Bird Watching at Cintsa on the South African Wild Coast

I have been an avid birder for many years, in fact, since a family trip to the Kruger National Park in the Eighties where I identified my first bird. It happened to be an Arrow Marked Babbler. I don’t usually keep score and seldom make notes in my book as to first sightings or other birding experiences. I just enjoy watching them go about their business and the thrill of identifying them. Because the coastal forest at Rendezvous Caravan Park is so thick, birding takes on a different dimension, as it is no longer bird spotting but rather bird listening. It forced me to start paying much more attention to the bird calls as this was sometimes the only way to identify them. Fortunately I have installed the Sasol birding app on my iPhone so the calls are easily accessible and saved me spending many tedious hours trawling through the Guy Gibbons collection on the iPod. Because Cintsa is located at a point where many of the Southern and Northern occurring species overlap, the variety and abundance was surprising. When my 78 year old mom, Shirley, paid us a visit, she was completely astounded at the rich pickings, having been a birder for many years.    So herewith a checklist of a few of the birds identified at Rondezvous in no particular order.

• Fish/Crested Eagle
• Ostrich
• Brown Hooded/Pied/Malachite Kingfisher
• Greater/Lesser double banded/Amethyst Sunbird
• Thick-billed/Dark-backed Weaver
• Trumpeter Hornbill
• Black-headed Oriole
• Cape Canary
• Dark-capped Bulbul
• Olive Thrush
• House/Cape Sparrow
• Bronze Mannikin
• Breen-backed Camaroptera(Bleating Warbler)
• Crowned/Blacksmith Lapwing(Plover)
• Hadeda/African Sacred Ibis
• Knysna Woodpecker
• White-fronted/Common Ringed Plover
• Lesser Striped/Greater Striped Swallow
• Chorister/Cape Robin-Chat
• Cape Glossy/Red Winged/Pale Winged Starling
• Scops Owl(call only)
• Jackal/Steppe Buzzard
• Red Chested Cuckoo(juv)
• Burchell’s Coucal
• Common Whimbrel
• Spotted Thick-knee
• African Oystercatcher
• Grey Herron
• Swift Tern
• Dusky/Southern Black/Fiscal Flycatcher
• Fork-tailed Drongo
• Black-collared Barbet
• Helmeted Guineafowl
• White-backed Mousebird

As I am doing this from memory, there may be some that have slipped through the net in the old grey matter, but it gives you a good idea of the diversity available at Cintsa during the summer months.