I’m back in the bird challenge for 2025. I bombed out in the early 30s – in August, maybe – of 2024’s 52-week challenge. That felt like good going for being at home for all except two of those weeks.
I learned a lot about birds right under my nose here, including rarities. Two of these amazing finds were the wintering spotted ground thrush and orange ground thrush, which both just happened to appear in my little slice of forest.
If I hadn’t walked down into the dark gorge below the house in winter, I wouldn’t have found them at all. Now that I know they’re there, that’s two more birds I can potentially list this year when the time comes.
Mostly, it’s just exciting to know that I’m preserving some habitat they can shelter in for the next few decades (let’s hope!).
While exploring, I also found a wonderful fan-tailed grassbird. It was in the middle of some penny gums when I took a little detour on my usual route.
It’s quite hard to describe that moment. The penny gums are beautiful and smell so good. The king proteas nearby were in full flower on one lonely tree.
In front of this, in the penny gums, the bright yellow Cape longclaws were trying to hide in the longish tufts of grass.
I was sneaking up on them to see how close I could get to those skittish birds that are all along the road in Oribi Gorge. As I came around the bend, I flushed the fan-tailed grassbird instead.
It took me a little while to click.
The gorgeous little bird was in its full spring plumage. Bright and clean, it perched on top of a young penny gum tree and looked quite indignant about my disturbance.
Behind it, there was the view of the brown farm slopes dropping down to the Mzimkhulu.
At that point, everything else was just sprouting tiny, almost transparent leaves. I knew they would grow and darken into full green foliage in a few weeks, but right then, the freshness – new life – was palpable. The ocean further beyond that shone in the sun.
Was I in some lost world? As I heard the nearby quarry machines whirring up, the grassbird flew off. I guess not. But it was still so beautiful.
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