Birding With the Wild Bunch: Misadventures in Zululand

January 23, 2021 / stidyatkusane / 4 Comments

*Birding in iSamgaliso Wetland Park, Zululand*.

It is four ‘o’clock in the morning and I am lying in my tent in the Sugarloaf camp-site on the fringes of Lake St Lucia town. It is still dark. Although little stirs at this hour, it is not completely silent. In the distance, I can hear the waves crashing against the shores of the Indian Ocean. A sea breeze ruffles the leaves in the trees above me. Someone is snoring softly in one of the tents.

I am agog with anticipation. I know the dawn chorus is coming any moment soon but I am not sure when. I feel that same sense of hushed expectation I get when a concert is about to begin.

The first to start up is the Red-capped Robin-chat, one of the most melodious tune-smiths in the business. When he wants to show off his vocal virtuosity, he can elaborate and vary his tune for as long as he wants, throwing his whole body into the effort, song after song. Next, even deeper in the forest, I hear the amiable chortle of an Eastern Nicator. Him, I want to find (I don’t but I have got him before). Then, that other well-known songbird, the thrush (probably the Olive Thrush) chips in, followed by a whole cacophony of song.

As I think about dragging myself out of my sleeping bag, I try to identify some of these bird calls although I am not sure whether it is actually the bird I think it is singing or the robin mimicking their sound. Most species have very distinctive calls, but the robin is a master at impersonation. He can do pitch-perfect renditions of virtually every call from the Fish Eagle to the Fiery-necked Nightjar. He can even do convincing imitations of human sounds which is a lot to ask of a bird…

With streaks of light now appearing in the east, I unzip my tent and lookout. The world seems welcoming enough so I crawl out and stagger towards a kettle already boiling on the gas stove. Once my tea is made I pause to take in my surroundings. They are beautiful.

There is a rather long story behind how I got to be standing here with my mug of tea in hand amongst this greenery and the musical melody. Being in this camp-site was never part of our original plan. We had hoped to go to Ndumo, upon the Mozambique border. Chomping at the bit with impatience to get there, my one birding partner, Mark, a professional photographer, had booked the three of us (Ant, an ex-game ranger and all-round nice guy, is the other member) well ahead of time, signing on the dotted line and paying the requested fees.

Ken, a sports-writer based in Jo’burg and the fourth member of the team, had decided to delay booking because he was still waiting to hear what cricket assignments he had coming up. It is he who eventually discovers Ndumo is closed.

In yet another example of the bureaucratic ineptitude that cripples so many governmental bodies in South Africa, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife had simply not bothered to let any of those who had booked know about this closure. If Ken had not found out we would have merrily made the five and a half hour journey to Ndumo only to be turned back at the gate. Another friend of my mine was actually all packed and due to leave, with his family, the next day. Until I messaged, no one had notified him either.

His patience fraying, Mark tried to book us into Mkhuze but it is the same story. The camp-site is closed for “water reasons”. In the end, he settles for Sugarloaf and checks us in there. Ken and I are sceptical. When we go camping we like to get off the beaten track. A camp-site in suburbia is not our idea of wilderness. Mark is adamant about it so for the sake of group harmony we relent.

Which brings me back to how I am here.

As I take another sip of tea, I hear a strange whooshing sound. A largish bird alights in a wild fig tree near me. With its bright, green colours and upright crest, I recognise it immediately. It is a Livingstone’s Turaco, a ‘special’ of the area. It is a bird that only lives in a very narrow band of elevation and in South Africa is restricted to the thin coastal strip on the upper reaches of Zululand. It is very similar to the more well-known, Knysna Turaco, differing only in having a longer, more pointed, black-and-white-tipped (not white) crest.

I am pleased to be able to tick it off my list so early in the trip.

Still nursing my mug of tea, I concede that Mark may be right after all. Forests are great providers of solitude and he has managed to hide us all in a very secluded spot, away from where the majority of campers have erected their tents (and parked their boats). After the aridity of Mapungubwe and the heat of Kruger (where I have just been), this garden of delights feels like another country to me and a very agreeable one at that. I decide maybe it is advantageous to be open to the new and flexible in your thinking.

