...back to blogs

Yesterday, an immature Montagu's Harrier had been photographed in the park and, since Margaret still needed this for her Western Cape list and it would be a great challenge bird to get, we decided to chase it. We joined Cliff Dorse and arrived at the park fairly early and positioned ourselves up on a hill which gave us a good vantage point to scan from. Unfortunately, despite a number of hours of scanning, we were not able to relocate the bird, but a Pale Chanting Goshawk, an extremely rare bird in the park, was a good find nevertheless. A stint in the Geelbek hide also turned up a Common Redshank, a rarity in South Africa, so the day wasn't a total loss. Eventually, after driving up and down all the park's roads in search of the harrier, we eventually gave up and headed back home.