A Slaty Tick

We arrived in South Africa after a nearly 17 hour journey. It was essentially an 8 hour flight to Ghana, a brief 1 hour layover where those continuing onward just stayed aboard the plane, and then another 6 hours to Johannesburg. Even though it can be annoying to have to stay on a plane for 17 straight hours, that’s about as fast as you can make a trip to Africa so it wasn’t too bad. It was particularly nice because we randomly got upgraded to business class thanks to an error made by the lady checking us in, which we complained about at the check in desk and voila! The fully reclining seats, expansive leg room, and fancy food made the flight go by much quicker and the whole ride we were essentially spoiled. It was also unlike us to touch down and not start running, but instead we shuttled to a nearby Marriott and spent the night in a king sized bed.

The following morning we were picked up by Tshidiso from Bushlore and taken to their Johannesburg office. In case you missed it, prior to our trip we had paid for our truck in full so we didn’t have to do much as far as paperwork when we arrived. It was more of a tutorial about how to use the vehicle that we had just purchased. Tshidiso gave us explicit directions on how to unfold our rooftop tent and put it back, and where all the gear was kept. We were shown how to manage our second battery, refrigerator, air compressor, and high-lift jack. We’d never used a high-lift jack before so being shown proper technique was definitely helpful. After we’d asked our fair share of questions, we hit the road but we were certain there was a huge learning curve for maneuvering Africa ahead. We wondered if Tshidiso thought if we would make it the 10 months or not. Luckily only minimal mechanical knowledge is required to get by as all of the local mechanics are wizards when it comes to fixing and maintaining a Toyota Hilux.

We left Bushlore and were on our way to tick a vagrant Slaty Egret but weren’t more than 15 miles away when our break system warning light, ABS warning light, and slip indicator light came on so we turned around and headed back to Bushlore. The mechanic worked on our car a bit and the lights went off but after we left for a second time the lights returned. We decided to press onward and deal with this issue on our way back through Jo-burg in a few days’ time. We had to stop at Bushlore anyway to pick up our Police Vehicle clearance paperwork so we would have it re-evaluated then.

We didn’t necessarily HAVE to see Slaty Egret in ZA, but this vagrant bird has been hanging around a fishing park and we were only 40 minutes away so it seemed like a no brainer. When we arrived the gate attendant informed us that the bird was just standing in front of him about 10 minutes ago and we just missed it. Great. We decided to head to the adjacent dog park instead figuring that it must have flown to one of the other ponds. We did a brief scan and then drove the mile over to the dog park, paid our entrance fee and proceeded to walk around the small pools. The fields next to the ponds were chalk full of Long-tailed Widowbird, Southern Red Bishop, and Pin-tailed Wydah, all very beautiful birds in their own right. Not to mention a few of the little boring brown ones, but as birders we appreciate those too. There were also a number of dogs playing in the dog park since it was a weekend so we figured this bird had to have flown off to somewhere much more quiet because it was nowhere to be seen. We were on a bit of a time crunch as we had plans to meet a friend later so we needed to get going. We did one last scan and started on the walk out very disappointed that we would have to either come back or get this bird elsewhere, when I noticed something in a distant tree. Ross came back to me with the scope and just like that we had a single Slaty Egret in our field of view! The bird was perched on a snag back over near the fishing ponds so we decided to drive back over to get much closer views.

It was a bit unfortunate that we still had to pay the 30ZAR (South African Rand) entrance fee just to snag a few photos but $2 per person is well worth it for a life bird up close. The rest of our afternoon was spent driving down to our friend Rich Lindie’s home, a full 500km away. Driving 5 hours is nothing so we hopped in the car and hit the road. Too bad it was torrential downpour in the dark but that’s the price you pay to see a friend, a rare bird and sleep in a nice bed! Stay tuned!