3rd February 2022 - Back to Durban

 Another early start, with all our luggage, had us heading out to the Marutswa Forest to try and find Cape Parrot, unfortunately unsuccessfully, but we did see African Olive Pigeaon, Terrestrial Brownbul, Speckled Mousebird, Amethyst and Malachite Sunbirds, African Firefinch and Forest Canary. We had breakfast at an abandoned visitor center, which seemed a real shame as the views were amazing. 

 

We then headed to the Mkomazi Valley. The gate was locked so Aldo had to drive down to the Center for the key so we spent some time searching the grassland area opposite. We manage to hear Fan-tailed Grassbird and saw Swee Waxbill, Lazy Cisticola, Black-Saw-wing and House Martins. There were a couple of nice plants in flower but it was a bit lumpy and we had to negotiated the slope carefully. 

Aldo returned with the key and we drove across the slopes to a viewpoint - we had  and eventually we saw at least two, one adult and one juvenile, Blue Swallow feeding along the valley and round the trees.

 We also found an amazing cricket species. We then made our way down the valley to Highover, a South African Natural Heritage Site for lunch. The first car managed to see Purple-crested Turaco but it had gone by the time we stopped. We did have Natal Spurfowl which crossed the road, and around the center we saw Green Wood Hoope, Black-headed Oriole, Cale Starling, Thick-billed weaver and Golden-breasted Bunting. 

After lunch we began the long journey back to Durban. We stopped at the Mkomazi River were we had great views of Crowned Eagle in the trees as well as Greater Striped Swallows on the wires. 

Arriving back at Afra Lala we checked in as we weren't leaving until tomorrow. Had we known that the trip would be back at the time it did we could have got a flight home this evening. As it was we had an extra day before our late afternoon flight back home. Some of the group were taking part in the extension so there were 8 of us for dinner - we returned to the Golf Course and had another lovely meal.