Looking for Regional Specialities, North of Pretoria
03 March 2007

I’ve been birding in South Africa many times - particularly around Johannesburg/Pretoria - but have been acutely aware for a while that without good local knowledge I was never going to find some of the region’s really difficult local specialities and tricky “LBJs” (those hard to find ‘little brown jobs’). I’d always enjoyed just moseying around, re-visiting old favourite haunts like Suikerbosrand and occasionally going to exciting new ones like Kgomo-Kgomo, but the thought that with some help I could finally get to grips with some of the region’s larks or finally understand how to identify some of the almost identical (to my eyes anyway) cisticolas was getting too much to ignore.

In January 2007 I read a short report on ‘AfricanBirding’ by Pretoria-based birder/professional guide Etienne Marais of Indicator Birding which was absolutely mouth-watering and listed a host of highly-desirable “LBJs” - most of which I’d not even had a sniff of let alone caught a tantalising glimpse that I could spin into ‘possibles’. When I was rostered a trip to South Africa a month later I emailed Etienne and asked him if he could give me a day’s birding that would concentrate on Larks, Pipits, and Cisticolas (Ls,Ps, and Cs). He responded enthusiastically. We arranged to meet at the hotel I was staying at, and when Etienne arrived shortly after 05:00 in the morning I asked him which Ls,Ps, and Cs we might see: he made a quick mental addition and said, “Well, with a bit of luck I’m hoping we’ll find ten larks, six pipits, and maybe ten cisticolas”. Oh,wow, I remember thinking, this could be some day’s birding…

And so it was. Etienne knows every nook and cranny of the region (he was a major contributor to the “South African Birdfinder” book I rate so highly), has access onto farmland that you or I would be firmly and not necessarily politely escorted off, and is a well-organised and passionate birder. As a guide he is patient and provides expert tips on jizz and habitat requirements - and by about 10:00 that morning I’d finally understood how to separate Desert and Zitting Cisticolas, was happy to have it confirmed that I’d not misidentified Melodious or Eastern Long-billed Larks in the past (they’re unmistakeable - I’d just never seen them before), and realised happily that, yes, some LBJs really are unidentifiable (even by the locals, let alone jet-lagged birders who drop in for a day perhaps twice a year).

Okay, that’s the skeleton - let’s put some meat on those bones…:

We began the day just after dawn searching the Vlaklaagte Grasslands - huge fields north of Pretoria that were once given over to grain production, but which have now reverted back to excellent habitat for larks and cisitcolas - looking for one very special lark. And within minutes of arriving Etienne had heard our target calling, a Melodious Lark - a South African endemic and a ‘lifer’ for me - and after stomping around a little we soon realised that, in fact, there were at least five or six buzzing around. Using my highly-polished skill as a photographer of some repute (I’m reputedly a photographer, folks - boom,boom) I managed to get some absolutely awful photos that even after hundreds of hours of processing in the finest labs in the world (okay, being messed about with in a copy of Photoshop) really don’t even hint at the salient ID features of what is a very sought-after bird that is rarely photographed in flight apparently: it’s a shame, but suffice to say if you’re standing in a field with some pot-bellied, short-tailed larks flying around that somehow are permanently keeping the sun behind them so that you can’t see properly - you’ve possibly got a Melodious.

Melodious Lark Mirafra cheniana

 

Eastern Long-billed Lark Certhilauda semitorquata

 

Female Amur Falcon Falco amurensis

 

Cloud Cisticola Cisticola textrix

No self-respecting field in SA will have just one species of lark in it, and it was in this general area (which includes a rocky hill topped with a military installation that requires permission to go anywhere near) that we briefly saw a possible Pink-billed Lark that melted into the long grass and the definite and rather lovely Eastern Long-billed Lark in the photo above, as well as good numbers of both Cloud and Wailing Cisticolas, both Striped and Long-billed Pipits, Mountain Wheatear and a pair of Cape Rock Thrush, three Denham’s Bustards (way too far off to photograph unfortunately), the first of a numer of small flocks of Amur Falcon hawking in the updraught on the hill-slope, Quailfinch, and Banded Martin - and, best of all as far as Etienne was concerned, three or four Grey-backed Sparrowlarks flying over (the first he’d ever seen in the Jo’burg/Pretoria region in twenty years of birding - and the first I’d seen for all of three months having just seen them in the Karoo in December where these nomads had presumably wandered from!).

