St Lucia Birding Update: April '24

Palm-nut vulture, St Lucia.

It has been a relatively dry month for rainfall and the wetlands have started to recede once again. Zululand autumn is typically still warm and balmy but you can definitely feel a bit of a chill in the morning's these days. Other signs of the approach of winter are the arrivals of some of our winter-visiting birds. The grasslands are once again full of African stonechat and an ever-increasing number of Senegal lapwing. At wetland edges we are starting to see Pale-crowned cisticola and at the forest/grassland ecotone Fiscal flycatcher and Spotted flycatcher.

Wetlands surrounding St Lucia covered in a carpet of beautiful waterlilies.

In the forest we have started to see winter-visiting Olive bush-shrike and Chorister robin-chat. Besides those species that don't occur at all in the summer there are resident forest species such as Red-capped robin-chat and African paradise-flycatcher which are joined in the winter by others of the same species from other locations. These species are therefore much more plentiful in the winter months. Still looking forward to sightings of Spotted ground thrush, White-starred robin and Grey cuckooshrike which should be arriving soon (if not already).

Red-capped robin-chat, Igwalagwala trail, St Lucia.

Winter-visiting Mangrove kingfisher have also started to appear at the estuary edges where there is an abundance of fiddler crabs, mangrove crabs and Mudskipper fish to feed on at the moment.

Mangrove kingfisher, Lake St Lucia estuary.

In the forest, action has been centred at fruiting Large-leafed and Sycamore fig trees, Tasselberry trees and flowering African flame/Wild tulip trees and we have enjoyed great sightings of all the forest specials during the course of the month. ​

Black-throated wattle-eye.

Things have quietened down at the estuary mouth with the majority of summer-visiting waders having left but the tern roost typically still holds 5 or 6 tern species with good numbers of Lesser crested tern still present. Other species still regularly encountered at the mouth include African black oystercatcher, Western osprey, Palm-nut vulture, Eurasian whimbrel, Yellow-billed stork, White-fronted & Kittlitz's plovers.

Tern roost at St Lucia estuary mouth (with Yellow-billed stork in foreground)

​The wetlands are still holding good numbers of waterfowl including African pygmy-goose & White-backed duck and the odd Lesser moorhen and Saddle-billed stork. Sightings of the White-backed night-heron have dried up this month due to the receding wetlands.

African pygmy-goose are still common on wetlands surrounding St Lucia.

On the Eastern shores, a pair of Secretarybird have been a regular sighting during the course of the month and there have also been a couple of other uncommon birds sighted, namely, African crake and Cuckoo finch (both around Grassland loop exit). The Yellow-billed oxpecker also continued to show on their favourite herd of Kudu close to Dune loop exit. Raptor-viewing has been great again with regular sightings of Southern-banded snake-eagle, Brown snake-eagle, Black-chested snake-eagle, African crowned eagle, Martial eagle, African cuckoo-hawk and African marsh harrier and the odd Amur falcon in passage.

African crowned eagle, Eastern shores, Isimangaliso.