Club Atlas Adventure #14 – Monteseel, KwaXimba, and iSithumba

Early on Sunday morning the 25^th of May, 11 of us met in Hillcrest, to jump into three high clearance vehicles to go out and atlas Pentad 2940_3040.  Which lies in an area west of Hillcrest, and is comprised of Monteseel, KwaXimba and iSithumba.  Last year the Pentad tally was 108 in summer, so we were keen to see what a winter tally would be. 

The first stop was at a lookout on the side of Inchanga Hill, overlooking the Valley of a Thousand Hills, to see the sun rise and enjoy the Dawn Chorus.  We were rewarded with a spectacular morning.

Our atlassing got off to a super start with the usual suspects, like Dark-capped Bulbul, Southern Boubou, Cape White Eye, Sombre Greenbul, Purple crested Turaco, Green-backed Camaroptera, and a few others.  There was great excitement when a Striped Pipit was spotted up a little hill where some members had walked, visibly perched on a rock for all to see.  We saw a few more species and then made our way around, in the vehicles to some of the Monteseel lookout points.  A beautiful cloud sat like a rug over the Valley below us.   

The lookouts generated some new birds for our list, African Black Swift, Red-throated Wryneck, White-necked Raven, Mocking Cliff Chat, Large Rock Martin, Natal Spurfowl, Cape Rock Thrush.  

After seeing all that we could see there, we then drove further on and started our descent into the valley.  Stopping at some lovely spots on our way down.  The little patches of thornveld thickets in the KwaXimba were so productive.  We managed to record some great species, some of them being Long-crested Eagle, Southern Black Tit, Olive Bushshrike, Orange-breasted Bushshrike, Amethyst Sunbird, Olive Sunbird, Tambourine Dove, Emerald-spotted Dove, Dark-backed Weaver, Southern Red-fronted Tinkerbird, Cape Batis, Terrestrial Brownbul, and a pair of Lanner Falcons.   

We slowly moved closer towards the bottom of the valley and had a couple more rewarding sightings along some little river tributaries.  We managed to pick up some more species like White-fronted Bee-eater, Grey Heron, Green Wood Hoopoe, Spectacled Weaver, Little Swift, Wire-tailed Swallow, and we heard the call of the Gorgeous Bushshrike! The Bushshrikes really put on a great performance today.

We were now in the isiThumba area, alongside the Umgeni River.  We parked and took a stroll down to the edge of the water.  Scanning the riverbanks produced a few river birds like Purple Heron, Reed Cormorant, a pair of African Black Ducks, and a Goliath Heron.  We also managed to see some Common Waxbills.  

We strolled back to the vehicles and a bit more searching in the bushveld revealed some Blue Waxbill and Bar-throated Apalis.  We must have been so enjoying the birding, that we had not realised it was lunchtime.  So, we had our lunch and drinks in the shade and then drove further along the river to Marianne Foley Bridge.  Although it was outside our pentad, it was good to see if anything exciting was there. The only other bird we found was an African Darter.  Fortunately, Dave spotted another individual on the return trip once we were back inside the Pentad, so it could be added to the card for the day. 

A real highlight of the day on our way to the bridge, was a Martial Eagle flying overhead.  We managed to get some good views and photos.

After that, we wound our way back across to the other side of the valley and undertook some steep driving up out of the valley towards home.  A lot of habitation meant that birds were sparse and so the journey home didn’t add much to our pentad card. 

We arrived back in Hillcrest and the adventure was over.  What a wonderful day, fantastic birding, great company, beautiful weather, successful atlassing! When are we going again? Thank you to Dave Rimmer for leading, planning, organising, and driving for the day.  Thank you to Rob McLennan Smith and Jimmy Pauck for taking your vehicles, and driving too. And from me, a special thanks to Lauren Calenborne for scribing the events of the day, Tayla van Rees for consolidating the various trip cards into one species list, and for those whose photos were used (as per credits) for embellishing the report.

The final tally for the pentad card was 104 species. This is particularly interesting for a winter card, seeing that our November 2024 summer trip to the same area yielded 108 species. This was also the 104^th Full Protocol card submitted for pentad 2940_3040, and for which the White-fronted Bee-eater was the first ever atlased record for the pentad. Who could argue that winter birding is boring!!?

I hope to see you at the next BeKZN Atlassing Adventure!

Trip Report by Dave Rimmer