22-23 Mar 2019: Yellow-throated Sandgrouse

The Yellow-throated Sandgrouse, the largest sandgrouse in Southern Africa, is a near threatened, black clay specialist ranging from Ethiopia southwards to the North West Province of South Africa. Although a local migrant, it daily tends to congregate around the same waterhole when it usually drinks between 07h00 to 09h00. I decided to use this characteristic to find it, but the problem was determining the whereabouts of such a waterhole.

First light found me between Brits and Rustenburg, searching the skies for a flock of sandgrouse on their way to water. This did not work. Either the sandgrouse were not thirsty, or I was way to early. I also went to where I found them the previous year, but that water source had dried up and there were no sandgrouse present. By chance I met a local worker, and he directed me to a mine installation overflow “to find those birds that look like pigeons but aren’t”. While trudging through the bush, looking for this overflow, I accidently flushed a group of sandgrouse hiding in the short grass. They flew into the rising sun, leaving me to identify black silhouettes and colourful spots in my eyes. It was a very disgruntled birder that drove the long way back home.

Yellow-throated Sandgrouse

The next morning, just after sunrise, found Rob and myself hiding under a small camo net near the overflow. The ground was littered with small thorns, and the camo net attached to a thorny bush, so we moved as little as possible. After about an hour a group of approximately thirty Yellow-throated Sandgrouse flew in, but stayed partly hidden in short grass. A second, larger group flew in fifteen minutes later and landed ten meters away. Our cameras, sounding like machineguns, must have agitated the sandgrouse, and after a few seconds they flew away. All in all – not a bad day in Africa!

A Grouse of Sandgrouse