We were up at 5:10am so that we could leave at 5:30 this morning. There was a traffic jam at the gate (not kidding) with about 25 cars all lined up to leave as they opened the gates. We were basically number 25 in the queue. If you ever come to the Kruger, its a sought after experience to be the first in the queue of cars to exit the camp in the morning. We weren’t successful this morning though we also didn’t care and weren’t trying.
We headed south for a few kilometers and then turned east on one of our favourite Kruger roads which heads east toward Mozambique following the N’wanetzi river. It is one the best places in the park to see lions. We didn’t see any this morning but we did see two separate sightings of hyena (again on the road) and we added numerous birds to our trip list. By the end of today we were at 90 on the trip list which we reckon is pretty good for just over a day of birding.
Once you get as far east as you can drive, we briefly turned north to visit a dam and then headed south towards a picnic spot and bird hide. On route there I added number 549 of lifers – Blue-cheeked Bee-Eater – absolutely beautiful bird and not easily found (as can be witnessed that it has taken me 548 other birds to get there!). We stopped for coffee at N’wanetzi picnic spot and then headed to Sweni bird hide. This is an infamous bird hide because 6 years ago H fainted on her way out of the picnic site and boys and I had to basically carry her to the car. She said she still feels slightly apprehensive walking into the hide. This morning though was probably our best experience ever at the hide. We were there a reasonable period of time and just kept seeing more new things. It is amazing that after 30 minutes of looking you can suddenly see something new which had in fact been there since we arrived. Besides the bird life there were elephant and impala drinking (on opposite ends). It was a really lovely experience (and just H and I there the whole time).
We then headed west back to the camp and finally got back at around 11am. By this point it was already into the 30 degrees C. We had some lunch and then headed out for a walk around the camp and added a few more birds to our list. The best birding in the camp has been from our hut though. We rested this afternoon and then headed out at 4pm (it was then 37 degrees C) and didn’t expect to see much because of the heat but we actually saw a lot of game including buffalo, wildebees, zebra, impala, giraffe & kudu (and in reasonable quantities). On the way back into camp and only about a kilometer from the camp, I added lifer 550 (Brown-backed Honeybird). In the meantime H had also clocked up 350 lifers (she only started officially doing her own list last year even though she has birded for many years). She has 30 lifers for the trip (though many of those are birds she has seen before but never officially ticked them off).
We finished off the day with a braai – boerewors, potato and corn (on the braai) accompanied by ratatouille made by H. As we finished eating, H spotted an African Wild Cat right next to us. We have seen them before in Satara and so we know they are resident here. A lovely way to finish off a really nice, relaxing and fulfilling day. The highlight was definitely the Blue-cheeked Bee-Eater followed closely by a really nice sighting of Amur Falcon.
Until tomorrow … P & H