By Rob Geddes

Some 42 PBC members attended the camp at Luonde and expectations were high following the hype generated by previous visits.
Rob and Charmain Gradwell our hosts at Luonde had specially built a camping site after discussions with Andre' Marx and we were privileged to be the first group to camp here.

Luonde is situated on the banks of the Albassini dam in prime bushveld habitat some 20km's east of Louis Trichardt. The Roodewal and Entabeni forests are easily accessed from the lodge. Despite some indifferent birding weather ( cold, misty and rather windy ) we were still able to see most of the specials for the area with the most notable dip being White backed Night Heron, who has recently moved its roost and has not been found since!

For those looking for Finfoot, Luonde is THE place - not only are they numerous but not shy at all, everyone had views of the birds swimming, running, walking and even interacting - this out in the open! Various groups worked the two forests over the week-end with varying degrees of success, although in general both were slower than expected, due to the weather and possibly the time of year. Roodewal is more of a scrub thicket forest which makes birding extra difficult when the birds are not active due to the windy conditions and most species recorded were on sound alone with very few birds being seen. Here the best sighting was possibly that of a just fledged African Crowned Eagle in and around its nest in an adjacent Pine plantation. Other notable sightings were of Scaly-throated Honeyguide, Olive Woodpecker, Crested Guineafowl, Lemon Dove, Blue-mantled Crested Flycatcher, Olive Bush-Shrike and Blue billed Firefinch.

Entabeni covers an extensive area with forest patches in the true afro-montane mould and should have been more productive than it was -once again thanks to the prevailing conditions. On Friday and Saturday the mist only lifted late in the morning thereby limiting the time available to bird. Nevertheless a number of interesting sightings were had, the best of these being a sighting of Black-fronted Bush Shrike by Paul Tyler. Other notable sightings were European Honey-Buzzard(pale form), Forest Buzzard, Tambourine Dove, Narina Trogon, Swallow-tailed Bee-eater (on the fringes of the forest), Yellow-streaked Greenbul, White-starred Robin, Blue-mantled Crested Flycatcher, Olive Bush-Shrike, Swee Waxbill and Green Twinspot.

Luonde and Albassini dam delivered the majority of sightings for the week-end with most have good sightings of Gorgeous Bush-Shrike, Red-faced Cisticola and Half collared Kingfisher.

For the record Luonde recorded 145 species, Entabeni 76 and Roodewal 65 with the combined total being 188 for the week-end.

Thanks to all especially our hosts for making this a very enjoyable week-end.