25/10/2007 Kruger
Trip Start
Oct 11, 2007
1
15
18
Trip End
Oct 28, 2007
Where I stayed
Mopani Restcamp
Kruger National Park, South Africa
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Shingwedzi and the surrounding area is one of the few places in South Africa where Collared Palm Thrush can be found. We'd had several attempts to find the member of staff who knows how to locate these birds and finally tracked him down after we'd breakfasted and packed. He explained how to get to the part of the camp site where they are most likely to be found, so we went for a look but with no luck. He turned up just as we were on the point of giving up and setting off for the day, and immediately got a response from a Palm Thrush when he imitated their call. However the bird calling back was obviously 2-300 metres distant in a heavily wooded area. CC was able to imitate the call and get a reply, but the bird seemed to be moving further away. After another 15 minutes of trying, attempting the call from several locations on the perimeter of the camp we realised that the birds were not going to show, so we set of towards our final overnight stop in the Kruger, Mopani Rest Camp.
Our first planned stop was at the large bird hide on the Kanniedood dam but we picked up Martial Eagle and Tawny Eagle on the way their, along with a large flock of European Bee-eaters. A large eagle was noted in a tree and we had a really good look at this because it appeared at first sight to be a juvenile Greater Spotted Eagle. This would have been an exceptional record, possibly a first for South Africa. It showed a lot of white on its rump when I flew away and three rows of white spots on its upper wings. It was presumably a Lesser Spotted Eagle, a much commoner bird locally, but we were certainly intrigued.
Birds at the Kanniedood dam were numerous but poor light conditions meant that they took some work. Marsh , Wood and Common Sandpipers, Kittlitz's, Three-banded and White-fronted Plovers and Little Stints. Two waders got a little more attention and when we'd had a good look at these we were satisfied that they were Temminck's Stints. We weren't particularly surprised at this because we'd looked at Temminck's in the field guide immediately after getting on to them, mixed in with several Little Stints. However we discovered subsequently that these might have been the only Temminck's Stints seen in South Africa in 2007. The coincidence of seeing these birds and a possible Greater Spotted Eagle in a period of less than an hour seems unlikely, but we are quite confident of our identification of a species that we'd seen several times before. Another Tawny Eagle just south of the dam was close enough to photograph.
The cold wet weather was definitely having a negative effect on game viewing and we didn't see a single elephant on the drive from Shingwedzi to Mopani, despite several diversions down loop roads.
Our accommodation at Mopani was perhaps the best in the park - very spacious and clean. We went to the restaurant for a late lunch and noted that a Mocking Cliff Chat seemed to spend a lot of time around the restaurant area. We had seen one here in 2005. The communal buildings at Mopani have a splendid view over a large dam and there's a trail within the camp grounds that you can take to get down to the level of the lake shore. Despite the persistent drizzle we decided to take a look at this. We found Rufous-winged Cisticola in the papyrus beds along the fence but not much else.
