Sappi Great Birding Adventure 2006 - Glenthorpe

Middelburg Mahems
The weekend of the 27th October saw the "Middelburg Mahems" (Derick & Charmaine Oosthuizen, Ken Hattingh and myself) partaking in the Sappi Great Birding Adventure at Sappi Glenthorpe Mill near Barberton. This was the fist time I took part of this annual Sappi event, and hopefully not the last! Feeling the need to add a bit of a challenge to the old hands, I set the rest of the Middelburg Mahems the target of helping me find at least 5 more lifers.

!!! FLUFFTAIL !!!
The highlight of the weekend was undoubtedly meeting a Redchested Flufftail on Saturday afternoon. We were exploring the forest just across the road from the mill, and at the very first little dam we heard a Redchested Flufftail calling on the downstream side. After playing the call, we got a response from the reeds right next to the road on the upstream (dam) side. We called again, and the reply came back from right under our noses! We sat and waited on the side of the road, when suddenly Derick & Charmaine saw it come out of the reeds onto a log right under me, not 2m away, but obscured from my view by the embankment. Just my luck, of course!


Derick called again, and about two minutes later it stuck its head out for about two seconds about half a metre higher up. Then it came out right into the open, and crossed over a 4m clearing in the reeds less than 5m away from us! We couldn't believe our luck!!!! I ran to fetch my camera and managed to get 3 shots when it crossed back accross the same clearing again. Unfortunately the light was very bad (already after sunset), so the quality of the photographs is not very good, but here they are!

Birds Listed
We listed 122 species on Sappi grounds for the weekend, including the following 10 lifers for me:

• Yellowfronted Tinker Barbet
• Bush Blackcap
• Redfaced Cisticola
• Klaas' Cuckoo
• Redchested Flufftail
• Grassbird
• Redbacked Mannikin
• Longtailed Wagtail
• Broadtailed Warbler
• Golden Weaver

Ten lifers fo rthe trip brings my life list to 519! Well done Middelburg Mahems old hands, you (only just) made your target!