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Sunday, October 7, 2012

06/10/2012



It was very hot when I left at 06.30 a warm 20 degrees c.I wanted to see if the Flamingos where still around.Most of them have moved on leaving about 20 Juveniles and Immature behind.Water levels continue to drop which obviously suits the Photographers as they are hoping more sandbanks will bring the birds closer to the hides.This is not an ideal situation from a pure bird point of view because a lot of the food bearing mud banks are now exposed to the hot spring weather which will dry out the mud and send the birds away in search of food. A trade off I suppose but we must remember it is actually a Bird Sanctuary and not a photographers Mecca and we need to be careful we do not end up with the scarcer species not disappearing.Not a bad two hours birding giving me a count of 32 species.The best for me was the fact there are a breeding pair of Red Necked Wrynecks in the picnic area giving me a lifer for Rondebult taking my count to 135 species for the BS.
                                                African Purple Swamphen
                                            Red Throated Wryneck
                                            White Throated Swallow
                                         Wood Sandpiper
 Red Throated Wryneck
              Red Knobbed Coot those feet are just huge.
                                           Grey Headed Gull
 Greater Striped Swallow
                             Immature Greater Flamingo
                                                    Black Headed Heron
                           Displaying African Purple Swamphen
 Yellow Billed Duck
                                              Grey Heron
                                   Female Pin Tailed Wyhdah
                                                         Three Banded Plover.