Male Lesser Kestrel Falco naumani

European Bee-eater Merops apiaster

Lilac-breasted Roller Coracias caudata

Our next stop - having driven through some cracking habitat that was liberally decorated with such lovelies as Lesser Kestrel, European Bee-eater, European and Lilac-breasted Roller, and Lesser Grey Shrikes (not a bad quintet to see really) - was the Mabusa National Park, an area of hilly and rocky mixed woodland that ranges from protea and sugarbush to acacia.

This was Etienne’s prime site for another elusive ‘LBJ’ I’d never managed to find on my frequent forays far from the hotel - the small and inconspicuous Bushveld Pipit, a reasonably common species in the right habitat if you know where to look and what to listen for (which evidently I didn’t or I’d have seen or heard one before I suppose).

Of course, if you’re going to look for a diminutive pipit in a large woodland you’re going to find other birds either first or as well - and we had good views of interesting species such as Golden-tailed Woodpecker, my first Willow Warbler of the year, Groundscaper Thrush, White-browed Scrub-robin, and a Wahlberg’s eagle which called loudly from a small tree before lifting off and circling away.

However the star of the show here were a pair of Bushveld Pipits that Etienne heard giving their faint un-pipit-like “zeet” and then called in as he made some strange noises he swore were a near-perfect imitation of a Pearl-spotted Owlet (actually, to be fair, unless he was running around at supersonic speed to some distant trees while I wasn’t looking what must have been another owlet did start calling back to him - and it did sound very similar).

A short-tailed and inconspicuous pipit under normal circumstances, when in ‘alert mode’ Bushveld Pipts will often fly to a bare branch and scan their surroundings rather unalertly, giving your correspondent (and presumably other people as well) a good chance to edge closer and have a really good look. Attractive birds they are too, as the short series of photos I took hopefully shows (though to be honest, I’ve yet to see an ‘ugly’ pipit…but that’s a matter of taste I guess). The two birds didn’t hang around for very long unfortunately, but certainly long enough to put a broad smile across my face and for Etienne to get his breath back after his exertions doing owl impressions on what was now a very hot day indeed (on which point, it’s worth noting that saying you’re going to put sun block on really isn’t as effective as actually doing it and if you’re planning on wandering round at over 6000′ (1753 metres) without covering up you WILL find yourself in some pain by the evening)…

Mabusa is also a good site for the ‘rocky hillslopes in grassland and woodland’ (to quote ‘Birds of Africa south of the Sahara‘) favouring Lazy Cisticola, a bird that obviously seriously underwhelmed the nomeclaturists who not content with questioning the species’ activity levels also gave it the specific name of aberrans - being called a ‘lazy aberrant’ would be enough to keep most of us indoors with a bag over our heads, but thankfully this particular individual responded enthusiastically to some pishing and posed quite well before slipping away into the undergrowth (in a normal enough way if you want my opinion)…

 

Lazy Cisticola Csticola aberrans

From Mabusa we headed to a privately-owned reserve where a 1st year Dusky Lark, a scarce visitor to the region, had been found the week before. This was yet another site that a casual visitor would never have been able to find on their own (or get permission to enter), proving the value - if it needed to be proved - of going birding with a knowledgeable guide: just as as we entered a large bare area of ground between two chunks of forest and Etienne was saying, “This is the spot”, right on cue the Dusky literally hopped into view, looked warily at us for a few seconds, and then promptly disappeared to the top of a distant tree where it stared at us disdainfully. Only the second Dusky Lark I’ve ever seen (the first was in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park back in the mid-eighties), they are large, well-marked, spectacular birds (for a lark anyway) and well worth chasing after should you find yourself with the option of looking for one (and if it had hung around long enough to be photographed I could have backed those words up with a photo or two…).

With the afternoon shadows reaching across the savanna (just like in the documentaries, folks), we didn’t waste time trying to cajole a haughty lark from its tree-top perch but headed off instead for the last three specials Etienne hoped to pull out of the bag before calling it a day and heading back to the city.

Next stop was for our eighth lark of the day (which is almost the total number of lark species ever recorded in the UK incidentally), and one I really wanted to see: the Fawn-coloured. I can’t always explain why I get an urge to see one bird more than another (Lazy Cisticola was a lifer, for example, but somehow didn’t ‘do it for me’ like the Dusky Lark did) , but there’s something evocative in that descriptive name ‘fawn coloured’ that has intrigued me for many years. When you think about it ‘fawn’ is only another way of saying brown’ - and there are an awful lot of brown larks out there - but it’s somehow a better way of saying it, a more well-chosen way: perhaps, my mental reasoning might go, whoever chose it was inspired enough to choose more carefully, to lavish a little more attention on naming it because he/she was so struck by its character or charisma? That may well be true, but sadly my first and so far only Fawn-coloured Lark did a Dusky as soon as it saw us, took off from the long grass it was skulking in and rocketed into a tree as if its tail was on fire. Blur-coloured Lark would have been more fitting to be honest…

