Kruger NP 10/20-10/21--NATAL FRANCOLIN, HAMERKOP, RED-CRESTED BUSTARD, GRAY GO-AWAY BIRD, LILAC-BREASTED ROLLER, RUFOUS-CROWNED ROLLER + 18 More Life Birds

LILAC-BREASTED ROLLER

As big as Connecticut & Rhode Island combined, Kruger NP is arguably the greatest park in the world to find wildlife. It is 95% wilderness, dotted with gated camps that are closed promptly at 6 PM--miss the closing and sleep your car--with the wild beasts all around.

We entered through the Numbi Gate, then proceeded to our first camp, Pretoriuskop. We had some time before the gates closed, so we drove to an area for day visitors where we could get out of the van (if the rangers catch you out of the vehicle at Kruger you are promptly escorted to the exit and banned from the park). There we picked up a few more new birds, including one that Kim, at first, couldn't quite identify. It was a female, so that didn't help, but the real problem is that the bird, a BLACK CUCKOOSHRIKE, was a life bird for him. He hadn't recognized the call because he'd never heard one before. It was when the male came in that he recognized the bird. This was an event, since Kim has been to South Africa 15 times. However, he hasn't been there in the summer when this early arrival is usually present.

The next morning, at 6 AM, we were met by our guide and his safari vehicle, in which we would spend most of the next 4 1/2 days. These are modified pick-up trucks with stadium seating (each row raised behind the one in front) making it ideal for cruising the roads. There are no bad seats (no craning your head trying to see what's in the top of the tree) and with only 7 of us, plenty of room. You are exposed to the elements. Fortunately the elements didn't include rain, though the first day was a tad nippy, while the succeeding days the temperatures increased from about 90 to about 95 to 102. Everyone else was suffering from the heat. Me, I didn't even break a sweat.

Probably the most beautiful bird we saw on this trip was the LILAC-BREASTED ROLLER pictured above. It makes our Painted Bunting look like a House Sparrow. Our first day's journey, which was about 125 miles altogether (at a speed limit of 32 mph) took us to Skukuza and the Sand River. Some of the birds along the way:

One of the shorebirds I really wanted to see and finally saw was the HAMERKOP. Look at the bird, do the translation.

We saw 4 species of francolin on this trip. The last one, a NATAL FRANCOLIN Mike found at a rest stop, tucked beneath a bush.

I was also very big on bustards this trip, since there is no real equivalent in the Western Hemisphere.
We saw 5 species of this family, also known as korhaans. Below is a RED-CRESTED BUSTARD.

The red crest is visible only in display

Best name in the world for a bird? It has to be the GRAY GO-AWAY BIRD. 

The runner-up to the Lilac-breasted Roller has to be the RUFOUS-CROWNED ROLLER.

Of course, most people go to Kruger for reasons other than the birds. That's the subject of the following post.

The Big Five (+ One)

Mammals held no real appeal to me and the idea of collecting the Big Five didn't especially interest me. The Big Five--Buffalo, Elephant, Rhinoceros, Lion,  and Leopard --were the most sought after targets for hunters so I find it surprising that these refuges still promote the idea. Driving through iSimigaliso, Mkhuze, and Kruger, you couldn't help but come across all of them.
BUFFALO:

Kruger 

iSimagaliso

ELEPHANT:
It was entertaining to watch a herd of Elephants cross a river, or the road in front of you and it was even more amusing to watch one knock down a small tree then start stripping it of branches, eating leaves, twigs, bark and all.

Kruger

RHINOCEROS:
We saw few Rhinos and most from a distance--which was all right with me. Generally, if you leave an animal alone, it will leave you alone. What's problematic is the definition of "left alone" to a Rhino.

iSimagaliso

LION:

Mike really wanted to see the lions at Kruger--it would complete his Big Five life list. But for me, it was the least interesting of the quintet. Lions are cats. I have a cat. What does my cat do? Mostly stare vacantly into space and occasionally lick herself. What did the lions do? Pretty much the same thing.

