Our outing to Amatikulu was very pleasant and we spent most of the day there.

There was only seven of us, the distance from Durban and unpredictable weather kept the numbers down.

Members who attended ; Sandi du Preez, Marion Spence, Peter Farrington and Frankie and Simon and Sandy who had booked in for the weekend.

The river was very high so waders were missing, we did the walk along the lagoon until the path became completely overgrown, so worked our way back and did the forest walk coming out on the grasslands and then back to camp at around 12h30 for some lunch.

After relaxing and catching up on birding stories we jumped into the 4×4’s and completed the full length of the reserve. It was great to see five giraffe at the far south end of the reserve.

The bird count was not high at all coming in at 54. The very windy conditions did not help.

We flushed Common Quail twice, had a good view of Pygmy-Kingfisher, watched Yellow-Throated Longclaw displaying and a good view of Long-Crested Eagle flying with its catch in its talons. The rest of the birds were very much the run of the mill.

Chris Mathews