Twitching: A second mega rarity

Red-necked Buzzard, Melkhoutfontein.

The summer has been awash with rarities across South Africa and I had been seeing the emails notifications from New Zealand, then in Johannesburg and Millstream the timing was not great and now, at last, I am in Cape Town and free to pursue a few of the specials that are still hanging around.

Today the destination was Melkhoutfontein just before Stilbaai, a 650km roundtrip from our apartment. We were up at 3.30am, coffee and a rusk and we then hit the road. A moody, cool sunrise over Sir Lowries Pass before a lovely drive along the N2 to Riversdale for breakfast at the old hotel in the town centre.   

An hour later we were in place and nervously birding. 

The target:

A  RED-NECKED BUZZARD, the 8th record for Southern Africa and only the 2nd for South Africa....

We had some fellow birders with us most of the day and we staked out various locations. We wandered up and down the Melkhoutfontein road for many hours. A pair of Jackal Buzzards were a distraction while we scanned pylons and the skies. We drove into Stilbaai to have a look see and very quickly left - too busy and too distracting.

Back to the hunt. After about 5 hours we got a call from one of the stakeout points, the Buzzard had been located! A mad scurry, just in time to see the bird fly off, we then resorted to an off road chase in the Audi and at the end of the road we were treated to a perfect sighting. 

What a thrill and very exciting to get a second mega rarity in a week.

And then the subtle pleasure of provisioning gold award evo oil from Gabrielskloof, crisp Gabrielskloof Viognier wines for New Year, export quality apples from Elgin....all so nice.