Another night, another battle with a bat. This time it started much earlier (11pm ish). H had already put the mosquito net down around her bed to keep the bat away and so now it used her net to hang on when it decided to stop its laps around the room. We left the light on in the hope it would go away and once again it did. But then I was getting buzzed my mosquitoes and as the bat hadn’t re-emerged for some time (it was now around 1am), I decided to turn the light off in the hope the mosquitoes would go away. Mistake … at 2am the bat was again doing Olympic loops in the room and so light on again and bat vanished shortly thereafter. A quick trip to loo and I could hear a noise in the bathroom next door and sure enough the bat is now in the bath and seemingly couldn’t get out. O was telling me the previous day about a bat not being able to get out of a bath and so I thought now is the opportunity for my capture and release skills to spring into action. Fetched some implements from the kitchen and headed back to bath but as I tried to capture it, the bat flew out of the bath (contrary to what O said). I managed to hit it with a towel and shut the door and decided to deal with the issue in the morning.

The balance of the evening was then spent dealing with the mosquitoes flying around in the bedroom. I eventually managed to get that problem under control and finally managed to get to sleep properly at about 2am. When I gingerly went to open the bathroom door to see where the bat was, it had done a houdini act and vanished. H was concerned it was in the depths of her vanity bag but I dealt with that concern. No idea what happened to it but maybe the next occupants will be lucky and not have to deal with it in the bedroom. The accommodation (besides the bat issue) at Mkhuze does need some updating. It is pretty dated and in need of maintenance. The beds/linen, fridge, stove were all fine but the actual building and the bathrooms need to be renovated.

We decided to get back to the Kamasinga hide for a morning visit and we were not disappointed with that decision. Lots of birds and animals coming to drink. We also saw 2 rhino on the way to the hide and they were right next to the road. At one point while at the hide we had giraffe, nyala, wildebees and zebra all drinking at the same time. The bird life was also just ridiculous again with it being hard to know where to look. A KZN local (who was actually at the hide when we were there midday the previous day) started speaking to A and telling him about what he was seeing and A was taking photos of some of the birds as well. Not until later did A say, ‘Did you guys see the Green Twinspot? The guy pointed it out to me and I just assumed you guys had all seen it.’ Of course, we hadn’t and it was one of the birds we were at the hide to see. A automatically going to end of the blog especially since he keeps going around showing us the photo he took on his camera and saying he is going to download the BirdLasser app and just start his list with 1. Green Twinspot!

We did see a whole lot of other birds which were lifers for some of the others. We had planned on being there for only an hour but we ended up being there for close to 2 hours so we had to head back quickly to the camp to back up before the 10am checkout time. The cleaning staff were already in our rooms starting to change linen etc. We packed up quickly and then headed out of the west gate at Mkhuze. Just after the gate there is a forest of Fever trees and a river crossing and B stopped on the river to have a look for birds. As we stopped behind him H spotted a Green Malkoha in the trees. It is a very secretive bird and another special from the area. Very hard to see generally and so really pleased we saw it. H also saw another lifer at the same time (which would have been one for me too but it had flown by the time I was able to look for it).

We then headed to Sodwana Bay with a quick stop at Mbazwana at the SuperSpar. That was another experience and shows that what we are used to at our supermarkets is not what everyone else buys. There were 5 kg packets of frozen chicken feet and 5 kg packets of frozen russian sausages.

On to our accommodation for the next 2 nights which is at Sodwana Bay Lodge. We have a private 4-bedroom house. It is very nicely equipped with everything (besides a dishwasher). Dinner last night was our first meatless night (except for A who had a steak) since we left home. We had pasta.

My trip list is now on 209 birds. Our best trip so far has been 210 birds so just one more to equal our best trip ever.

Until later today …

P, H, B (for stopping on bridge otherwise we wouldn’t have seen the green malkoha), O (feeling sorry for her because her back issues continue), S, A (he is likely to remain here for balance of the trip … see above)