16 October 2025

It was a good idea to move this outing away from the chaos of December. The birds were more relaxed and numerous. A Common Moorhen was active with four chicks.

There were plenty of birds breeding which brought us to a very interesting fact (after looking it up on a birding app). Black-headed Herons develop a red eye during the onset of breeding which then reverts back to the yellow eye once it is actually breeding.

Read more: BeKZN STAKE-OUT |DURBAN BOTANICAL GARDENS

Other birds breeding were Sacred Ibis and Pink-backed Pelicans.

It was interesting to watch an interaction between a Grey Heron and an African Spoonbill who both wanted to be in the same spot – must have had some tasty baby fish there…

There were plenty of other birds around such as breeding Village Weaver, Southern Red Bishop and Pied Kingfisher which were actively fishing.

A Palm-nut Vulture came and sat in a tree near us giving great views.

Although we had heard about Black-crowned Night Heron that were breeding by the pond it took us most of the morning to actually locate them right in front of our eyes – we’d been looking in the trees where all the other herons were breeding.

All in all, a very pleasant morning birding.

Report by Jenny Norman