In one of these trees is a Fawn-coloured Lark (no, I’m not sure which one…probably the big one)

Oh well, these things happen to the best of us and after the day we’d already had I’m certainly not complaining. We did get distant views through Etienne’s scope (a scope is one piece of equipment I just have no room to fit into my luggage unfortunately), but - if push came to shove could I really ID a Fawn-coloured Lark if I saw one? I guess I’l have to wait until another day to find out…

The next bird on Etienne’s hit-list was another cisticola - and one of the region’s most sought-after specials: Tinkling Cisticola Cisticola rufilatus. A heavy-billed, streak-backed warbler with a prominent supercilium, the Tinkling Cisticola is a dry woodland species (and not to be confused with the wetland Levaillant’s Cisticola C. tinniens which is sometimes still called Tinkling by some authors) and is notably shy and easily overlooked. In fact many SA birders still haven’t seen Tinkling Cisticola and I hope you’ll forgive a little reticence in my naming the exact site, but it’s a bird that is often disturbed with tape-recordings - suffice to say the pair we saw were near the De Tweedespruit Conservancy and they behaved faultlessly, giving reasonable views (if a little distant - the photo is heavily cropped) calling from acacia shrubs as they moved around their territory. To add to the all-round good feeling, we also saw Bearded Woodpecker and I flushed a Common Quail from some long grass as I walked back to the car…

Tinkling Cisticola Cisticola rufilatus

Our final stop was not far down the road, in an area where Etienne had “literally seen hundreds” of Monotonous Larks just a few weeks earlier. Another potential lifer, Monotonous Larks are nomadic breeders, following the rains, and are renowned for being present at a site in large numbers one moment and then diappearing the next - either leaving, or simply stopping their endlessly repeated call and going to ground (and perhaps turning into beetles until the next breeding season?).

Etienne and no Monotonous Larks

Obviously they don’t actually transmogrify, but they do effectively vanish until they start singing again - and so it proved today: despite a good hunt round we heard none calling and saw none flying overhead or scuttling through the grass. They’d gone. It was an enigmatic end to a great day, watching the sun set, listening to the bird songs wind down, and talking about Larks that are common one morning and non-existent by the afternoon…

So we had started off before it got light, and by the time we stopped birding some fourteen hours later as well as the species mentioned above I’d had (mostly good) views of such interesting species as Brown and Black-chested Snake-Eagles, Coqui and Crested Francolins, various swallows (including Pearl-breasted) and swifts, Magpie Shrike, Shaft-tailed Wydah, and a flattened Bronze-winged Courser that evidently hadn’t managed to get out of the way of a 4×4 quickly enough. The list for the day - without visiting wetlands or diverting just to add common species - was well over the 100 mark…

So how did we do on the Ls,Ps, and Cs? By my count (which may well be lower than Etienne’s when a few of his “heards” are added in) we ended the day with eight Larks (plus that probable Pink-billed Lark that vanished before we get a proper look at it), six Pipits, and nine Cisticolas. Absolutely superb!

