We left a little later today as  Greg had to come back from his parents’ house.  We had a packed breakfast.  Driving along we passed through pine and eucalyptus forests.  There don’t seem to be a lot of natural forests  The eucalyptus is grown specifically for supports in the mines and the pine is used for building and furniture.  This monoculture isn’t good for the environment especially since it is clear-cut, leaving it open to erosion.  It also doesn’t promote bird and mammal habitat and has contributed to the loss of environments that are crucial to some species.

View from the van.

Small house on the roadside

Our first stop was at some fields that were habitat for cranes.

There are 3 species of cranes that we were looking for and we found them all!  They were at scope distance though so here are links to what they look like since we couldn’t get their pictures: Blue Crane, Grey-crowned Crane, and Wattled Crane.

We did manage to get a closer view of a

Common Buzzard.

We went from the fields to the Karkloof Crane Conservation area for our picnic breakfast and birding.  There were 2 blinds there but not much new.  We had to walk a ways to them.

 

This is a picture of Pao lugging his 50 pound camera and 20 pound tripod to the blind. it amazed us all that he could do this.  At every stop we made (which were frequent) he would haul it out and set it up. He often wondered off to get a good picture.  He liked to take pictures of “beautiful birds”. He often said the birds we saw weren’t beautiful  even  if they were special.  I’d have to say that I’d agree with him about some of the LBJs (little brown jobs.)

White-throated Swallow

We moved on from here to Benvie Gardens.  As you can see the flowers here were gorgeous.

We saw quite a few birds here like the Orange ground Thrush which looks a lot like our Robin.  Also Olive Thrush, Forest Canary, the Mountain Wagtail we missed back at the Abel    Erasmus Pass, Red-chested Cuckoo and Bronze Mannikin.

We went on to lunch at a restaurant overlooking Howick Falls.  There was a Black Cuckoo there.  Then we went to Marutswa Forest.  It was rainy here so Denny opted to sit in the car, unfortunately with the camera.  He did get to see the African Goshawk and Cape Parrots before he retreated.  I went on and got to see a Forest Buzzard, African Harrier Hawk, and Swee’s Waxbill.

On to Unterberg and the KarMichael Guest House.  Another winner.

The bedroom

the bath

We had a view out our door of a big lawn beyond which was a pond.

It was a bit foggy.

When we arrived we had just gotten to our rooms when we got this huge hailstorm.  It lasted about 5 minutes but it was impressive and everything looked like it was covered in snow when it was over.  That didn’t last long though.