Be with the Birds

Good news! There are ways to bird in a forest and avoid neck pain. Select an area. Carefully remove thorns. Check debris that might be hiding any critters, or somebody’s home. Now lie down. settle back into the soft humus, and delight in your canopy sightings. Follow-up snooze optional.

This is just what we did today, after driving up Mariepskop with a friend who kindly provided the appropriate vehicle, delightful company and superlative birding skills. At just under 1,950 metres, Mariepskop is the highest point of the Blyde River Canyon.

On the plateau, you’ll find (drumroll) fynbos! How bizarre to be so far from my Cape Town life and so immediately reminded of it. Standing up there was like that moment when you’ve just woken up, the room turns on its axis, and you can’t quite place where you are.

We, however, were heading to the cool green forest—a welcome relief from the bare, dry post-winter bushveld.

Now, this wasn’t technically a birding trip, but I’ve noticed that every trip is a birding trip for true birders. And though I don’t want every adventure to be bird focused (please, God), I do love learning from pros who share generously with non-pros like me.

My personal highlights included African emerald cuckoo, white-starred robin and blue-mantled crested flycatcher… the theme being beautiful birds with striking features and funky names.

At some point, though, when my head is stuffed with information—and I’m beginning to confuse my ‘crested’ with my ‘striped’, or get mad at whoever named the bird for its least obvious feature—I know it’s time…

Time to just be with the birds.

This shift from an engaging (but often stressful) mental exercise into a space of companionship, of connection, is where I find the greatest wonder.

It’s also what restores me.

PHOTO: Renata Harper 

Originally I had mentioned that you might want to check for rock pythons when choosing your “supta-birding” spot. But as I was adding this snippet to the blog, I felt a niggle and decided to do a fact check. I reached out to prolific author, guide and guide trainer, Lee Gutteridge. He suggested I contact Chris Cooke, owner and director of Hoedspruit Reptile Centre, which does extraordinary educational work and offers free reptile removal services in our area. This was Chris’s reply: “After consulting with some colleagues, we do not know of any python records in the indigenous forests on the slopes of Mariepskop. The reasons are probably that the elevation is too high, the temperature within the forest is cold and it’s unlikely that they will have enough easily accessible basking spots. There is also a likelihood that there is not enough food up there, especially for large specimens.”