Once we have finished our mugs of tea, we set off to explore the iSamgaliso Wetland Park (formerly the Greater Lake St Lucia Wetland Park), South Africa’s largest estuarine system. Its centrepiece is a vast lake that stretches for 38 000 hectares and its rippling waters are home to an enormous population of hippos and crocodiles, as well as pelicans and flamingos. It has the distinction of being the first area in KwaZulu-Natal to be declared a World Heritage Site.

Ken is bubbling over with enthusiasm because he has heard, via the birding grapevine, that a Rufous-bellied Heron had been sighted at one of the small pans, just to the south of the lake. I have seen one once before, on the banks of the Zambezi at Mana Pool, but for the rest of the group, it will be a lifer. It is a bird that is seldom seen in South Africa. My copy of SASOL describes it as “fairly common resident in north Botswana; uncommon migrant and nomad elsewhere.”

I’m a bit of a nomad myself so I am as anxious as Ken to find it. We are in luck. Parked at the very first pan we come to, we see one fly out from the edge of the water and land on the vegetated matter on the other side. A few minutes later it is followed by another! There is not one, as was reported, but two! A pair!

It is always exciting to see some rare bird in a remote place that is not always easy to reach, so Ken is ecstatic, leaping into the air and high-fiving us all. Thanks to the miracles of modern technology, it is very easy to quickly disseminate information these days so he also lets the Rare Bird Sighting bunch know.

For my part, my heart swells with pride because, as the birder who saw it first, it means I will get to drink red wine tonight out of the special silver goblet we reserve for Best Sighting of the Day! Ken and I take this solemn ritual very seriously but Mark does not share our religious devotion to it. He thinks he has a far superior, much more finely-made wine goblet, failing to understand it is not about the level of craftsmanship – it is about the historical, spiritual and symbolic associations the vessel has.

*The Silver Goblet. Pic courtesy of Ken Borland.*

Over the course of many years, we have toasted a long list of very fine and stately birds with that goblet…

We drive on, towards the massive, tree-covered dunes that stretch forever along the Zululand coast. The summer rains haven’t started properly yet but everywhere you look it is the same relentless green. In between the forest are open glades of wild parkland in which Zebra, Wildebeest, Giraffe and an assortment of buck roam. The deeper we get into the dune forest, the more the vegetation crowds to the road, In places flat wet dung raises its reassuring familiar smell, meaning that, although we cannot see them, elephant are definitely about. Having had my share of close shaves, I pray they are in good mood…

Near the top of the one high dune, there is a lookout point which provides an exhilarating view over the lake, shimmering under an amorphous sky. Buck and buffalo graze along its banks, a fish eagle’s call adds to the sense of mystery. Ken’s attention is, however, quickly diverted from this Eden-like scene by movement in a nearby tree. It is a White-eared Barbet, another species confined mostly to the Zululand coastal belt and regarded as a ‘special’ although they are quite common here.

We continue up the dune. Another hundred metres or so, we find ourselves staring not over the lake but the mighty Indian Ocean whose rollers are sweeping in endless procession on to the Mission Rocks below.

*Mission Rocks. Pic courtesy of Ant Williamson.*

Getting on to the surf-flecked rocks, the conchologist in Ken kicks in and he is soon wading around in the tidal pools looking for shells and sticking his fingers into places he ought not to. While he is doing this, Mark is giving an up-country fisherman advice on where to cast his line. Ant snaps the coastline from every conceivable angle with his camera, so he can give his young daughters some idea of where he has been.

I gaze out to the ocean and think about the U Boats that once cruised up and down these waters, attacking merchant shipping lanes off the South African and Mozambican coasts. In a now mostly forgotten episode of the Second World War, 75 Catalina Flying Boats of 10 Royal Airforce squadrons were based, among other places, at Lake St Lucia. They were used for spot and destroy operations along the South African coastline where 163 allied ships were lost to Japanese and German submarines.

On a previous visit, my brother, Patrick, and I had been shown a cellar under a house in the town where it was believed, a spy in the employ of the Germans, had sent radio messages to the submarines.

From here it is a short drive, through yet more forest, to Cape Vidal, a beautiful stretch of shoreline but with too many tourists doing dumb touristy things for my taste. I am not too put out when we turn around and head home.

