African Affinity Birding

South Africa March Limpopo trip

the next trip was with Richard Dobbins, Wendy James, Alison Rees, Ian Begg, Mike Polling and Andrew Hughes. Richard has now been with me on 4 trips and Wendy one 8 years previously to Uganda.
We did the same circuit as last time but stayed at a few different sites. We did exceptionally well for raptors with 65 birds ringed of 21 species, a new trip record! including another Tawny Eagle and a Secretarybird!! This was just crazy, but I was very happy to have tried out a plan I've always said would work and it did!
We flushed the bird coming over the crest of a hill, high up on the grasslands of the Freestate and watched it work a fenceline which, i could eventually see joined the road. So we drove fast some 500m and deployed trap the same side of the fence the bird was working and retreated. After some 10 minutes, the bird appeared over a crest in the track and suddenly saw the trap and pounced!! What a handful!!
We also did a session at a small bridge which had a colony of SA Cliff Swallows under it, catching a page or two of these little Afro-tropical migrants. We also got 3 European Nightjars one night as they came out of roost. We also got a Freckled Nightjar, not something you catch everyday!