Richard Johnstone invited me to go with him to Ndumo game Reserve. A birder from Cape Town Pieter Le Grange asked Richard to take him to see the special Dragonfly species in Ndumo. We started our journey early on the Sunday morning. We stopped at the Boabab Inn close to Mkhuze to have a breakfast. What a awesome place, we saw a variety of species including plants, butterflies, birds, insects and dragonflies. Its worthwhile to make a pit stop at this friendly little in.
We turned off to Josini and crossed over the beautiful dam wall. With all the stops we only arrived at Ndumo midday. Then past the little town we turned left to Ndumo game Reserve. The reserve had good rains and the vegetation was luscious. We stopped for birds and butterflies.
We arrived and booked into the comfortable chalet. Pieter also arrived and we introduced ourselves. He was travelling with his wife and her sister.
The next day we booked and did a walk in the sand forest. Bongani an experienced game Warden drove us to the forest and guided us. The forest is beautiful with lots of plants, insect and bird species. The foliage is dense and makes birding difficult. It is best to identify the birds with the sounds they make.
We also did a walk next to a slow flowing river. This area is teeming with Sycamore Fig Trees. A strange phenomena was the abundance of Mango trees planted years ago. We saw hundreds of little moths Lienard’s Achaea. We found some Dragonflies, but not as many as we hoped for.
The next day we drove to Redcliff. Its a long drive along the fence of Ndumo. Again we were disappointed. Some pans were dried up and found very few species of Dragonflies. On our way back, we started stopping at wet spots on the road. This paid off and we found quite a few Dragonfly species this way.
The evenings were filled with Africa sounds. Night Jars calling, fires crackling, the smell of charcoal fires and interesting discussions on nature. Pieter and his wife treated us one night to a great supper.
We hunted for moths and beetles at night and got quite a few species.
The last afternoon we asked Bongani to take us along the Ndumo Pan. Our guests were tired and did not join us. What an amazing experience. We saw most of the waterbirds with highlights like the White-backed Pelican, Storks, Herons, Waders and Woodlands Kingfisher.
The 4 days were over far to quickly and we bid our Stellenbosch guests farewell.
Some Highlights:
Birds Species: (130 seen & heard)
Butterfly Species: (14)
Dragonfly Species: (21)