Upon arrival, the staff seem very helpful, they give us a map of all the routes & walking trails. As we enter we take the 4x4 route first with us planning to be at the picnic area by lunch, cruising not too far & Yellow-Throated Longclaws are spotted which seem to be the common bird around here. Further along we stumble across a section of the road which the rain had damaged so it was time to test out the 4x4. It was hair raising at first but with some guidance & a shovel in hand, we bulit up our road & made it through with ease. The bigger problem was getting up this on the way back, we had to rebuild a section of it & level out some parts but this sand was really soft & makes everything just that much more difficult. After a few hair raising attempts & near rolls, the ballie guides the bakkie through with a sign of relief.
Back at the reception, we tell them about the road but they already knew all this, its really disgusting that the staff don't inform visitors of events that have happened at this reserve, nor do they inform visitors that the whale watching tower access is by foot but on the map it shows a 4x4 road, they even told us where to go by car, so we drove around looking for a road that does not exist!
At the pan we stopped for some coffee, had a walk around, found some porcupine quills, got fooled by a stupid stick which looked like a snake hidden in the grass just waiting to attack. In the pan were loads of African Jacanas flying around chasing eachother, calling & I also spotted one building a nest next to the waters edge which I have never seen before. Also around were White faced Whistlers, Spur-Winged Geese, Egyptian Geese, Little Grebes, Grey Heron, Common Moorhen, Black Crake, the enchanting White-Fronted Bee-Eaters & a few more.
Zebra & Giraffe were on the playlist literally with the birds being the backround beat, they looked so goofy with one ear up & one ear down & their faces just being so comical looking. The animals didnt seem too bothered by our presence & slowly moved off as we approached them, giving us some photo opportunities. For a small Reserve, they sure have alot of giraffe, zebra & few buck of which we managed to catch a glimpse of before it disappeared into the bushes.
We reach our picnic area,started a braai, setup the lunch table & relaxed by the siff river, yip it was siff, from all the rain during the week. There are 2 young guys who do canoe hire & the one young man is "Junior", he's a bird guide for reserves around this area & knows his stuff. We were fortunate for him to voluntarily join us on our trail walk & lucky for us that he did, he called in a Green Malkoha (Green Coucal) which was a first spot for us & guided us through some overgrown bushes that made the path disappear,clearing some spider webs & I had the unfortunate grace of walking into a Golden Orb Spider but luckily managed to let it loose onto a tree (these spiders are harmless but do give a nasty bite).
Throughout the day we saw 45 species of birds & heard 3 of which we never saw including the very elusive Narina Trogon, even after trying to call it in.
Thanks to the parentals for the lovely trip & many more to come.
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