Starting the new year with early morning birding can only be good.
My clients from the USA were ready just before 6h00 when we started our birding on the 2nd of January 2020.
We recorded more than 70 species for the morning. Species we recorded included Knysna Woodpecker, Spotted Eagle-Owl, Knysna Turaco, Black-bellied Starling, African Paradise Flycatcher, African Fish Eagle, Pied Avocet, Goliath Heron, Klaas’s Cuckoo, Forest Buzzard, Jackal Buzzard, Greater Flamingo, Cape Teal, African Spoonbill, Karoo Prinia, African Dusky Flycatcher, etc.
We were fortunate to view two juvenile Spotted Eagle-owls and were able to take pictures close up.
The weather was perfect and wind only started to pick up in the afternoon.
Our trip included the lakes between Wilderness and Sedgefield, Farmland, Indigenous forest and some urban areas.
I have recorded species in a number of different pentads and submitted two full protocol cards to SABAP2 (The South African Bird Atlas Project 2).