Birding tour with main focus: Parrots of South Africa
Guide: Rene Rossouw
The main focus of our trip was Parrots. Our guest has a great interest in all the Parrot species of the world including sub-species. The 4 target species were
Meyer’s Parrot (Poicephalus meyeri transvaalensis), Brown-headed Parrot (Poicephalus cryptoxanthus cryptoxanthus), Brown-necked Parrot (Poicephalus fuscicollis) and Cape Parrot (Poicephalus robustus).
Day 1:
This was primarily a travel day from O R Tambo International Airport to our first stop at Marakele National Park. As we drove the first part of our trip in pouring rain not much roadside birding was done. Later the afternoon it started to clear and we manged the following species: Magpie Shrike, Common Buzzard, White-rumped and Little Swift, Pied Kingfisher and some beautiful Southern Red Bishops. On arrival at our overnight accommodation, we added African Paradise Flycatcher, Kurrichane Thrush and a Brown-hooded Kingfisher.
Day 2:
This morning we were visiting Marakele National Park to target our first Parrot species, the Meyer’s Parrot. This Park is part of the Waterberg Biosphere in the Limpopo Province. We were up early to be at the gate when it opens. On the way we found a few Southern Pied Babblers feeding next to the road, they are such striking black and white birds.
On arriving at reception, we were treated to a Great Spotted Cuckoo on the ground, and a little while later a Levaillant’s Cuckoo landed in the tree above us. The White-browed Sparrow-weavers were also feeding on the grass nearby.
The Park had had some good rain and the birds were quite busy. We added the following species to our list: Yellow-fronted Tinkerbird, Emerald-spotted Wood Dove, African Dusky Flycatcher, Woodland Kingfisher, Grey-backed Camaroptera, Black Cuckooshrike, Marico Flycatcher, Golden-breasted Bunting, Red-faced Mousebird, Arrow-marked Babbler and a Willow Warbler. We still had a bit of a drive to Mapungubwe National Park, so we had to leave late morning.
After a very long drive, we were admiring the beautiful scenery along the fence of the Park, suddenly I heard the Parrots. We stopped straight away and backed up a little bit… and there they were, feeding in the trees next to the main road. The small flock of Meyer’s Parrots were moving about and doing their last feed for the day. What a great way to end our day. We arrived at our Lodge in time for a well-deserved dinner. We were in great spirits as we had gotten our first target species of our trip.
Day 3:
Mapungubwe National Park borders Botswana and Zimbabwe on the confluence of the Limpopo and Shase rivers. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Mapungubwe means “place of the stone of wisdom”
The Park is very scenic, there are beautiful sandstone formations, huge Baobabs, mopane woodlands and floodplains.
As we entered the gate, we noticed 2 big raptors flying, a pair of Verreaux’s Eagles soaring. Driving through the mopane woodland we added the following species: Long-billed Crombec, Fawn-coloured Lark, European Bee-eater, Striped Kingfisher and a Black-chested Snake Eagle flying out of a big Baobab tree.
The road drops through some magnificent sandstone formations, we had a pair of African Grey Hornbills, Familiar Chat, Mocking Cliff Chat and a Diederik Cuckoo on our way to the flood plain. Other species were: Rock Kestrel, Spotted Thick-knee, Brown-crowned Tchagra, Southern Red-billed Hornbill and a Burchell’s Starling. We had a very fleeting visual of Meyer’s Parrot high on a hillside.
A brightly coloured Broad-billed Roller sat in the open for us. White-backed Vulture and African Palm Swifts flew overhead as well. We also found a few Black-winged Stilts in the river.
Our time in the Park had come to an end, as we set off to the Kruger National Park.
Day 4:
We had arrived at Punda Maria Camp in the Kruger National Park the evening before. This is one of Africa’s largest game reserves in the northeastern part of South Africa. It borders on Zimbabwe and Mosambique. Our target birds for the Park were: Brown-necked and Brown-headed Parrot.
We set out as it started to get light. The bush is green and lush this time of the year. All the migrant Cuckoos are back, we started the morning with a Jacobin Cuckoo, and managed to add Deiderik, Red-chested and Levaillant’s Cuckoo to our day list.
