St Lucia birding summary- April

Piscivorous birds at the St Lucia estuary mouth: Yellow-billed stork and Pink-backed pelican.

Big news this month was the breach of the estuary mouth to the ocean thanks to the enormous amounts of rain (500mm in the space of one week). As usual after the breach and the draining of the lake into the ocean, many freshwater fish such as Tilapia and barbel as well as prawns were caught in the current and sucked into the ocean. Unable to tolerate the salt water they then washed up on the beach creating easy pickings for both piscivorous and scavenging birds. The tern roost (consisting of Greater crested, Lesser crested, Sandwich, Common, Caspian and Little terns) has grown  drastically since the breach and at the mouth itself are dozens of Yellow-billed and Wooly-necked stork, Purple, Goliath and Grey heron; Pink-backed pelican, Great white egret, African fish-eagle and African spoonbill. 

The receding water levels after the breach have left large areas of exposed mudflats (especially on the low tide) attracting an assortment of waders such as Kittlitz’s, Grey, Three-banded and White-fronted plovers, Sanderlings and Black-winged stilts.

The Wetlands surrounding St Lucia and in the Isimangaliso Wetlands Park are full to the brim and the area is once again a mosaic of wetlands. The wetlands and areas of flooded grassland are attracting nice waterfowl such as Saddle-billed stork, White-backed duck, Lesser moorhen, African Pygmy-goose, Yellow-billed duck, Black crake, Great white and Intermediate egrets, Squacco heron, Little grebe, Black-headed heron and African jacana to name a few.

Many of the summer migrants have now left but there is still the odd Blue-cheeked bee-eater and African Pygmy-kingfisher around. The first winter altitudinal migrants have started appearing such as African stonechat, African dusky flycatcher, Pied flycatcher, Grey cuckooshrike and Chorister robin chat. Eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Spotted ground-thrush, White-starred robin! Evidence that some of our resident Red-capped robin-chat have been joined by others from higher altitudes can be heard from their mimicry of bird species not found in the area- such as Cape turtle-dove.

Forest birding has been fantastic recently with regular and consistent sightings of Buff-spotted flufftail, Green malkoha, Woodward’s batis, Rudd’s apalis, Narina trogon, Brown scrub-robin, Green twinspot, Blue-mantled crested flycatcher, Tambourine dove, Scaly-throated honeyguides, Livingstone’s turaco to name a few. 

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