I was invited to go to Castleburn Resort for a long weekend in the Drakensberg with one of my friends from school. I was excited knowing that there could be some potentially amazing birds to see.
The first day went well. My friend and I went for a walk along the river to do some birding and to just enjoy being out. Just before we got back to the resort, I received a photo call from Brad Arthur, a fellow birder who was also staying at Castleburn. He said that a Lesser Jacana as well a couple of Maccoa Ducks had been seen about 60km away from where we were, near Swartberg.
I jumped at this opportunity and decided to go and twitch these birds, before I knew it Brad, Nathan Ngugi, Dylan Weyer, and myself were off to find these amazing birds, both of which would be lifers.
We arrived at the first dam and before long we found the tiny bird foraging on some partially submerged grass. I was surprised to see how small the Lesser Jacana was, especially when comparing it to a nearby Cape Wagtail. We sat and watched it for some time, and I managed to get some cool photos. We then moved on to the dam where the Maccoa Ducks were seen and soon found a couple.
The Afternoon turned out to be really amazing, we also saw some other cool species such as, Southern Pochard, Cape Shoveler, South African Shelduck, White-backed Duck, African Snipe, Bearded Vulture, Mountain Wheatear, Red-winged Francolin, Denham’s Bustard, Secretarybird and Wattled Crane, which was also a lifer.