Vacant stare at Kruger

Kruger

LEOPARD:

Now the Leopard was a completely different story. Firstly, it was by far the hardest to find--we saw two at Kruger. When word got out, via the radio, that a Leopard was being seen (probably about 10 miles away) our guide pushed the speed limit to get to the cat. A few cars were stopped in the road and it didn't take long to locate the Leopard in the high grass. At that point I still wasn't very engaged. It was only when the Leopard decided to turn onto the road, passing our vehicle, that I mentally sat up. I was sitting in the last row on the right hand side of the vehicle. The Leopard passed right beneath. I could have reached down and petted it. True, I probably wouldn't come back with a hand, but, in principle, as the philosophers say, I could have petted it. 

Out of the grass, onto the road.

The Leopard then proceeded to play with the cars, first going over to a Toyota and rubbing its face against the fender, marking it the way my cat marks the table legs, and then moving back to Jeep where it lay down and began to bite the tires like a chew toy. 

Marking the fender

Part of my skepticism about the mammals was the nagging thought that these wildlife refuges were just the Bronx Zoo writ large and that there was nothing there that I couldn't see back home. But a Leopard walking around a line of cars? That I'm not going to see at the zoo. 

GIRAFFE:

Personally, my favorite mammal of the trip was the Giraffe. They are just so tall and seem so oblivous of the world way below their heads that I couldn't help admiring them. Even as big as they are, it would sometimes take a moment or so to actually see one, they blend in to the background so well. Besides their camoflauge, I also tended to look too low--sometimes I wouldn't see the Giraffe because I was looking below its belly. 

Kruger NP 10/22-10/24--COMB DUCK, KORI BUSTARD, BLACK CRAKE, DOUBLE-BANDED SANDGROUSE, SOUTHERN GROUND-HORNBILL, PEARL-SPOTTED OWLET + 25 More Life Birds

SOUTHERN GROUND-HORNBILL

The last 3 days were a frenzy of birding. We moved camp twice--first to Olifant Camp and finally to Satara Camp. With 7 people, this entail a lot of picking up and going. During the day (and one night) we birded constantly, driving the roads, stopping at blinds, standing on bridges overlooking rivers.

Our first night in Olifant, after dinner, Kim guided the group around the darkened streets, flashing his light into trees while playing the tape of the PEARL-SPOTTED OWLET. We didn't find one, but heard one respond, eventually, distantly. It was such a soft call that I didn't even bother to count it. Next morning, as we were driving along at speed, Kim called out "STOP." He had found an owlet high in a bare tree. We backed up and took pictures at our leisure. The owlet had no interest in us or in moving.

We found the odd COMB DUCK with its ungainly appendage at one of the watering holes off the road. It was quite distant, but distinct. The hen is on the right. The incredibly ugly geese flanking the drake are Egyptian Geese. Hardly a day went by that we didn't find these geese. 
At the Lake Panic hide, I recouped a bird I missed in Wakkerstroom. There, while everyone else apparently saw a clearly as they could, a BLACK CRAKE, I missed the bird, despite many precise and conflicting directions.  However, at the hide I saw one "naked eye." When Shari saw the bird, not knowing I was already looking at it, she started giving me directions that led me to a stick in the water. You're not allowed to scream in a hide.

KORI BUSTARD was another exciting find, as was the DOUBLE-BANDED SANDGROUSE we came upon on the side of the road on our last full day there. These are the kinds of birds I came to Africa to see, birds that aren't "replaced" by something else in this hemisphere.

KORI BUSTARD (above)
DOUBLE-BANDED SANDGROUSE (below)

The last life bird I got was at the braai (cookout) we had the last night there--a GOLDEN-TAILED WOODPECKER was roosting in a tree hole right behind one of our huts.

The Wild Melons

Like Brig, when people in another vehicle see you stopped on the road, observing something, they ask what you have. Unlike Brig, 95% of the time if its birds, then they don't care. They came for the big animals. So many times Kim just called out "birds" to a car slowing down and they would glide past us.

In St. Lucia, which seemed like a month ago, some of our group bought carved out gourds from a vendor and here at Kruger, we saw similarly sized fruits growing on low trees and wondered if they were the source of the dried gourds. When we found a bunch of them growing on the side of the road, our guide stopped, explained that these weren't actually gourds at all, but wild melons 

They were pretty neat looking fruits, though my understanding is that melons grow on vines not trees, and we all stopped to examine them more closely and take pictures. Our guide saw a car approaching us and said, "Watch this." As the woman pulled up, we all continued to look intently into the tree.
"What are you seeing?" she asked. "Oh, we're just looking at the wild melons," our guide replied with a completely dead pan. The woman's expression broke all records for going from surprise to aghast to disgust. She drove off quickly and you could just hear her saying to herself "Wild melons, indeed." Our guide, who up until then seemed a reserved young man, was slapping the steering wheel in hilarity as she drove off.  