That evening, Mark and Ant are keen to show us the Ski Club they have discovered the previous day, so we pile back into the car and head down to it. The setting can hardly be improved upon. Directly in front of the club deck is the estuary in which flamingos, in their gossiping hundreds, parade up and down like models on a watery cat-walk. The edges team with waders feeding avidly before night falls. On the other side of the estuary dune, the ocean drives at the shore without pity. Gulls and terns skim overhead eyeing the thundering waves for signs of edible sea life

I cannot imagine anything more conducive to relaxation than all this – the cold beer, the balmy African sky, the flamingo, the heady perfume of the sea, the companionship of those who are prosecuting with zeal and enthusiasm the same path of science as you.

Next morning we are up early again and on the road. I am hoping we will have some good sightings over the next few days. There is a good chance of that. Ken is possessed of the sort of doggedness that distinguishes any good birder and when you go with him you know you are in for the long haul. It is almost impossible for him to drive past some small, subsidiary road and not want to go down to see what might be lurking there. Ken would make a top-notch detective if he weren’t so mad about sport.

Our convoluted route takes us all the way back to the N2 freeway and then down to Charter’s Creek on the western shores of the lake. We find the camping facilities here are also shut because of the water situation even though there is a whacking great lake full of the liquid directly in front. Mark smells neglect and rank incompetence in the air.

He then gets out the skottle and makes a sumptuous breakfast fit for a king, near the jetty where some folk are fishing. Ken and I search for water-birds. Ant takes more photos for his daughters.

*Cooking breakfast at Charter’s Creek. Pic courtesy of Ant Williamson.*

Afterwards, we head off along a route that takes us down the western side of the estuarine system. Near the Dukuduku gate, lying in the grass, close to the road, is a magnificent old Waterbuck bull with one horn. He is all on his own. His surviving horn is long and whorled. If the others weren’t there to set me straight, I would have sworn I have found a unicorn.

Over the next few days, we explore this whole water-wonderland of river, streams, lakes, vleis, marshes, and oozing filament as it drains into the Indian Ocean. We drive over dunes, through grassland and more pristine forest. We follow a walkway which leads to a lookout point built high up in a gigantic, evergreen Cape Ash (Ekebergia capensis), looking out over an expanse of the swamp. We stand and look towards the spot where one of the Catalinas, that once hounded the Germans, crashed into the lake. Its fuselage still lies under the murky waters providing an object of interest for passing fish.

*View from lookout in massive Cape Ash tree. Dunes in distance*.

As we do all this our bird list mounts up – Bataleur, Forest Buzzard (immature) Crested Guineafowl, Spurwing Goose, Yellow-bellied Bulbul, Caspian Tern, Purple-banded Sunbird, Red-billed Oxpecker, Trumpeter Hornbill, Ringed Plover, Yellow-breasted Apalis and much more. The top sighting is, once again, reserved for me. Scoping the shores of a small pan I pick up several Collared Pratincoles. Once again I lick my lips in anticipation. The silver goblet is mine!

It is only on our last day, when we drive to Lake Bhangazi, that the animals come out in force.

We get up close and personal with two old buffalo. The buffalo is said to be the most aggressive animal in Africa and the way these two keep a beady eye on us makes me hope I will never have to put it to the test. Then we see White Rhino. Three of them. Their horns have been sawn off to try and deter poachers from killing them. Covered in black mud after a good wallow, they look like they have grown out of the soil itself. They also appear quite oblivious to the dark clouds hanging over the future of the species. I love Rhino although I have been chased, on more than one occasion, by their highly irritable and bad-tempered cousin, the Black Rhino.

We come upon several herds of fleet-footed Kudu, the male members of whom boast some of the finest horns I have ever seen.

Finally, just as we are about to abandon hope: elephant. I have witnessed elephant looming up through trees, lashing the air with their trunks, massive ears flared, angry as all hell, but these two look as peaceful as lambs as they doze in the midday sun, using a Water-berry tree (Syzygium cordatum. Zulu: umdoni) as a make-shift beach-umbrella. You never can tell, though, so I am glad they are not blocking our exit.