Our first Parrot sighting was Brown-headed Parrot, we heard them call and managed to pinpoint them and had nice visuals, target no 2 was in the bag. We had great sightings of Swainson’s Spurfowl, Burchell’s Coucal, Spotted Flycatcher, African Green Pigeon, Crowned Hornbill, Black-collared Barbet, Red-faced Cisticola, Emerald-spotted Wood Dove and Mosque Swallow flying around a Baobab tree.
We found a pair of Broad-billed Rollers and watched the female fly into a nest hole. A few raptors also made an appearance, they were Tawny Eagle and a Bateleur. Two Little Bee-eater put on a show too, this is the world’s smallest Bee-eater. We also added African Cuckoo to the list with great views of this bird out in the open.
We ended our day with a magical sighting of elephant at the camp’s waterhole. Other notable mammals were Sharpe’s Grysbok and a close encounter with an elephant.
Day 5:
An early morning start was on the cards as we still needed to connect with the Brown-necked Parrot before we moved on to Magoebaskloof. We started the morning off with a great sighting of Bennett’s Woodpecker, followed by Red-backed Shrike, who had just arrived from Europe.
As we were driving along scanning and listening for Parrots a movement caught my eye and there flying next to us… 1 Brown-necked Parrot. We finally got our third target in the nick of time.
These are some other species we saw before leaving: Namaqua Dove, Crested Barbet, Tawny-flanked Prinia, Southern Masked Weaver and a Common Cuckoo. Our final bird was the amazing Southern Ground Hornbill, we had 4 of them in the road foraging for bugs in elephant dung.
We were greeted at the gate by Red-headed and Lesser Masked Weavers building nests. These industrious birds work so hard to impress their mates with their nest building skills.
And so, we left the Kruger for some forest birding in Magoebaskloof. This is a beautiful mountainous area at the very northeastern tip of the Drakensberg mountain range in the Limpopo Province. It is fondly known as “The land of the Silver Mist.”
Upon our arrival at the Lodge, we still had some daylight left, so we headed off on a walk around the lake and into the forest. We had great sightings of a new mammal for the trip… the Samango Monkeys were foraging in the trees a short distance from us. A shy Chorister Robin-Chat was calling in the shrubs and we mange a good look at him too. The lake produced Reed Cormorant, Grey Heron, and a Giant Kingfisher. We only had time for a short walk in the forest but were lucky enough to see White-starred Robin and Lemon Dove. Dinner and a good night’s sleep was on the cards.
Day 6:
This was our last full day of birding in and around Magoebaskloof and the town of Tzaneen. Our main target was the last one on our list, the Cape Parrot. We met our Local guide at 6am sharp and set off to find them.
As we stopped at a tree that they perch in on a regular basis the birds flew in and perched, what a special sight, seeing these rare and endemic birds sit above our heads. We were in awe! We watched them until they flew off to forage in the nearby forest. A short drive further we stopped at another tree they liked to perch in and again the birds flew in. We watched them for quite some time before we headed into the forest for some other special species.
We walked through this beautiful indigenous forest and saw the following: Narina Trogon, Yellow-streaked Greenbul, Black-fronted Bushshrike and African Emerald Cuckoo. We also had sightings of Cape Robin-Chat, Cape and Forest Canary, Olive Woodpecker, Olive Thrush and Southern Double-collared Sunbird.
As we walked out we heard the call of Crowned Eagle and watched the bird display above us.
We travelled to Tzaneen to connect with the following species: Yellow Bishop, Magpie and Bronze Mannikin, Red-billed Quelea, Speckled Mousebird and Purple-crested Turaco. One of the special birds we mange to see was Blue-spotted Wood Dove.
Our last few birds were fantastic… a pair of Bat Hawks, then we had Rufous-breasted Sparrowhawk, Long-crested Eagle and Lizard Buzzard all in about 1km of one another.
Later that afternoon we went back to watch the Cape Parrots again, we added a few new species to our list, they were: Dark-capped Yellow Warbler, Cape Grassbird, African Stonechat, Greater Striped Swallow and White-winged Widowbird. News filtered through of a Whinchat that was found in the morning, close to our lodge, this bird is a rare vagrant to our region, so we decided to see if we could find it. We arrived at the spot and found it soon after. A nice unexpected bonus to end a fantastic trip off with.
Our final trip list was 221 species(including subspecies) and we connected with all four of our Parrot targets.