Lowveld team places first in Birding Big Day Challenge
A team of Lowvelders recently placed first overall in BirdLife South Africa's 39th Birding Big Day Challenge. Read more about their triumph here.
The Lowveld’s very own Team Hamerkop placed first out of over 400 teams across the country in this year’s Birding Big Day Challenge.
Team Hamerkop’s members, brothers Johan and Ehren Eksteen, Lourens Grobler and Duncan McKenzie, joined BirdLife South Africa’s 39th Birding Big Day on December 2.
McKenzie said the teams could either participate in the traditional 50km radius or the newly introduced 6km radius challenge.
ALSO READ: CMDA students show off their talents at Casterbridge
He said the competition rules were that a team of three or four birders had to pre-register with BirdLife SA, then choose a central point and stay within a 50km or 6km radius of it.
“The majority of team members must agree on the identity of a bird. They can be identified by sight or sound,” he said.
Team Hamerkop managed to log 325 birds.
“Our first bird, logged in Berg-en-Dal Camp at 00:01, was a red-chested cuckoo, followed by an African barred owlet and a welcome bronze-winged courser,” said McKenzie.
ALSO READ: First indoor flea market opens in Mbombela
“Other nocturnal highlights on our drive out included several European nightjars, a southern white-faced owl, stunning views of a pair of white-backed night herons, a perched black sparrowhawk, a Senegal lapwing and a Verreaux’s eagle-owl.”
After logging 170 species, the team left the Kruger National Park at about 08:30 and headed to some small farm dams near Komatipoort, and then made some stops in Malalane, leaving the area on 276 species.
McKenzie said they made a few more visits to several other places and caught a lift in a chopper to reach one of their destinations.
“The bird highlight of our day, and a first for us on Birding Big Day, was a short-tailed pipit calling on the grassy slopes in the mountainlands,” he said. “Our final birds for the day were found in darkness around Mbombela and included a spotted eagle and an African wood owl, a Cape weaver, a mocking cliff chat and, finally, a red-chested flufftail.”
