As it was so cold and the birds weren’t active at sunrise yesterday, we decided on a slightly later start of 7am. K wasn’t feeling well so she gave the drive a skip but the rest of us headed out. The plan was to go to the Nsumo pan which has 2 hides overlooking the pan. We did visit them last year on our road trip and on going again today I remember that I would have been frustrated last year had I not had my scope with me. That unfortunately turned out to be true today because the birds seem to all be situated on the other side of the pan so you really need a scope (and unfortunately I had too much else to carry on the flight up so the scope stayed at home).

Friends of ours from CT were also coincidentally at Mkuze today and we passed them on road as we were heading back to camp. They are staying outside of Mkuze and just drove in for the day but were complaining about the state of the roads outside the park. We agreed but at least we knew from last year so weren’t surprised. We got back to the camp relatively late (around 10:30am). After Z went down for her nap, S, K & I went back to the Masinga hide to see if we could get the green twinspots for them while H looked after Z.

When we got there, no sign of them though a reasonable amount of bird and animal life including two herds of impala. One herd had the dominant male rutting a lot and the other herd had two males fighting for dominance. So while we birded we were also kept entertained by the impala behaviour. After about 30 minutes, we suddenly saw the green twinspots. In the same spot as we have now seen them twice (and once by A as well from August last year). Midday seems to be a good time to see them.

We did a walk around the camp in the afternoon but birding was very quiet as it had become reasonably windy. We had a early braai of chicken kebabs and sausage with butternut in the braai and courgette on the grill to go with the chicken.

Until tomorrow …

P, H (for looking after Z so SK so go find the green twinspot), S, K & Z