Sunrise saw me heading out of Mtunzini with Junior Gabela, a local guide with years of birding experience in northern Kwazulu-Natal. We quickly ticked two Palm-nut Vultures in the forest strip to the south of the road into the village, where the birds perched atop the Raphia Palms in the early morning sun.
The next destination was Ongoye Forest, the only site in South Africa for the woodwardi subspecies of the Green Barbet, which is found only here and on the Rondo Plateau in Tanzania. The rising and falling kewick-kewick-kewick call of a Crowned Eagle welcomed us at the conservation offices, but it remained well hidden within the closed canopy of the forest. A male and female Narina Trogon were tracked down by their call, but at first the Green Barbet remained an elusive ghost with its wood-chopping call heard only in the far distance. Then, after an hour’s hard work, the first Green Barbet flew in across a forested valley, soon followed by three more. They congregated in a tree covered with ripe red berries, and gave ample time to be photographed.
Later the morning Dlinza Forest canopy walkway in Eshowe delivered numerous Trumpeter Hornbills, as well as a group of Red-backed Mannikins, a new tick for the year list. We left the walkway when a group of sixty schoolchildren arrived, still not having found the Eastern Bronze-naped Pigeon. On one of the forest paths Junior found a pair of Spotted Ground Thrush and we heard a Scaly-throated Honeyguide calling in the canopy. Both were new ticks for the Big Year.
The afternoon was spent walking the coastal forest paths and grasslands of the Amatikulu Nature Reserve. A spectacular Swamp Nightjar was flushed in the grasslands and we found the Grey Waxbill and a Green Malkoha on the edge of the coastal forest near the lagoon. The usually common Black-throated Wattle-eyes, however, decided not to show themselves. An African Finfoot (in Afrikaans a Watertrapper) was heard vigorously walking on the water as it distanced itself from us behind a nearby reedbed. All in all – not a bad day of birding in Africa!