I’ve also loved flitting about the South Coast birding community on Facebook bird groups.
I’ve always loved nature, but since our move to Oribi Gorge, my blood is emerald green, just like ‘Hello Georgie’.
I may actually be obsessed with the feathered friends that fill this beautiful country.
An overseas friend asked if I was a twitcher, and after a quick Google search, I solemnly declared myself a true bird lover instead.
I’m not a tick-off-the-list ‘twitcher’ who loses interest after they’ve seen every one of South Africa’s 850 recorded species once (725 resident species).
No, I sit on my porch for morning coffee and daily appreciate the wine-red firefinches, melodious black-headed orioles, opportunistic Black Sparrowhawk (which hunts our free range chickens), and the soaring vultures high above our Umzimkulu cliffs.
I’ve also loved flitting about the South Coast birding community on Facebook.
Hugo Voigts in Paddock is phenomenally dedicated – he once sat for over four hours in camouflage to capture elusive flufftail chicks (and this wasn’t his only comparable effort).
Lia Steen in Shelly Beach has the most magnificent finds right in her garden. She must have a brilliant camera to capture that much detail, too. I’ve learned a lot about birding habits from her fascinating posts.
The luckiest South Coast birder must be Stan Culley, somewhere near Port Edward maybe? ‘Culley’s Dam’ boasts fantastic bird visitors daily, including the cutest baby white-starred robin I’m yet to find in my patch of paradise.
Why birding? I think it’s the chase.
Some days you see a new one that you have never, ever noticed before. You read about it (maybe you’ll get a Roberts bird app for your birthday like I did) and learn the sound. The next few weeks, you realise that it is a screech or a song that you hear constantly. It wasn’t a new bird in your garden at all, just a hidden gem.
Once you see it, you can’t un-see it and then you start to appreciate the immense beauty of this country.
Birdwatching Is Good for the Soul
Next time coronavirus has you down, sit at your window or put your binoculars next to you on the porch.
Take a breath, laugh at the bobbing wagtails and the fluttering sunbirds and open your eyes.
You might see that martial eagle gliding above the clouds or you might notice the white-browed scrub robin around your fallen leaves for the very first time.
Wonder is the beginning, and from there, joy.
Published here.
Turns out, it was a small orangutan! A real, live, wild orangutan in the forest where we had only expected to be seeing birds and bugs. We strained our necks and happily watched him for at least an hour, eating and playing on one of the lower trees.