Birds of South Africa
My husband I are avid birds, so when we arrived in South Africa, we could hardly wait for our excursion to begin. Jet lag hit us right away, so it was fortunate, but reluctantly so, that our trip didn’t start until the middle of the next day. We managed to secure a Car Hire in South Africa and an excellent birding map from the local birding society and a bird guide called the Amajuba Birding Meander booklet.
When we awoke the next day, jet lag gone, we immediately took our car hire to KwaZula-Natal and went to the region called the Drakensberg, a prime excursion for international birders like my husband and myself. It’s a bushveld and wetland which made for a spectacularly wide and diverse bird spotting. Our bird guide book about this region told us there were more than 400 species, I doubt we’ll be able to log all 400, but we’d be happy to log as many birds as we see.
Our first sighting was really a thrill, the endangered Bearded Vulture, we spotted it riding the thermals around the towering peaks of Drakensberg. What a monarch of the sky. We hung out in the Lammergeyer Hide at Giants Castle Reserve, and boy what an experience. The reserve staff lay out Carrion to attract all the feathered carnivores. We spotted the Lanner Falcons, so beautiful, the black eagle, a few raven, and buzzards. But, what was most fascinating was Lammergeyer itself, wow, a soaring raptor with a wingspan of almost 3 meters! It was great to observe them flying high and fast between the peaks and actually see them drop bones while they were flying so they could shatter them on the ragged rocks below. Then swoop down to feed on the marrow of the bones.
We stayed there for 2 whole days before we drove back to our hotel room. We arranged to stay the night at one of the convenient establishments just for us birders. We managed to log just about 100 birds. One’s we only saw photos of, but now got to see in their natural habitat.
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