Sunday at the sewage works (1 Viewer)

I spent a wonderful three hours at the local Darville Water purification works on Sunday with the bird club. This area consists of a lot of rough ground with trees and bushes and long grass, several settlement ponds, most of which are overgrown with reeds, but one, which has been a muddy wasteland, had nice shallow water in it for the first time in a month, and some concreted, water-filled channels, some swift-flowing, some very sluggish.It was freezing (literally) and there was a low, icy fog at the start of the morning (we began at seven). We started off with a forest buzzard perched on the top of a tall, bare bluegum. Took a lot of looking as it moved in and out of swirls of fog before we could identify it! As the sun climbed over the fog and dispersed it, things got a lot easier and we saw:
Sacred ibis
Blackheaded heron
Blackeyed bulbul
Whitenecked raven
African fish eagle
African snipe (a lifer for me, yay!)
Yelloweyed canary
Levaillant's cisticola
Blackwinged stilt
Spurwing goose
Threebanded plover
Blacksmith plover
Cape shoveller
Dabchick
Reed cormorant
Brownthroated martin
Swawwing swallow
Fiscal shrike
Laughing dove
Spectacled weaver
Cape wagtail
Palm swift
Darter
Yellowthroated longclaw
Hadeda ibis
Blackcollared barbet
Redbilled teal
Kitlitz's plover
Southern boubou shrike
Cattle egret
Tawnyflanked prinia
Black sunbird
Redshouldered widow
Little swift
Yellow warbler
African jacana
Redwinged widow
Longcrested eagle
Grey heron
Hottentot teal
Bully canary
Common waxbill
Pied crow
Forktailed drongo
Bronze mannikin (45)

Considering that it is mid-winter and unusually cold, this was pretty good! This is probably the best birding area in Pietermaritzburg but unfortunately not safe to visit unless you are in a group.

I can't begin to tell you what that trip would have done for my life list, Sal! WOW!

Sewage ponds can be real magnets around here in spring and fall migration, too, if they are ice-free. Marvelous for migrating waterfowl in the late winter and for shorebirds in the late summer.

Glad you had such a great visit there.

It was a wonderful morning!This area used to have many more water birds, but since the ponds have not been used, they are slowly drying out and although you can hear bird life in the thick reeds, you can rarely see it - very frustrating. I'm sure my life list would be enormously energised by a visit to your sewage ponds too - in fact, interesting birding trip from sewage pond to sewage pond, country by country! Er - Great Global Sewage Pond Day???!!