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.