Atlasville, 1 November 2006

Last Sunday morning I paid a visit to the vulture restaurant at the Molopo Nature Reserve on the southern fringes of the Kalahari in the far western corner of North West Province, tucked up against the Botswana border near the village of Vorstershoop.

It was a truly amazing spot, with between 200 – 250 vultures feeding on the carcasses, and sitting on trees around the waterhole nearby. Plenty of opportunities for good flight shots as there was a constant stream of vultures taking off and gliding in to land around the carcasses, many of which were now only sun-bleached skeletons, adding to the visual effect. Only 4 Lappet-faced Vulture among that 200+ (an addition to my North West list), and I gave up trying to work out which, if any, were the Cape Vultures amongst all the White-backed Vultures. Well worth a visit, but really out of the way and its unlikely you’d make a special trip just to Molopo. Must be combined with something else – perhaps that trip into the Botswana side of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.

An added bonus lifer was a Caspian Plover on the roadside in the small village of Vorstershoop on my way back to Hotazel. This is a relatively uncommon summer visitor to South Africa.

Between a week in Mapungubwe and Kruger, my back garden in Boksburg, a morning at Marievale wetlands and the past week and a bit near Hotazel, my species total for the calendar month of October clocked in at 289! This was the first time that I have passed 250 in a calendar month, and there have been several occasions in the past few years when I have combined a week in the Kruger with a week at some other venue. I suppose a good spread across Kalahari, Bushveld, Lowveld, Highveld and wetland habitats is the reason for this high total.

Neil Gray