Bisley Valley
Ten birders attended the outing. This bushveld reserve is very dry at the moment, which is to be expected at this time of the year, and it was rather cold to begin with.
Mention must be made of 10-year old Decklan, our “chief” photographer, who handled the camera with a very large lens like a pro and his birding skills weren’t bad either! Well done Decklan. We need youngsters like you in the Bird Club!
The birds were slow to show themselves at first but as we got close to the bottom dam, we had good views of Golden-breasted Bunting, Blue and Common Waxbills, African Firefinch, Common Scimitarbill and Black-crowned Tchagra as well as 2 “teenage” Red-knbobbed Coots with their parents.
Then we had a real slog up to the top bird hide. We were anticipating some good birding over the vlei from the hide, but unfortunately the entrance to the hide was overgrown so we decided to go and have our coffee and picnic back at the cars.
The bird count was 55. We need to go back to Bisley in summer to experience the excellent bushveld birding that it is known for!
Paul suggested that we move on to Darvill Sewerage Works and this proved to be a very good decision although it was very, very windy.
We were treated to two dancing Grey-crowned Cranes! Of special interest was a group of Ruff, one of which still had a partial ruff which none of us had ever seen before! We also had lovely views of an African Marsh-Harrier quartering over the reeds.All three species of teal were present (Cape, Red-billed and Hottentot). The bird count was about 37.
Photos by Paul except where noted.
Sandi du Preez
Birds are our Story 