Atlasville, 16 Oct 2006
Since seeing Mapungubwe National Park for the first time on the bird club outing in June last year I have wanted to take my wife to see this gem, one of South Africa’s newer national parks. So when the opportunity for a week away arose we combined Mapungubwe with the Kruger Park. We did something on the Kruger leg that we have not done before in all our years of visiting the Park – we entered the Park via Pafuri Gate in the far north and covered almost the full 340 km N-S length of the Park over the next five days. Let me, though, concentrate on Mapungubwe in this post.
We set off early on Friday, 6th October, taking the most direct route from home to Mapungubwe, the R21 highway to Pretoria, N1 north from there to Polokwane and the R521 via Alldays to Mapungubwe. The intention was to arrive as early as possible and see as much as we could since we only had 2 nights at Mapungubwe. We managed to see a good half of the eastern section of the park, leaving the western section for Saturday. The eastern section has the Treetop Walk, an aerial boardwalk ending in a viewing hide on the south bank of the Limpopo River, looking across the river into Botswana. At this time of year, just before the rainy season starts in earnest, the river level was very low, so low in fact that we actually saw people wading across the river no more than knee deep from the Confluence Lookout a little further to the east. The international border seemingly means nothing here. On the aerial boardwalk we had our first glimpse of the glossy starling restricted in South Africa mainly to these northern parts of Limpopo Province, Meve’s Starling. We would see many more over the next two days. Also seen at points along the boardwalk were Acacia Pied Barbet, Crested Barbet, Southern Black Tit, Southern Boubou, and Arrow-marked Babbler. At the Treetop hide we added White-fronted Bee-eater, African Pied Wagtail, Wire-tailed Swallow, Common Sandpiper, Three-banded Plover and always a good one to spot White-fronted Plover.
Entering Leokwe Rest Camp we added Familiar Chat. Leokwe is the main camp in the park and set beneath red sandstone cliffs with baobab trees everywhere one looks. Most of the accommodation units are a unique ‘double rondawel’, with a lounge/dining area/kitchen in one half and the bedroom/bathroom in the other. After supper we were sitting quietly on the stoep listening to the night sounds – mainly insects – when a nightjar started calling from the direction of the cliffs, soon followed by another, and another, or of course just the same one changing position. I identified the call as that of a Freckled Nightjar, which if I could see it would be a lifer. So out came my powerful spotlight and I trained it the direction of the next call to see not one, but two nightjars fly up and away. Mission accomplished.
Saturday got off to a good start with a male Mocking Cliff Chat sitting on top of our rondawel, when before breakfast we again headed for the aerial boardwalk, adding Green Wood Hoopoe, African Hoopoe (now regarded as a sub-species of Eurasian Hoopoe), Lilac-breasted Roller, Purple Roller, Bearded Woodpecker, Meyer’s Parrot and Brown-crowned Tchagra. African Fish Eagle and Cape Vulture were seen from the viewing hide.
After breakfast back at Leokwe we headed for the western section of the park where Maloutswa Pan is situated. Maloutswa is for me one of the 3 best game hides in South Africa. The other 2 are the Lake Panic Hide near Skukuza in Kruger National Park and KuMasinga Hide in the Mkhuze Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal. Sorry Western Cape, but I did say game hides. You do have some excellent bird hides. On the road to Maloutswa we added Brown-crowned Tchagra, Black-chested Snake Eagle, Magpie Shrike, Sabota Lark, Red-billed Buffalo Weaver and Southern White-crowned Shrike. At Maloutswa the focus was on the 4-legged animals, with small groups of many different animals seemingly taking turns to warily approach the water’s edge to drink. We were able to watch Bushbuck, Chapman’s Zebra, Cape Eland singly and in small groups, and Impala, all coming to drink. One impala had a passenger, a Red-Billed Oxpecker. Southern Warthog came as family groups and had a good mud wallow before drinking and scurrying back whence they came.
From Maloutswa we headed back to Leokwe for lunch and to sit out the midday heat, adding Cardinal Woodpecker just outside the camp. Then in mid-afternoon we were back to the eastern section of the park to Poacher’s Corner and Khongoni Plain with good sightings of Striped Kingfisher, Scaly-feathered Weaver, Crimson-breasted Shrike, Red-billed Firefinch and a couple of large raptors, African Hawk-Eagle and Verreaux’s Eagle.
Next morning it was an early departure as we were to drive from Mapungubwe to the Pafuri Gate of Kruger Park and down the park to Mopani Camp. A surprise sighting sitting in a tree just outside Leokwe Camp was a Spotted Eagle-Owl.
All about Kruger in the next post.
