with their two fledglings; the parents all black, the babies black with lotsa russet scallops and streaks – their gapes still yellowish. Then a kingfisher with a cricket in his beak, followed a big praying mantis – lots of protein. Complete peaceful silence. Not a sound. No shouting, no barking.
Hey! No barking! The dogs are actually quiet for a change.
I crossed the Wallace Line. Many other species and even genera couldn’t hack it for millenia, but this Homo sapiens swanepoeli did it – there and back in a day. A short hop from Bali to Lombok then on to Gili Air using either a Lion Air or Batik Air jetplane, I forget which one.
During ice ageglacial advances, when ocean levels were up to 120 metres lower, both Asia and Australia were united with what are now islands on their respective continental shelves – the Sunda Shelf linked Borneo, Bali, Java, and Sumatra to the mainland of southeastern Asia; and the Sahul Shelf linked Australia to New Guinea. But the deep water between those two large continental shelf areas was, for over 50 million years, a barrier that kept the flora and fauna of Australia separated from those of Asia.
The physical aspects and climates of the separated islands are and were very similar, yet species such as leaf monkeys and ponderous-beaked hornbills are found only on the Asian side, while wallabies, spiny anteaters, tree kangaroos and gliding possums are only on the Australian side. So it can be reasonably suspected that an ocean barrier prevented migration across the divide.
Alfred Wallace noticed this back in 1859 and wrote about it in his famous paper sent to Charles Darwin that pushed Darwin into finally pulling finger and publishing his brilliant and famous insights into how evolution happens which he had been dithering over and re-writing for twenty years.
So when we decided to attend a conference in Bali I thought, Aha! Never thought I’d get to do this. Aitch! I announced pompously, We’re going to cross the Wallace Line. OK, she said, as she always did. She didn’t ask ‘What’s the Wallace Line?’ as she knew she would hear it half a dozen times and she didn’t want to hear it seven times. Funny how spouses are much better when they’ve just met you and don’t know you inside out, have you noticed?
So once in Bali, we hopped onto a plane and flew across the deep and 70km wide Lombok Strait to Lombok Island, and then drove to the northwest coast and caught a ferry to a small island called Gili Air. I’m guessing gili means island? – yes: ‘The name ‘Gili Islands’ is redundant as gili simply means “small island” in Sasak.’
On the way there we saw a lot of timber trucks, huge tree trunks being carted off to make furniture. Oyoyoyoy! Someone needs a side table, so tree kangaroos and gliding possums must lose their homes! We won’t stop till the last square metre of our planet is paved, will we?
On Gili Air we lazed on the beach and snorkel’d. A handy current parallel to the reef meant you could just hover as you drifted along the reef. Then walk back along the beach and repeat. Effortless snorkeling in a spectacular ‘overstocked aquarium.’
~~oo0oo~~
I used a pic from Flickr of a jungle fowl found on Lombok. I’d love to see one of these ancestors of the garden ‘hoender.’
Pre-sunrise at Punda Maria camp waterhole. I decide to make coffee to ‘take with,’ so it’s fully light when I get into the hide, and the sun is about to show. It’s Feb 2024
The resident Egyptian Geese, Blacksmith Lapwings, Three-banded Plovers; and foam nest frog nests are there. A Bearded Woodpecker drums a tattoo in a dead tree while a Cape Turtle Dove exhorts me to Work Harder. Good luck with that, I’ve been ignoring them for almost four years now. Two damp Striped Kingfishers sit in the falling mist, not quite a drizzle, giving their trilling call. A Brown-hooded Kingfisher silent nearby. A Tawny-flanked Prinia going crazy, scolding something I can’t see. Also Fork-tailed Drongo, Red-backed Shrike, Cinnamon-breasted Bunting, Chinspot Batis, Pintail Whydah, Blue & Lipstick waxbills (I don’t like the word ‘common’), Paradise Whydah, Red-billed Oxpecker, European & Carmine Bee-eaters; Greater blue-eared Glossy Starling, GHS girls (Grey-headed Sparrows), Laughing, Emerald & Cape Turtle Doves; Mosque, Barn & Lesser-striped Swallows; Puffback & Red-back Shrikes; Red-billed Quelea flock; Red-Billed firefinch, Indigo bird, Lilac-breasted Roller, Crested Barbet, Grey Goway Bird, Black-crowned Tchagra, Arrow-marked Babbler, Yellow-bellied Greenbul, Dusky & Paradise flycatchers; Long-billed Crombec, White-browed (Hooligans) Robin-chat. A great morning.
Somewhere in the middle distance eles rumble and baboons bark. A flock of White Helmet-shrikes – The Seven Sisters – fly into the hide tree just a few metres from me. I get a blurry pic.
A skreee from a Blacksmith Lapwing announces a raptor and there he is: A Little Sparrowhawk strafes low over the water, then banks up and lands in a tall mopani tree too far away for a definite ID, but his size tells me he’s a Little.
Now those eles arrive to drink, and one drops a huge dump while doing so. I zoom in on their dry skin.
Uh oh! Three primates enter the hide. Loud talk and cigarette smoke sets off my internal alarm. Oh well, I enjoyed a lovely couple of early morning hours alone at the hide. Time to wake Jess up for breakfast in the hut she hired after tiring of camping!
~~oo0oo~~
Places nearby
Luvhuvhu river banks White-fronted Bee-eater Collared & White-bellied Sunbirds Brubru Kurrichane Thrush Black flycatcher White-crowned Lapwing Bob the Sandpiper (common) Marsh Sandpiper Orange-breasted Bush-shrike Tambourine Dove
A special sighting in the garden in Mtwalume! A male Black-throated Wattle-eye some 80km south of where he’s usually to be found. Durban is where I last saw him, in the Beachwood mangroves.
Roberts says: In southern Africa, along the eastern littoral from southern Mozambique as far south as Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, with isolated records from E Cape as far south as Gonubie. Near-threatened in S Africa, where evidence for population decreases due to eg habitat destruction.
Plenty of habitat destruction along the south coast I’m afraid.
As usual, me and my camera were too slow. Moving targets ‘are not us,’ but I got one good view in my binocs and one saturation view, clearly seeing his red eye wattle.
I’ll watch out for him now, camera in hand.
– pics from Roberts and Newmans bird apps –
He was still there the next day, but too quick for me and my camera.
