Office Bushbabies Back

The Leopard's View bushbabies provide us with our own wildlife soap opera.  For a long time we had two groups of bushbabies in residence, one in the roof of the viewing tower and one in the roof of the office veranda.  Then the tower group disappeared and we did not see them for ages:  however, we were pleased when they reappeared a few months ago.  Next the office group vanished and we neither saw nor heard them for at least the last 10 weeks, that is until a couple of days ago.  Initially we heard noises from their den and then on Wednesday 24th August saw one and heard at least one more we could not see.  The next day we saw them again and as I write, they can be heard getting ready to leave at dusk.  This new office group (or the same ones back again?) are relatively accepting of our presence and when they emerge in the evening they always sit in the adjacent acacia giving anyone watching an excellent view.  After a few minutes they head off into the bush in one direction or another.

Birds – old & new

Black-headed oriole

Recent weeks have seen a great deal of bird activity around the lodge, including many birding parties.  Most of the visitors have been ones that we have seen here before.  The white-bellied sunbirds continue to feed on nectar from the aloes, although the flowers are now beginning to die back.  Blue waxbills have been plentiful, along with arrow-marked babblers, white-crested helmet-shrikes, Burchell’s starlings, red-billed queleas, green-winged pytilias, firefinches, various hornbills and black-headed orioles, which, like the sunbirds, also feed on the aloes.

African spoonbill at our waterhole

On the 7^th of August, and much to our surprise, an African spoonbill spent the morning at our waterhole.  They frequent shallow rivers with pools, pans, lakes and estuaries but our waterhole is smaller than the norm for a spoonbill. It was the first time we have seen this particular wading bird at the lodge and it takes our tally of birds seen and identified here to 114.  There are also two owl species (African scops owl and the White-faced scops owl) that we have heard but not seen here, although have done so elsewhere in the past.