Pam Ellenberger found a Lesser Moorhen at the entrance to Khotso on the Drakensberg Gardens road on 3 March. Unbekown to Pam, Aldo Berruti would find 4 chicks skulking with the other parent bird. Most years there is at least an immature Lesser Moorhen in the district. A pair did breed near Reichenau Dam a few seasons ago.
This year the breeding season has ended with a lot of rain, flooding grasslands and stream banks and wetlands. These occurrences tend to flush out skulkers like crakes. I saw Corn Crake on the Pevensey Road early morning in wet and miserable conditions as was the one I saw at Marutswa Forest late last year. African Crake have bred in the Dublin Vlei, with fairly regular sightings of the adults or fully grown young early or late in the day, also preferably overcast days. Glen McLean and I had Red-chested Flufftail out on the middle of the road at Ottermere on an overcast day.
It was the best year for Black-headed Canaries in all my years working the eastern highlands of Lesotho with a sighting rate of almost every trip. White-throated Canaries still remain elusive on this eastern side of Lesotho, but I have had the most sightings this season as well. Glen discovered a young, injured bird which attracted 4 other Whitethroated Canaries to join it struggling on the ground, at his feet. The long staying Purple-crested Turaco has now been in Underberg for 8 years, first being spotted by Janet and Allen Roth in Manse Road. It has only once been heard in Himeville. One is tempted to think this bird may have been an escaped cage bird but there have been other, out of the ordinary birds from further afield, such as Narina Trogon. The Eustace’s have twice had Narina trogon on their farm. It seems more logical to have Knysna Turaco here as their local population is closer, at Bulwer and Ngelebantwana Forests, but Purplecrested are not true Forest birds, they prefer more woodland type habitat. The gardens are not yet so mature as to attract many forest birds yet but may do so in the future.
Garden birds are always very special for folk. Tony and Kristel Coetzer get Fiery-necked Nightjar, a very special call especially of the bushveld areas. A really interesting sighting in a garden at Richmond, was of an Olive Bush-shrike feeding a young Black Cuckoo, reported by Wally Walker. It was reported as a Boubou, but clearly it is an Olive Bushshrike, which is a great garden bird in itself. Andrew and Patricia Poole have a regular visitor to their vehicle window at their home at Nzinga, of a mature Red-billed Ox-pecker.