========================================================================

The next morning we packed up for the final time, got into the safari vehicle and birded our way out of Kruger into White River, where we transferred to our van and made the 4 hour trip to the Johannesburg airport. 

The trip home was long but uneventful. We were delayed on the ground at Johannesburg for an hour, but I only found out about 12 hours later. I was asleep in my seat before the safety demonstrations were over. 

Gallery

SADDLE-BILLED STORK, Kruger

AFRICAN FISH-EAGLE, Kruger

AFRICAN JACANA, Kruger
Photo: Shari Zirlin

WATTLED LAPWING, Kruger

WATER THICK-KNEE, Kruger

PARADISE FLYCATCHER, Kruger

LITTLE BEE-EATER, Kruger

BLACKSMITH LAPWING, Kruger

Hiatus

There won't be any posts here until the end of the month. I'm leaving tomorrow for a birding trip to South Africa. Shari has already been there for more than a week and I'll meet up with her and the rest of the troupe in Durban.

Wish me luck.

In the meantime, here's a photo of a bird I won't see, but Shari saw plenty of in Capetown. Because of those two extra weeks in Africa, not to mention her winter trip to Iceland, her life list far exceeds mine and probably always will. But it's not a competition unless I'm winning.

African Penguin (Jackass Penguin)
Photo: Shari Zirlin

Sandy Hook 10/6--Tennessee Warbler

Naturally, now that with the arrival of Yellow-rumps, warbler season is over and I've "moved on" to sparrows, I would have one of my better warbler days at Sandy Hook, including a new addition to the year list. I drove up for one of Scott's half-day Fridays. We took the usual walk from Guardian Park down to Horseshoe Cove and back, with a good number of warblers in the still mostly fully-leafed trees, which made identification tricky and led me to miss a couple. We also came across some nice FOS birds (for me), like Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Brown Creeper (a personal fave), and White-crowned Sparrow.  However, the sparrow I would have really liked to have seen--Lincoln's Sparrow--proved elusive. Twice. I missed it once in the scrubby field across from the Guardian Park lot and once up at "the pit" near the ferry station.

We had gone up to the pit because Scott had received a report of interesting birds there--this is the site of the Lark Bunting which made an appearance there last year for 2 days. We couldn't find any of the neat birds that had been there earlier, but warblers were flitting about. To get a look at them required a certain amount of bushwhacking through hip high vegetation and I wasn't getting very good looks at anything. Finally, a very drab warbler, with no distinguishing field marks, a bird you might say looked like an undecorated model of a warbler before its paint was applied, finally stood out on a branch long enough for me to see that it didn't look like much of anything which is how I was able to satisfy myself that I had seen a Tennessee Warbler for the first time this year. Not a bird to make your heart go all fluttery, just one for the list. Compared to a Tennessee Warbler, a Connecticut Warbler is practically flamboyant.

No photos of course.

For my 5 hours at the hook I listed 49 species, including 9 warbler species. I'm getting the feeling I may miss the more sought after sparrows this year.

Merlin

Canada Goose 150 Guardian Park
Double-crested Cormorant 24
Great Blue Heron 3
Snowy Egret 1 Horseshoe Cove
Turkey Vulture 1 Plum Island
Osprey 1 Spermaceti
Cooper's Hawk 1
Black-bellied Plover 25 Horseshoe Cove
Ring-billed Gull 1 Horseshoe Cove
Herring Gull 50
Great Black-backed Gull 40
Royal Tern 2
Rock Pigeon 10
Mourning Dove 5
Yellow-billed Cuckoo 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker 1 Heard
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 1 Guardian Park
Downy Woodpecker 2 Heard
Northern Flicker 2
Merlin 3 Two not getting along on Road to Nowhere, one at "the pit"
Eastern Phoebe 2
Red-eyed Vireo 2
American Crow 1
Black-capped Chickadee 1 Heard
Brown Creeper 1 Guardian Park
Carolina Wren 3 Heard
Golden-crowned Kinglet 3
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 1 Heard
American Robin 1
Gray Catbird 2
Northern Mockingbird 2
European Starling 23
Cedar Waxwing 1
Black-and-white Warbler 1
Tennessee Warbler 1
American Redstart 1
Northern Parula 4
Bay-breasted Warbler 2
Black-throated Blue Warbler 1
Palm Warbler 2
Yellow-rumped Warbler 4
Black-throated Green Warbler 1
White-crowned Sparrow 1
White-throated Sparrow 5
Song Sparrow 2
Swamp Sparrow 2
Eastern Towhee 4 Heard
Northern Cardinal 1
Red-winged Blackbird 9

