Boksburg ho

 Birding wise, November was a good month and featured two species that I'd never seen before or lifers.  The first was the 30th record of a golden pipit in the southern African region.  A native of eastern Africa mainly Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and only a rare vagrant this far south.  What a magnificent creature though and probably the easiest rarity I've ever found.  Google maps lead me straight the spot he had chosen near Albert Falls and he was doing his level best to attract a lady........

....with an impressive song and aerial display.  Had to feel sorry for the little guy as there was absolutely zero chance of that happening.

Down in the Point area of Durban a massive cruise ship terminal has materialized within the last year or so

Particularly noticeable were the pom pom trees Dais cotinifolia which were absolutely smothered in flowers.

The second lifer was found after a long search at the ponds near Sappi's Stanger factory.  Apologies for the quality but the bird was so far away it was impossible to see with binoculars and a positive ID could only be obtained by using the camera and enlarging the pictures.  I'm happy to admit that had the minute differences not been pointed out by an expert, I would never have been able to differentiate a white-rumped sandpiper from the many little stint that accompanied it.  I wont bore you with the details but the bird in the foreground is the sandpiper and the one behind a stint. 

A pity that they gave the job of making this sign to someone who knew absolutely nothing about the subject.  The bird shown, a willow tit, only occurs in the northern hemisphere!

Having a sundowner with the Turners one evening, we were privileged to see a little tambourine dove foraging in the garden - which gives an indication of not only how well treed the garden is, but also how indigenous.

Another visit to the Inanda Dam, seen here from a small reserve in Crestholme......

........provided, as usual, a good variety of birds, including this young Diederik cuckoo.......

.........and flowers like this twisted-petal orchid Eulophia streopetala (thanks Richard).

The drive back to Kloof provided another view of the dam near the wall.

On a favourite walk in the Everton section of the Kloof Gorge the birds were quiet but a light mist made the forest quite eerie.

The almost continuous rain brought out the millipedes including this monster which was at least 150 mm long.

With Christmas around the corner it was time to head back to the 'Berg to put the Beast into storage and make the pilgrimage to Boksburg.  An indication of just how much rain has been falling was the Waggondrift Dam which not only had the floodgate open but was spilling as well, something I don't recall ever experiencing.

Hlahlanathi is to my mind the most outstanding caravan park in the southern 'Berg and it's situated close to Oliviershoek Pass, motorcycle Nirvana if ever there was.  On an overcast day, a sudden break in the clouds highlighted this hill with it's row of rock outcrops that must surely have sheltered the San bushmen in days past.

More evidence of unusual amount of precipitation was evident at the top of the pass where the Sterkfontain Dam was back-filling the header dam for the pumped storage scheme.

Not quite west coast profusion but plenty of flowers on show.........................

...............and Sterkfonein itself with it's startlingly blue water.

The site I was on looked directly up the valley to the majestic Amphitheatre................ 

........................but it was rarely visible.

Back in Boksburg, Marievale Bird Sanctuary is but a pleasant 30 km drive away and though the water levels were extremely high there was plenty to see.  This weaver caused a bit of head scratching because it is supposed to have red eyes.  The only dark faced weaver that has yellow eyes is the lesser masked, but they are smaller and the black extends up on to the crown, so this is an aberrant southern masked.

There are a number of solanum species that occur locally but the most famous of the group worldwide is the humble potato.  Most of the African species have toxic fruits but the flowers are rather pretty.

Considered a pest in many parts of Africa, the red-billed quelea males come in two colour variations, the red faced and the much rarer yellow.

As for these little bandits, even with a name like common waxbills, they are terribly endearing, but their hyperactivity makes for difficult photography.

Often generically referred to as snake birds the anhingas or darters lack preen glands to oil their feathers and are less buoyant, so only their head and neck are visible when swimming.

Though not endangered, the southern pochard is not often seen and this one had just surfaced from a dabble when I caught it with the "runny" nose!

Might have mentioned before that I wouldn't mind being reincarnated as a white-throated swallow, but this one was a long way from where the me version would prefer to live - the Msikaba Gorge on the Wild Coast.

They used to be Hottentot teal, presumably because of their diminutive size, but they are now blue-billed teal, which is a pity, but nevertheless descriptive.

Enter the jewel.  A malachite kingfisher, this one a juvenile with black beak and feet which will turn red in adulthood.

And with year end festivities under way I can only say "Bottoms up".

Back to the city

 The day before I left Bonamanzi, I took a drive through Hluhluwe and Mfolozi and  just after Hilltop Camp got stuck behind someone who was driving very erratically.  When he put on brakes I decided to overtake but on moving into the right lane, whoops.......

......three young males were blocking the road.  A very rare sighting in Hluhluwe as the bush is so thick.  Later in the Corridor between the two parks, a healthy herd of about 30 ellies....................