My trip ends on a birding high note. On the final morning, while Ken is performing his lengthy ablutions and Mark is packing his vehicle with military-style precision, I spot a bird creeping through the creepers where the Red-capped Robin-chat normally hangs out.

It is a robin but not the robin I expected – it is a Brown Scrub – Robin which I have only seen once before!

A happy camper, I start whistling (very badly) self-congratulatory robin tunes to myself as I exit the park…

Escape to the High Country: Travels in the Karoo

January 9, 2021 / stidyatkusane / 12 Comments

*Two High Plains Drifters: the author and Prof Goonie Marsh. Pic courtesy of Sally Scott*.

There is no risk of overstating it: 2020 was a horrible year. With levels of worry, anxiety and depression reaching a new high level mark, I finally realised emergency solutions were called for. After puzzling it over, I decided the best thing to do would be to try and end the year on a high note by escaping – if only briefly – from all the mania and talk surrounding Covid-19.

And so we took to the hills, heading up into one of the more remote and isolated areas of the country – the Great Karoo, which forms part of South Africa’s vast, high-lyng central plateau. Here, I hoped, I would be able to rid my mind of the ever-looming spectre of the pandemic and reboot my soul.

Officially, there were three of us on the expedition – myself, my artist sister, Sally Scott, and Professor Goonie Marsh, the former-head of the Department of Geology Department at Rhodes University and a very useful man to have around because of his extensive knowledge of all things Karoo. Also, he is very good company.

The route Goonie had plotted for us, took us through the tiny hamlet of Riebeek East where the famous Voortrekker leader Piet Retief once owned the farm, Mooimeisefontein. Retief would later go on to negotiate land deals for his people in what is now my home turf, KwaZulu Natal, before his unexpected assassination at the hands of King Dingaan of the Zulu.

There was another reason I wanted to check out Riebeek-East. An ancestor of mine, on my father’s mother’s side, Lt Colonel Richard Athol Nesbitt, had served here as a sub-inspector with the Frontier Armed and Mounted Police (FAMP) back in 1866. Besides a few drowsing cows lying on the side of the road, there was not much sign of life. Cruising down the town’s empty streets, I tried to visualise what it must have been like when the sub-inspector came riding into town, correct and erect in his policeman uniform, on top of his handsome horse. It must, I concluded, have felt like some sort of banishment because, even today, Riebeek-East feels cut off from the outside world.

This point notwithstanding, I found I was developing a bit of a kinship with Richard Athol. It was almost like he was along with us for the ride. On my way down to Grahamstown, where Sally lives, I had stopped for a breather at Fort Brown, on the Great Fish River, another nondescript outpost of Empire where he had served. This was not the only place where we were to dog each others shadows. In 1872 Nesbitt was promoted to Acting Inspector and despatched to the next town on our journey, the more substantial Somerset East, nestling under the massive bulwark of the Bosberg.

In 1878 the FAMP were militarised, as a unit of the Colonial Forces, and renamed Cape Mounted Riflemen (CMR). The unit would go on to play a prominent role in the numerous conflicts that broke out within the Cape Colony and around its borders, as a result of the Cape government’s expansionist policies. Later, Richard Athol would come out of retirement and – at the request of the Colonial Government – raise and command Nesbitt’s Horse which, in his own clipped words, “served in most of the principal events of the [Anglo-Boer) war, with Lord Robert’s march – Paardeburg, capture of Bloemfontein, Johannesburg, Pretoria and in clearing the colony of rebels.”

The Lt Col was obviously not one for uneccessary sentiment or wasting words…

1902 found him resident in Grahamstown. His military exploits are commemorated in the impressive monument which stands in front of the town’s old Methodist Church. An entire side-panel is devoted to those members of his unit who lost their lives in this bitter conflict.

We finally parted company with our ghost passenger somewhere up on the Bruintjeshooghte, just south of Somerset East. We were now travelling in less familiar territory. Ahead lay the vast Plains of Cambdeboo, immortalised by the author Eve Palmer in her classic book of the same name. You actually pass by the farm – Cranemere – where she grew up and lived and you can still see the same dam that provided them with their lifeblood – water.