Day List (Highlights only):
Coqui Francolin Francolinus coqui 2; Crested Francolin Francolinus sephaena 4; Swainson’s Spurfowl Francolinus swainsonii 4; Common Quail Coturnix coturnix 1; Eurasian White Stork Ciconia ciconia 1; African Sacred Ibis Threskiornis aethiopicus 10+; Hadada Ibis Bostrychia hagedash 10+; Black-headed Heron Ardea melanocephala 2; Lesser Kestrel Falco naumanni 5-6; Rock Kestrel Falco rupicola 3-4; Greater Kestrel Falco rupicoloides 4; Amur Falcon Falco amurensis 40+; Secretarybird Sagittarius serpentarius 1; Black-shouldered Kite Elanus caeruleus 3-4; Black-chested Snake-eagle Circaetus pectoralis 1; Brown Snake-eagle Circaetus cinereus 3; Steppe Buzzard Buteo buteo vulpinus 2-3; Wahlberg’s Eagle Hieraaetus wahlbergi 1; Denham’s Bustard Neotis denhami 2; Bronze-winged Courser Rhinoptilus chalcopterus 1 (found dead); Grey Lourie Corythaixoides concolor 3-4; Diederik Cuckoo Chrysococcyx caprius 2; Pearl-spotted Owl Glaucidium perlatum 3-4; African Palm Swift Cypsiurus parvus 2; White-rumped Swift Apus caffer c)20; Lilac-breasted Roller Coracias caudata 3-4; European Roller Coracias garrulus 2; Striped Kingfisher Halcyon chelicuti 1; Woodland Kingfisher Halcyon senegalensis 1; Little Bee-eater Merops pusillus 3-4; European Bee-eater Merops apiaster 50+; Red-billed Hornbill Tockus erythrorhynchus 2-3; Southern Yellow-billed Hornbill Tockus leucomelas 1; Yellow-fronted Tinkerbird Pogoniulus chrysoconus 2-3; Crested Barbet Trachyphonus vaillantii 4; Golden-tailed Woodpecker Campethera abingoni 1; Bearded Woodpecker Dendropicos namaquus 2; Magpie Shrike Corvinella melanoleuca 3-4; Lesser Grey Shrike Lanius minor 4; Fiscal Shrike Lanius collaris 3-4; Fork-tailed Drongo Dicrurus adsimilis 3-4; Banded Martin Riparia cincta c)10; Barn Swallow Hirundo rustica 30+; Pearl-breasted Swallow Hirundo dimidiata 10+; Northern House Martin Delichon urbica 1; Greater Striped Swallow Hirundo cucullata 10+; Lesser Striped Swallow Hirundo abyssinica 3-4; Rufous-chested Swallow Hirundo semirufa 3-4; Melodious Lark Mirafra cheniana 4-5; Rufous-naped Lark Mirafra africana 2-3; Fawn-coloured Lark Mirafra africanoides 1; Eastern Long-billed Lark Certhilauda semitorquata 1; Red-capped Lark Calandrella cinerea 1-2; Dusky Lark Mirafra nigricans 1; Spike-heeled Lark Chersomanes albofasciata 2-3; Grey-backed Sparrow-lark Eremopterix verticalis 6-8; Groundscraper Thrush Psophocichla litsipsirupa 3; White-browed Scrub-robin Cercotrichas leucophrys 1; African Stonechat Saxicola torquata 3-4; Mountain Wheatear Oenanthe monticola 2; Familiar Chat Cercomela familiaris 1; Southern Anteating-chat Myrmecocichla formicivora 4-5; Cape Rock Thrush Monticola rupestris 2; Willow Warbler Phylloscopus trochilus 2; Long-billed Crombec Sylvietta rufescens 1; Tinkling Cisticola Cisticola rufilatus 2; Levaillant’s Cisticola Cisticola tinniens 1; Desert Cisticola Cisticola aridulus 8-10; Cloud Cisticola Cisticola textrix 2-3; Wing-snapping Cisticola Cisticola ayresii 1-2; Wailing Cisticola Cisticola lais 2-3; Rattling Cisticola Cisticola chinianus 2; Lazy Cisticola Cisticola aberrans 2; Neddicky Cisticola fulvicapillus 3-4; Tawny-flanked Prinia Prinia subflava 2; Black-chested Prinia Prinia flavicans 3; Cape White-eye Zosterops pallidus 3; Cape Glossy Starling Lamprotornis nitens 4-5; Burchell’s Starling Lamprotornis australis 4-5; African Pied Starling Spreo bicolor c)20; Spotted Flycatcher Muscicapa striata 5; Southern Black Flycatcher Melaenornis pammelaina 4; Marico Flycatcher Bradornis mariquensis 1; Orange-throated Longclaw Macronyx capensis 4-5; African Pipit Anthus cinnamomeus c)10; Long-billed Pipit Anthus similis 1; Buffy Pipit Anthus vaalensis 1; Plain-backed Pipit Anthus leucophrys 2; Striped Pipit Anthus lineiventris 1; Bushveld Pipit Anthus caffer 2; Yellow-fronted Canary Serinus mozambicus 4-5; Black-throated Canary Serinus atrogularis 4; Streaky Seedeater Serinus striolatus 3; Southern Grey-headed Sparrow Passer diffusus 1; White-winged Widowbird Euplectes albonotatus 3-4; Red-collared Widowbird Euplectes ardens 1; Long-tailed Widowbird Euplectes progne 3-4; Blue Waxbill Uraeginthus angolensis 10+; Violet-eared Waxbill Uraeginthus granatina 6; Common Waxbill Estrilda astrild c)10; Quailfinch Ortygospiza atricollis 6-8; Pin-tailed Whydah Vidua macroura 2; Shaft-tailed Whydah Vidua regia 1; Cinnamon-breasted Bunting Emberiza tahapisi 5-6; Golden-breasted Bunting Emberiza flaviventris 2-3;

Koppie Charaxes/Emperor Charaxes jasius - Mabusa NP

All photographs copyright Charlie Moores