Birding Big Day 1999, Somewhere outside Pretoria....

The national record for Birding Big Day is 274 species, set in Natal 
in 1998. The highest score recorded around the Gauteng area: 240. 
Enter Raiders of the Lost Lark, a new team consisting of Etienne 
Marais, Pete Irons and Graham Deverell, with Selwyn Rautenbach as 
"non-playing captain" and driver as well as highly energetic 
reconnaissance person.

Our day got off to a false start at 12.30 when Selwyn's cellphone 
mysteriously went off an hour-and-a-half early. This after a fitful 
couple of hours sleep interrupted by a potent electrical storm. Selwyn 
was instantly his cheery self, and was somewhat taken aback at the 
lack of enthusiasm displayed by his dazed team. We were to pay dearly
 for the loss of valuable ZZZ's later in the day.

Our first birds were pearl-spotted, barn and whitefaced owls as well 
as Burchell's glossy starling which seemed to be burbling in their 
sleep. Moving gingerly past a slowly-roving puffadder, we headed 
into the thornveld west of Pienaarsrivier and soon added a couple of 
sleepless cuckoos, energetic redcrested korhaans and a family of 
sleeping pied babblers to our list. Dawn found us on about 20 birds.

The dawn was slightly subdued as the sun struggled to make an impact 
on an overcast morning, but we soon had three robins, seven cuckoos
and 6 shrikes on our list. Selwyn's driving, which was relatively 
sedate to start off with, soon had us clutching wildly for the
bullbar every time a rattling cisticola so much as budged. The 
similarities between bushveld birding and pelagic trips on tossing 
seas never struck us before. A European golden oriole and a male 
Montagu's harrier were the "surprise birds" of the morning, which 
produced 140 species by 9:00 am. Despite this good tally we were 
concerned that we had dipped on a number of acacia birds like ashy
tit, scimitarbill and some of the waxbills. 

We then headed eastwards out of the acacia country and into 
broadleaved woodland around Phumula Lodge. Here we added 12 birds in 
15 minutes, including lesser masked and redheaded weaver, as well as 
buffalo weaver. A quick visit to a farm south -west of Rust de Winter 
dam proved disappointing, adding only 2 new birds. We seemed to be 
slowing down, but managed to pick up great sparrow and violet-eared 
waxbill, which we had missed earlier, before heading on to our next 
stakeout about 30 minutes late.

The next stakeout had not been recce'd beforehand, almost causing one 
team member to throttle another with a binocular strap as the dipped 
species and lost time gnawed at our sense of humour. Graham's 
excellent catering saved the day however, with a tasty sandwich 
ever close at hand to stuff in a mumbling mouth.

We headed into the Amakulu area a good 15 birds behind our trial run 
of the previous week. This area produced fawncoloured and monotonous 
larks, which seemed to be everywhere, but we dipped on greater kestrel, 
giant kingfisher and white-bellied korhaan. The tally climbed steadily 
and the Kloof Shop area produced the goods with lazy cisticola and 
mocking chat. A small pan added 11 birds in 4 minutes, and we edged 
past the 190 mark as we started the Seringveld route at about 12:30. 
This area was ever-reliable with tinkling cisticola and greencapped 
eremomela, but the pallid flycatcher eluded us, as it had done in our 
recce's.

We met the Bosveld Bokmakieries a few birds short of 200, and the news 
that they had already passed that milestone didn't cheer us up. 
However, when we got to Roodeplaat dam we quickly started to accumulate 
waterbirds and our 200th was one of great crested grebe, white-breasted 
cormorant or a beautiful little bittern which we shared with the 
Malmossies.

Baviaanspoort was equally successful and we got 8 species in as many 
minutes including striped pipit, lesser honeyguide and thickbilled 
weaver. The sight of a small band of unshaven grown men running down 
the path bearing a ghettoblaster, telescope and binoculars, looking 
wildly about for two minutes, and then high-tailing back to the 
vehicle must have looked like a scene from "Leon Schuster Goes 
Birding". 

