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BUSH AND BEACH – BIRDING AND MORE IN SOUTHERN MOZAMBIQUE WITH ETIENNE MARAIS BIRDING September 14

The Wild Trout Association Festival, now in its 32nd year, is a celebration of the humble trout and its Rhodian custodians – the riparian owners, guides and providers of accommodation. Each year fly fishermen and women flock to Rhodes to enjoy days of splendid river fishing and camaraderie that this event generates. 2023 marked a year of exceptionally high rainfall both before and during the Festival, resulting in muddy rivers and even muddier roads. This did not deter our happy band of “furry feather flingers” who managed to find fishable waters on each of the allocated days. Now read on…

BirdlifeKZN had organised a weekend away in conjunction with several KwaZulu Natal bird clubs in and around Ezemvelo’s Mkhuze Game Reserve – part of the World Heritage Site of iSimangaliso Wetland Park. The highlight was to be a morning spent at the Zimanga Private Game Reserve homestead gardens with its spectacular collection of aloes.

Reach Africa, under the skilful team of Grahame and Charmaine Snow, arranged one of their magnificent birding
tours (not just birds, though 😊) to the most productive hot-spots of Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe, from
Marondera in the north-east to Gona-re-zhou NP in the south. Grahame and 5 intrepid birders in his VW Caravelle
stayed at a mix of lodge and farm-style accommodation and spent time en route to the prime birding destinations by
stopping at prospective localities. We had a fabulous time, clocking 41 birding lifers out of 255 species we saw,
including in the Afromontane areas of Nyanga, Bvumba and Honde Valleys. Now read on…

A competition won by Cecily on the Birdlife Marion Island cruise in January saw us hot foot to Finfoot Lake Reserve, North West Province, in December. A very impressive weekend it was, too. All staff and accommodation were well above par, and we managed to get some good sightings of birds and butterflies…now read on…

This trip was considerably longer than previous trips to eSwatini. T

South Africa boasts the richest concentration of succulents in the world and one of the very first of these to be recorded was Pig’s Ears Cotyledon orbiculata

CRUISE IN AID OF THE MOUSE-FREE MARION PROJECT BY BIRDLIFE SOUTH AFRICA