Day Eighteen - St Lucia to Hilton

On the road by 5:30am. Seriously, who pays to do this? Wimpy's for breakfast and then we headed for Dlinza Forest. We climbed a tower up into the canopy with great views over the forest. There were three birds we were targeting, and we found the first of them from up here, the endangered Eastern Bronze-naped Pigeon, now surviving in only three forests. A Crowned Eagle also flew over at close range, carrying a Vervet Monkey in its talons.

We descended from the canopy to walk along a trail on the forest floor. The secretive Blue Duiker is found in this forest, a tiny little antelope, the smallest in southern Africa, 30cm high and weighing in at a whopping 4kg. They are supposed to be hard to see. One tore past us, and we got okay views, but then he came back. He cut laps back and forward in front of us, six or seven times, giving us amazing views. Pretty awesome. We also saw two others, quite close to the path and not fussed about us. They are seriously one of the cutest things I've ever seen.

In terms of birds we were searching for the Spotted Ground Thrush, a difficult bird to find but within about twenty minutes we'd found two.

Our third bird was Chorister Robin-chat, we found one right outside the information centre. Three ticks, yay!

Next we headed to Mtunzini, to check the Raphia palms for Palm-nut Vultures. We did manage to spot two, flying way off in the distance, not the views we wanted, but I can hardly complain after all the incredible luck we've had. We also went for a short walk through the mangrove forest, searching for Mangrove Kingfisher, a winter migrant to the area. Unfortunately the birds haven't arrived yet, so we dipped out on this one.

(Photo Credit: Travel Buddy)

Back on the road we headed south through Durban to Hilton for the night. Not too many birds here but this is just a stopover for the next two adventurous days we are about to embark on.

So far on this trip we have seen over 300 species of birds, and I am close to having 800 on my world life list.

Big Sis

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