Jenny Norman and I (Elena Russell) visited Tala Game Reserve on Easter Sunday (last Sunday of the month & BLPN members get the discounted entrance fee! but remember you must contact them first don’t just rock up). The hordes did descend but we got there early so had the dam and picnic site to ourselves for the first few hours and got a good list going – we then set off to explore the rest of the reserve. Lots of cisticolas; Zitting, Lazy, Croaking, Levaillant’s and Neddickys but no Rattlers. We dipped on some of the more common birds, not one Euplectes species was seen all day but we twitched on a few summer visitors which we thought might have already flown i.e. Willow Warbler, Red Backed Shrike and Spotted Flycatcher.

The game is plentiful and a baby giraffe had us oohing and aahing as well as young Eland, Kudu and Wildebeest and we did see the Rhino. I joked about no oxpeckers whereupon we came upon a superb Kudu bull with a pair of Red-Billed Oxpeckers + a juvenile on its back. Shortly afterwards we met up with one of the rangers (John) and had a brief chat (have you ever known Jenny not to have a chat) and he said that there used to be only about 5/6 oxpeckers in the reserve but over the past few months had increased to about 50 – due he thought to the fact that the Parks Board had had a breeding programme going and had released a number of Red-billed Oxpeckers in Umfolozi/Hluhluwe a few years ago and some of these birds must have migrated down to various reserves in KZN.

John also happened to mention that a few weeks ago a Flamingo flew in an stayed for a week and that the Pale Chanting Goshawk still appears about every 6/8 weeks and seems to hang around the entrance area and Acacia Lodge for those birders who would like a rarity on their KZN list.

We had good views of Martial and Fish eagles, Jackal Buzzard, Black shouldered Kite and an African Marsh Harrier quartering a grassy hillside in the late afternoon was special. At the end of a very good day’s birding a Long Crested Eagle brought our count up to 99 – we didn’t crack a 100!

Elena Russell & Jenny Norman –  (Jenny’s photographs).