20-21 Mar 2019: Back Home

Arrival in Pretoria was at about one ‘o clock in the morning and it was sheer bliss to fall into my bed, greeting all the bumps and indentions in the mattress like old familiar friends. The scheduled work on Daai Dêng was still a few days off, and I utilised the time to visit friends and family and to find some local bird species. A walk around Eldoraigne at sunset added the African Olive Pigeon and the Rose-ringed Parakeet – of which a large feral population had settled in Gauteng’s suburbia. The next morning the call of the elusive Garden Wabler was heard in the nearby Pigeon Park and that afternoon a very welcome Juv Red-chested Cuckoo, an intra-African migrant, was seen and photographed at the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens. It did, however, take a second visit to the botanical gardens to find the nesting Verreaux’s Eagles.

Juv Red-chested Cuckoo, Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens