The rain it raineth every day and it rained more than twice on Saturday but a few brave souls ventured out in the pouring rain for Umbogavango. Sandi phoned me early on Saturday morning and I thought she was going to bale but it was only to ask that I drive into her complex as she didn’t want to stand in the rain at her gate! So there was Sandi, Fran and I sitting in the car in the rain at Umbogavango when Jenny Rix pitched up and soon after Peter and Franki arrived – at which stage the rain started to lift a little and we walked to the first hide where upon it started to rain again but the birding was fun from the hide – lots of different weavers, prinias, warblers, the odd Egypo and moorhen to keep us occupied. Once it stopped raining we walked to the bottom hide – quite good birding along the way and at the hide there were Little Grebe, coot, moorhen, Egypo with chicks and a very confiding Natal Robin. On the walk back we had a superb pair of Long-crested Eagles preening on a dead gum – the male showing off his white leggings to perfection.
Paul & Sally joined us for coffee – but once again the rain came down and chased us home.
We didn’t do a bird count and no pics but we must have seen about +40 birds – not to shabby for a very rainy day.
Cheers
Elena Russell
Good outing, Elena The bird count for the morning was 63 species- pretty good for a rainy day!.I must say that I was rather disappointed with the number of waterbird species seen. The reeds have really spread, resulting in diminished open water area and no sandflats for waders (not one wader seen) The amount of alien invasive plants was also quite worrying.