Great Bay Blvd 10/4--Nelson's Sparrow

Nelson's Sparrow (note the buffy chest and blurry stripes)

When I woke, rather late for me, this morning, I had no idea where to take my walk, so I decided to check the database and see where I'd been on this date last year. I'd been to Great Bay Blvd and had done decently. I don't know what the tides were like then, but today the tide would be outgoing for most of my time there.

Fall along the boulevard (it is hilarious to me that this 4 mile stretch of broken asphalt bisecting a salt marsh is a "boulevard") can be good for odd sparrows but the only two I was able to espy along the road were Savannah and Song. However, at the inlet, where the water had not fully receded, little sparrows were running around in the mudflats and openings in the spartina grass. I had a hard time getting a look at any of them. "Patience," I told myself, "Patience will pay off." I never actually believe this but I tell myself it anyway. A couple of sparrows hopped up into the grass and in the raking autumn light, I was pretty certain they were Saltmarsh Sparrows. Good, but not the bird Iwanted. A little more to the east and a few more sparrows were skittering around. If I stood still and looked with my binoculars, a few would hop up onto the stalks of grass. I was looking at the striping of the sparrows, and finally one (or maybe it was two) of them looked blurrier than the rest and had buffy chests. It took me a while to convince myself, but I had at least one Nelson's Sparrow. I may had had two or the one I saw was very active. While Nelson's Sparrow (which use to be con-specific with Saltmarsh) isn't listed as rare this time of year, its secretiveness and similarity to its cousin, not to mention its skittishness, make it a very desired bird, especially to me since distinguishing real blurriness from what I usually see ("That's not the electric light my friend, that is your vision growing dim"--Leonard Cohen) is always a challenge.

I had a couple of amusing encounters along the road. While stopped at the endless light at the first wooden bridge I saw a raptor fly over. I looked out the window and couldn't see it in the sky and quickly realized that it had land atop the utility pole in front of me. Fortunately the car has a big sunroof and I was able to take a shot of this Peregrine Falcon playing peekaboo with me.

Then, just north of the second wooden bridge, where I always stop to search for sparrows and to check the marsh on both sides, I came across a Northern Mockingbird sitting on the side view mirror of a van.


Every few seconds the mockingbird would hop off its perch and attack the mirror, "thinking" somehow that there was another mockingbird there and damned if he wasn't going to chase it away.

The phrase "bird brain" didn't come out of nowhere.

Last year I counted 29 species, this year only 24. There were many Greater/Lesser Yellowlegs that I just had to let go due to distance, but I still had 4 species of shorebirds, which seems fine for this late in the season.
Double-crested Cormorant 25
Great Blue Heron 6
Great Egret 70
Snowy Egret 25
Black-crowned Night-Heron 1 marsh west of 2nd wooden bridge
Turkey Vulture 2
Black-bellied Plover 30
Least Sandpiper 5
Greater Yellowlegs 28
Lesser Yellowlegs 25
Greater/Lesser Yellowlegs 40
Laughing Gull 25
Herring Gull 75
Peregrine Falcon 1 north of 1st wooden bridge
Tree Swallow 20
Carolina Wren 1 Heard
Gray Catbird 2 Heard
Northern Mockingbird 1
European Starling 40
Nelson's Sparrow 1 east side of inlet.
Saltmarsh Sparrow 5
Savannah Sparrow 4
Song Sparrow 8
Red-winged Blackbird 3
Boat-tailed Grackle 75