Cullinan and Zonderwater were a mixed bag. The crowd of locals 
enjoying the fishing and the afternoon sun at Zonderwater, complete 
with thumping ghetto-blasters, did not seem to deter the two Cape 
clawless otters which were frolicking in the second dam, unlike the 
yellow warblers which were not amused and failed to show up. However, 
the accumulation was constant and the redchested flufftail and African 
rail brought our tally to 225, with two major biomes still to go. 

Grassland birding is hard work if you have little time, but this time 
our favourite mini-highlands south of Rayton did not fail us with 14 
new birds, including two flocks of cuckoo finch, longbilled lark, 
redwinged francolin and three new cisticolas. A tip-off from Andre 
Marx of the Malmossies proved worthwhile as we picked up melodious 
lark - our 9th lark of the day. 

Spirits were high as we headed for our trump card - a wonderful natural 
pan - with 241 species in the bag. The pan did not disappoint and we 
added 22 new birds, including grass and marsh owl, avocet, maccoa duck 
and greater flamingo. The day's biggest dip thusfar, spurwing goose, 
arrived to roost just as the sun was setting. It says something that 
we failed to spot the blacknecked grebe and ringed plover on the pan, 
which were found by a Rand Barbets club outing the next morning. 

Our final evening session was a flop, with lack of planning and 
calculated thought taking its toll. Desperation took over as we 
toured several "long-shot" stake-outs across Pretoria. The most 
incredulous look of the day came from the guard at a local resort 
where Cape rock thrushes roost in the buildings. The leap of faith 
required to believe that the bunch of men surrounding his gatehouse 
brandishing torches at 9.30pm on a Saturday night were in fact looking 
for birds was obviously a bit much to expect. And then there was the 
mystery duck spotted in the beam of a 500 000 candlepower spotlight 
halfway across Roodeplaat Dam a while later. Although our minds were 
playing serious tricks on us by then, we just could not imagine hard 
enough to make it into a finfoot. It is certainly better viewed by 
day, and it appears to be some sort of a semi-domesticated variety, 
probably a mallard hybrid. Mostert Kriek has since designated the 
species as "plaaseend".

The only new birds added after 7 pm were the familiar chat hawking 
insects around the lights at Pete's house, and the resident rufous-
cheeked nightjar, which teased us for ages before eventually calling. 
This during a coffee break on the way north in a vain search for 
scops owl.

Overall our BBD was a fantastic birding day. We got 13 ducks (not 
counting plaaseend), 11 shrikes, 10 cisticola's, 9 larks, 8 swallows, 
7 cuckoos and 6 weavers. Our final tally of 265 species was 25 more 
than any of us had achieved before. It was achieved without at least 
15 species which were regulars on all our reconnaissance outings. But 
of course, 24 hours is only 24 hours and one will always miss some 
easy birds! 

Our dip of the day? Etienne reckons a toss-up between yellowbilled 
kite, fierynecked nightjar and spotted eagle owl. Klaas's cuckoo 
comes a close second to goldentailed woodpecker for Pete's 
Glaring Gap award. In fact, we only ticked one woody on the day. 
Our bird of the day is unanimous: Montagu's Harrier; which seem to 
have arrived in numbers as the other teams we encountered had also 
seen them.
 
The results of BBD 1999 prove conclusively that Pretoria is one of 
THE TOP birding destinations in the country. Between the three teams 
mentioned here, 312 bird species were recorded on the day, all within 
an hour's drive of the city! The point is further demonstrated by the 
fact that the top Natal and Kruger Park teams scored 262 and 250 birds 
respectively. Only Chobe managed to top us, scoring 273.

Well done to everybody who took part, it was great to see so many 
birders out on the road. 

Pete Irons and Etienne Marais
Raiders of the Lost Lark

Team Reports Available:

• The Malmossies - by Andre Marx
• Raiders of the Lost Lark - by Pete Irons
• Bosveld Bokmakieries deur Stephan Terblanche
• WITVLERKFLAPPE by Rihann Geyser