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Writer's pictureBarbara Seith

South Africa - Day 8, Cheetah Alert!

Updated: Jan 14

When I left my room this morning I had this note on my stoop.

I saw the first word in the REMARS: section and thought the first word was Cheetah. I have to admit a little flash of panic. The compound the cottage was in was gated (yet another remote, which is such a contrast with the antique keys) so it was really unlikely that there was a cheetah there. Turns out my alarm went off and it was the security guard letting me know he checked. Guess I didn't have my remotes figured out. Whew!


Off to the Dullstroom Dam Nature Reserve again. Had some lovely bird moments this morning.

This is the locale

There is a lovely blue bench I sat on and today the birds came to me...

Western Cattle Egret (same species as in Rhode Island)

Lesser Masked Weaver

Purple Heron

Whiskered Tern

Egyptian Goose family

Cape Wagtails

Mallards came to visit

Southern Fiscal

Brubru

A lovely breakfast in town and off to Verloren Vallei (Lost Valley) -- one of the best car-birding trails we had. Good for me, tough for Vince quite the road to drive with a Van that he used like a 4wd vehicle. On the way I had one of my favorite sightings from the trip -- I really thought it was something special -- a new cat, and it was.

I didn't get the greatest shot, but Vince informed me it was the rare "African House Cat". Took me a minute because there we no houses I could see and I couldn't figure out who would let a house cat roam free in Africa -- but down the road a piece was a house. Sigh, Vince was right as usual.


This was today's route

Interestingly the internet focus on this being the place where three cranes breed in South Africa but we didn't see any cranes. It might have been early for breeders to arrive, but also it is a very large reserve and we only spent 4 hours there. Lots of great birds, but also mammals at a distance but we saw - Rhebok, Bontebuck (see elsewhere) White-tailed Gnu/Black Wildebeest & Mountain Reedbuck (only sighting on the trip).

Black Wildebeest

Very skittish when we got closer -- started to Stampede ;)

Also had good looks at Lizards

Drakensburg Crag Lizard

This drive made Vince very happy because we saw Eastern Long-billed Lark, Easter Clapper Lark, Wing-snapping Cisticola (I actually saw it snapping its wings!), Cuckoo Finch (which eBird calls a Parasitic Weaver) and Yellow-breasted Pipits. When the guide gets excited -- you get excited. The biggest treasure were the Cuckoo Finch -- he heard it then saw a male fly in front of the van (So did I) then he was in effect praying it would respond to the playback so everyone else could see it. It took a few minutes, but it worked AND a female showed up too. These are not the best photos (it was on the wrong side of the van) but I'm sure you'll get the idea -- we witnessed mating behavior on a very difficult bird to find! Vince is a Rockstar!

Male Cuckoo Finch (Parasitic Weaver)

The mating ritual begins as male - sings to female below

He flies down to meet her

The dance begins

I missed the shot where the males was dancing and flapping his wings for her and the actual mating behavior - it was blurry and it happened quickly. It was something!

Eastern Long-billed Lark

Mountain Wheatear & African Stone Chat

Mountain Wheatear

African Stone Chat

Malachite Sunbird on Milky Widow's Thrill

Molting Southern Red Bishop

Red-winged Francolin - another treasure

On to Mount Sheba -- lots of farmland on the way, but it was one of the times we would only stop if someone really thought they had something special -- particularly a Southern Bald Ibis (nope) but we did see our first Red-billed Quelea - according to Wikipedia (and Vince) "It is regarded as the most numerous undomesticated bird on earth, with the total post-breeding population sometimes peaking at an estimated 1.5 billion individuals." That's a lot of birds, I was honestly surprised we didn't see more, but I think most of them are in India. Cute bird -- also a "weaver"

Red-billed Quelea

Southern Masked Weaver

Red-winged Starling - finally a photo where you can see a bit of the red!

Common Bulbul (Dark-capped)

Speckles Pigeon - so colorful!

On the road down to Mount Sheba we saw an African Olive Pigeon (eBird's Rameron Pigeon) and that evening Vince & I sat on an open air porch and he heard and then helped me hear a Knysna Turaco, Orange Ground-Thrush and White-starred Robin. All difficult to see forest birds. More difficult for me because EVERYWHERE in Mount Sheba was up and down. More on that in tomorrow's post.


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