BirdLife South Africa’s 36th Annual Birding Big Day took place on Saturday 28 November 2020 and (although we are not in South Africa) we held our own Birding Big Day 2020 on property at Matetsi Private Game Reserve with both our team and guests taking part.
Nature provided an overcast day, which meant even at midday it wasn’t too hot to be out in the bush, and our teams of birders spent almost all day searching the property for different bird species, with the occasional break for tea. Senior guide Ophious, a very keen birder himself, rallied some particularly eager troops who were out from 5am until well after night fall (with short breaks for lunch and dinner).
The teams spent time at muddy waterholes and along the verdant floodplains, taking time to ensure they really did have the correct identification for the bird species – an elusive Little Grebe had one team in heated discussion for a good thirty minutes.
A variety of birds were recorded including “ruffs, long-toed lapwing, bee-eaters, greater painted Snipe, skimmers, hornbills, starlings, rollers, falcons, kingfishers, pale and dark morph Walbergs eagles, cuckoos, owls etc…”
A melanistic Jacobin cuckoo and the nigriceps sub-species of the village weaver bird were the highlights of the day for some of our birders.
Though the identification of a Grey Plover was the highlight for the true twitchers – a sighting that caused quite a stir in and around the Victoria Falls birding community.
For those keen birders reading this, here is the full list of species recorded within the 24-hour period:
- Woodland Kingfisher
- White-browed sparrow weaver
- Blue waxbill
- Swainson’s spurfowl
- Yellow billed kite
- Hammerkop
- Grey Go-away Bird
- Dark capped bulbul
- Yellow-bellied greenbul
- White-browse scrub robin
- Tropical bulbul
- Eurasian hobby
- Meyer’s parrot
- Broad-billed roller
- Knob billed duck
- Violet backed starling
- Senegal comical
- Southern Red billed hornbill
- Emerald spotted wood dove
- Ground hornbill
- Puffback
- Long-billed crombec
- Southern grey headed sparrow
- Orange-breasted bushshrike
- Tawny-flanked Prinia
- Greater swamp warbler
- Grey-backed camaroptera
- Bradfield’s hornbill
- African hoopoe
- Red-eyed dove
- Meve’s starling
- Natal spurfowl
- Crested barbet
- Guineafowl
- Jacobin cuckoo
- Greater blue-eared starling
- Lilac-breasted roller
- Lesser grey shrike
- Marabou stork
- Amur falcon
- Brown-crowned Tchagra
- Lizard buzzard
- Crested francolin
- Cardinal woodpecker
- Jameson’s firefinch
- African spoonbill
- Common sandpiper
- Fawn-coloured lark
- Squacco heron
- Ashy flycatcher
- Arrow-marked babbler
- Red-faced mousebird
- Green sandpiper
- Pied crow
- Rattling cisticola
- Southern black tit
- Black cuckooskrike
- Village weaver
- Pied wagtail
- Green-backed wood-hoopoe
- Levaillant’s cuckoo
- Giant kingfisher
- Lesser striped swallow
- Barn swallow
- Amethyst sunbird
- Lesser masked weaver
- Reed cormorant
- Bronze mannikin
- Chinspot batis
- Kurrichane thrush
- Bearded woodpecker
- Grey-headed kingfisher
- White-crowned helmet shrike
- Yellow-fronted canary
- Rock pratincole
- African darter
- African skimmer
- Blacksmith Lapwing
- White-faced whistling duck
- Lesser jacana
- African jacana
- White-browed robin-chat
- Plain-backed pipit
- Littler bee-eater
- Red-chested cuckoo
- Ruff
- Blue-cheeked bee-eater
- Hadeda ibis
- Great egret
- Egyptian goose
- Black heron (egret)
- Grey plover
- Rufous-bellied heron
- Grey heron
- Little egret
- Yellow-billed (intermediate) egret
- Cattle egret
- Purple heron
- African fish eagle
- Pied kingfisher
- White-crowned lapwing
- Sacred ibis
- Gabar goshawk
- Western banded snake eagle
- Common (greater) Scimitarbill
- Black-headed oriol
- Red-billed oxpecker
- Bearded scrub robin
- Grey-headed bushshrike
- Golden weaver
- African Grey hornbill
- Golden-breasted bunting
- Western barn owl
- Schalow’s turaco
- Brown-hooded kingfisher
- Hooded vulture
- Bateleur
- Paradise flycatcher
- Wahlberg’s eagle
- Long-tailed Paradise whydah
- Dideric cuckoo
- Wattled starling
- Black-bellied bustard
- Buffy pipit
- Southern Carmine bee-eater
- Pale flycatcher
- Tawny eagle
- European roller
- Marico sunbird
- Green-winged pytilia
- Magpie shrike
- Kori bustard
- Laughing dove
- Steppe eagle
- White stork
- Woolly-necked stork
- African Harrier-hawk (gymnogene)
- Secretarybird
- Red-crested korhaan
- Shaft-tailed whydah
- Scarlet-Chested sunbird
- Retz’s helmetshrike
- Red-headed weaver
- Red-billed quelea
- Striped kingfisher
- Trumpeter hornbill
- White-backed vulture
- Black saw-wing (swallow)
- Wire-tailed swallow
- Sand Martin
- Purple roller
- Little grebe (Dabchick)
- Steppe buzzard
- Groundscraper thrush
- African-wattled lapwing
- Double-banded sandgrouse
- Brubru
- Long-toed lapwing
- Black-shouldered kite
- Little sparrowhawk
- Greater painted snipe
- Speckle-throated woodpecker
- Streaky-headed seedeater
- Miombo blue-eared starling
- Swallow-tailed bee-eater
- Red-billed firefinch
- Brown snake eagle
- White-browed coucal
- African hawk eagle
- Black-crowned tchagra
- Capped wheatear
- African openbill
- Black stork
- Purple-banded sunbird
- Golden oriol
- Malachite kingfisher
- Icterine warbler
- Cape turtle dove
With our migratory birds being present at this time of the year, and many more hours spent in the field, our bird species count this time far exceeded that of our Global Big Day of Birding, which took place in May 2020. In addition to the 178 species listed above, additional bird species were identified the day before and the day after the birding day, including European bee-eater, Fiery necked nightjar, Namaqua dove, Pennant-winged nightjar, Glossy Ibis, Klaas’ Cuckoo and White-rumped swift.
Thank you to our team and our guests who took part in this Birding Day, with special thanks to those who shared photographs with us, including Victoria Falls based photographer Sarah Kerr.