.............and headed up towards Coronation Gate, an old dagga boy giving that 1000 yard stare!

Just before Mpila Camp Madonna and child, not a bad start.

The black monkey thorns Senagalia burkeii - black refers to the bark - were just coming into leaf which turned them a delightful shade of lime green.

Ever seen rhino Siamese twins?  Really great to see there are still some present in what was the site originally set aside for their preservation when last their numbers came perilously close to extinction.

Always great to welcome the yellow-billed kites back from their winter rambles north of the Equator.

Returning to Hluhluwe, even though a vast area is still pristine, mans presence is visible more and more on the borders, with the inevitable conflicts and incursions that will ultimately lead to invasion, which I hopefully will never see. 

Back in Kloof, a friend invited me round for lunch and her charming indigenous garden was an absolute bird magnet.  A thick-billed weaver made good use of the pliers attached to it's head to open sunflower seeds......

......while Cape white-eyes used the bathing facilities....................

.................and green twinspots made certain that the seeds displaced from the feeder didn't go to waste.  Unfortunately the males weren't very obliging but the females are almost as pretty.

Back in the Turner's marvelous garden, I was awoken one morning by a string of Piet-my-vrous which announced the presence of a red-chested cuckoo.  Ask any birder just how difficult this noisy bird is to find and you''l appreciate how astonished I was to see him in the almost bare branches of a large croton.

 A few mornings later it was the turn of not one, not two but three Narina trogons all trying to outdo one another.

While at Bonamanzi, I found a dead example of the sand ivory and asked the owner for==] permission to get a sample of the heart wood for Richard Boon.  He happily lent me his chain saw and I managed to get a reasonable size piece which I have since sanded.  Though the outer layers have been thoroughly bored by insects the inner ones show a range of colours that are most pleasing.

In nearby Hillcrest is the reserve that rekindled an interest in birds in the late 80's, Springside.  It is also where we held a memorial gathering for Jo and a visit is basically compulsory.

While birds are not plentiful there are always things of interest.  First up a minute bronze mannikin disturbed by my presence flew up into a fig tree.

Next a wild pomegranate Burchellia bubalina with a more orange colour................

.......than usual.  Perhaps because it was in the shade.

Overhead a lone woolly-necked stork gaining altitude on a thermal...............

..............which was also assisting a common buzzard, with it's distinctive black-white-brown under-wing pattern.

A favourite spot of ours was a bench by the river which sports a variety of trees that would be ideal for adventurous youngsters to climb, but unfortunately very few people are even aware of it.

Have probably passed this rock many times without noticing it until today, because a ray of sunlight penetrated the canopy and drew attention to it's minute forest of moss.

I kept having to retake a picture of this Doll's powder puff Cyanotis speciosa as it was blurred. it took a while to realise that the petals of the flower are tiny filaments, hence the name.

The black-eyed Susan Thunbergia alata is one of our more famous exports........

.........with dieramas also being popular, this one with an attendant, extraordinarily coloured beetle.  Another photo that took a long time as the long grass-like stems were "blowin' in the wind"!

The Grassland clerodendron C. triphyllum, has a weirdly shaped flower and prominent stamens of and the scientific name presumably refers to it's three petals.

Driving into Durban there were areas of the median which had a smoky blue hue, which I assumed were Wood's aristea  A. woodii and I eventually found a field of them in a little grassland reserve nearby.  Quite a sight.

Also visited Pigeon Valley where the type specimen of Delagorgue's or as it's now known eastern bronze-naped pigeon was shot, hence the name.  The pigeons are no longer in residence as they did not take kindly to urbanization but the area also affords protection to some towering specimens of Natal elm Celtis mildbraedii. which is extremely rare in the wild.

There are some impressive specimens of the fluted milkwood Chrysophyllum veridifolium, whose name is almost as convoluted as it's trunk.

An invite from cousin Sue and her husband Giles saw me overnighting at the swish Dunkirk Estate on the north coast, where I awoke to this scene and a plethora of bird calls.

There are a pair of robins that could be nesting near the caravan and one morning I heard a peculiar noise that I thought could be a bulbul, but there were a few extra notes thrown into the mix.  It eventually got close enough to actually see one of them and it's beak was moving .  Red-capped or Natal robin-chats are notorious mimics but I'd never before heard this particular noise and when I went out to get a photo all was revealed.

A little stray had been hanging around for a week or two and it was so thin that I started leaving out scraps.  Directly under the robin sat Skwag, as she has now become, positively drooling at the prospect of a robin breakfast.  The bird makes the sound whenever she is around and it's obviously a warning to it's mate.

Couldn't resist and though he wasn't driving, he looks like he'd take it terribly seriously!

Took a ride down to the beach near Virginia and found the spot where I tried unsucessfully to learn how to kite board.  Appears to be no shortage of people who have cracked it though!