The Plains of Cambdeboo from Bruinteshoogte, looking towards Graaff Reinet.

The small town of Pearston, where the great palaeontologist Dr Robert Broom once lived, is also on the road although, like many of these Karoo dorps, it now looks a little fly blown and past its best. Of Broom himself, more later.

Beyond that the world lay wide and empty around us until we finally got to Graaff Reinet – or the “gem of the Karoo” as it is sometimes called because of its neat, shaded streets and beautiful period houses – set in a mass of wild-looking hills with the Valley of Desolation to the west and, overlooking the town, the prominent landmark of Spandau Kop. Established in 1786, it is South Africa’s fourth oldest town and has its origins as a far flung frontier settlement on the very edges of the old Cape Colony.

Just outside of town, on the road to Murraysburg, there is a stark, simple monument to Gideon Scheepers, the Boer military leader who was court-martial-led and shot here on the 18^th June 1902, by the British authorities. It was – according to Goonie (who also has a solid grasp of the region’s history) – a severe punishment which turned him into an instant martyr for the Afrikaner cause. As opponents in the Anglo-Boer War, I wondered if Gideon and Richard Athol had ever crossed paths?

Beyond that, the road climbed steeply up the Oudeberg Pass. Before I knew it the Plains of Camdeboo were below us, then out of sight. At the turn-off, to Nieu-Bethesda we stopped for lunch on the side of the road, under one of those abrupt, flat-topped, mountains that rise out of the plains, like talismanic guardians, throughout the Karoo…

The Karoo is a land of sun, heat, and stillness although, as if to defy my expectations, a light drizzle began to fall as we unpacked our picnic basket on the tail-gate of the bakkie. The summers can be scorchingly hot, in winter the night temperatures regularly drop well below freezing point. Rainfall is erratic, drought common.

It was not always so. There was a time when ceaseless rains poured down upon this ancient land, leaving it covered with inland seas, lakes, and swamps. Millions of strange-looking reptiles and amphibians roamed around and then died here; in our era, their fossilised remains have made the Karoo world-famous for palaeontologists. This brings us back to that pioneer of the profession, Dr Robert Broom, who did so much to uncover their secrets.

As we drove deeper into the interior the hills became barer, even more silent. There was little sign of habitation although, every now and again there was the occasional windmill or wind pomp just to remind you that people lived here. The road wound on and on, empty and devoid of traffic, so much so that driving along it eventually became like a form of meditation.

Originally this vast area was occupied by the San, aboriginal hunters, small in size and few in number, who drifted with the seasons and the herds of game. Of these animals the springbok is, undoubtedly, the most emblematic of the Karoo, their bodies evolving, over time, to deal with the hardships of life in this arid country. Despite the devastation wreaked by the early white hunters, which saw this beautiful animal being exterminated over much of its range, the springbok population has begun to rise again, now that their commercial value has become appreciated.

Later, the San themselves were hunted down or driven into the swamps and deserts. In their place came trekkers, traders, missionaries, and explorers, who braved the fierce heat, moving with their wagons and animals into the harsh dry interior. With them, they bought their religion. Nearby Murraysburg, named to honour the Reverend Andrew Murray, was originally a church town resorting under the full control of the Dutch Reformed Church up until June 1949 when it was placed under the control of the local municipality.

Just beyond the spot where a large sign announced that we were leaving the East and entering the West Cape, we came to an imposing white-pillared gate with a sign “Oudeland” next to it. Here we swung right, driving down a dirt road dotted with caramel-brown rain puddles. In every distance, the plain was sparse and bare although we did pass the crumbling ruins of an old barn and kraal with the inevitable wind pomp standing like a sentinel behind it. Moving fast, the clouds cast a storm light across the buildings. I wanted to look for the species of lark that had these scrub-strewn grasslands all to themselves but with more rain threatening now wasn’t the time for it so we plugged on.

*Old barn and windmill. Pic taken after storm clouds had blown away*.

