Yesterday Jenny and I spent a morning in the Dullstroom area, visiting the Dullstroom Nature Reserve in the first half of the morning with Chris Lotz and a group of other birders. The second half of the morning was taken up in Verloren Vallei Nature Reserve, along the gravel road to De Berg just east and north of Dullstroom. The weather in the early morning was cloudy, cold and misty; so what's new in that part of the world? Later on, the sky cleared and it turned into a glorious spring day, with a light dusting of mare's tails in an otherwise pearl-blue sky. The mountains and grasslands in that area all lie above 2000 metres, with the highest part of the gravel road to De Berg being at about 2200 metres above sea level. This is the view looking north at the start of the De Berg road:
We managed to see 51 species in a morning, which is not too bad for the region. Specials included Cape Eagle Owl (lifer), Buff-streaked Chat, Cloud Cisticola, Blue Crane, Red-winged Fracolin, Eastern Long-billed Lark, Long-billed Pipit, Yellow-breasted pipit, Sentinel Rock Thrush, Cape Vulture and Ground Woodpecker.
It was only the second time we have seen Red-winged Francolin and Yellow-breasted Pipit, so we were really pleased with the outing. Thanks must go to Chris Lotz, who is using the outings to raise money for Owl Conservation in the Eastern Cape. No doubt Chris will keep us posted regarding developments there.
Here are a few pictures of some of the birds seen; I apologize for the quality in the pics of the owl and the francolin, but certain people who were with us yesterday may be interested to see them. The first photograph was taken at about 6.15 a.m. with the sun not yet up and the mist swirling around.So an ISO setting of 1600 was used, with a shutter speed of 1/50 th of a second. Ouch!
The camouflage of these owls was so striking; the colouration and markings are such that they blend into their rocky surroundings almost perfectly while roosting. Whilst watching the owls, our attention was drawn to a pair of darkish birds having a dogfight around the slope to our right, just above the bracken. These turned out to be Long-billed Pipits, and their camoflage is also pretty good.
On our way back to the cars, we came acroos some fairly obliging Red-winged Francolin:
Below are some photos taken during the second half of the morning, in no particular order.
Malachite Sunbirds
Cape Vulture 
Sentinel Rock Thrush
Eastern Long-billed Lark
Red-capped Lark (note the red "shoulders")
Yellow-breasted Pipit
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