Cresting a rise, the farmhouse and outbuildings came in to view in a valley below where – Goonie explained – a sill of hard, erosion-resistant, dolerite had cut through the softer sedimentary rocks. A small, seasonal, stream ran through the middle of it. The main farm complex was situated on the one side amongst a mass of poplar, gum, and willow trees and fields of grazing merino sheep; the lush green colour of the lucerne pastures, in which they were feeding, contrasting sharply with the stark, elemental beauty of the semi-desert that surrounded them.

Our house lay on the opposite bank, just above a belt of prickly pears. As we drove into the fenced yard we were greeted by a brown horse and a small herd of multi-coloured springbok. Such colour morphs are extremely rare in the wild (in fact, they are so unusual they were venerated by the San) but these white, or leucistic, forms are mostly the result of selective breeding to meet the needs of hunters seeking exotic trophies. It is a practice that has caused some controversy because the genes which cause these colour variants are actually recessive and so could weaken the species.

I am not a hunter and I get no joy in taking life, so I was delighted to share the animals’ company just for its own sake, especially when – every now and again and for seemingly no particular reason – its various members started leaping in stiff-legged bounces known as “pronking”, in which all four hooves hit the ground at the same time. The small herd was, the owner’s wife explained, all orphans who had been hand-reared and loved to the point where they had become family pets. Each one had its own name. I was especially taken with the one very friendly individual who had one blue eye and one green.

The house itself was built in the usual airy Karoo style with white-washed walls and a wide verandah on which you could sit and gaze out over the distant lonely blue mountains. Inside the appliances were all modern although the stuffed head of a large buffalo bull, as well as that of a puzzled-looking Zebra, added a slightly incongruous touch.

I was up at daybreak. We were lucky that morning. Overnight, the rain clouds had all blown away. The sky above us was a strange intense blue, wind-cleaned, limitless, and crisscrossed with lazy scrawls of thin cloud. There was a lovely lyrical quality to the landscape, to my eyes, it all seemed intoxicatingly clean and remote. Although I am not from these parts, I felt totally at home in this indivisible, self-contained world.

In this sort of country, there is almost no shade or protection from the elements although our morning walk did take us up to a stony ridge in which there was an overhang with bushes growing at its mouth. On its walls, we were excited to discover several faded examples of San rock art. I had no way of knowing how old they were – possibly thousands of years?

From the cave entrance we looked down over a large dam which reflected the changing weather in the sky above. Water lines of geese and duck and dabchick cracked its surface. Such open stretches of water always come as a surprise in this thirst-land. For the birds it must indeed seem like manna from heaven..

Back on the path, Goonie came to an abrupt stop, pointed his walking stick in the direction of an exposed sheet of unsuspecting, layered, grey rock and declared: “That looks like just the spot for a fossil!”. Sure enough, when we went down to investigate, we found several tiny fragments of fractured fossilised bone. With my untrained eye I would never have suspected they were there and would have passed the site by without a sideways glance.

Just the spot for a fossil. Prof Goonie Marsh.

Leaving them undisturbed we continued down to the dam wall. From its top we stood, awed by the view, as the escarpment retreated away; each ridge exposing new gullies and rough broken ground and more valleys until finally reaching the horizon, where the pale ramparts of the distant range of mountains raised themselves. Then we walked on, feeling buoyant and light and energised. Sally, with her artists eye (as opposed to Goonie’s more scientific one) was struck by all the strange patterns and details in the landscape and regularly stopped to record them.

Later, when it got too hot for walking, Goonie and I climbed in to the circular reservoir around the back of the house and had a swim. It felt good, splashing around like I was a young boy again…

That evening we sat with our drinks out on the verandah. The earth was still in twilight shadow. In the distance massed, bulging, cumulonimbus clouds gathered above the mountain tops. As the sun sank so they changed shape, form and colour.

All felt well with the world. Far from the madding crowds, I finally began to get some sort of harmony between body and mind. Looking back over the journey, I also felt I had established another link with my past, learnt a little bit more about how I got to be who and where I am…

My sense of contentment did not last. Back in Grahamstown all the talk still centred on the pandemic and the overcrowded hospitals and the beach and liquor ban. I couldn’t help but feel a little deflated. The happy little bubble I had created for myself in the wilds of the Karoo suddenly seemed far away. That is the problem with fantasies – sooner or later they get punctured and you are back with harsh reality.

GALLERY: