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Everyone enjoy and great sightings. Maybe even a Pel will come out for WTM!

I have updated the Stiffneck List today so you all know what is left!

Very very envious

Drive safe and we want to see plenty pics when you get back!

Will also be leaving for Punda tomorrow morning to start birding! Hoping for a Pel's and trying to get 150 species in the 4 days....

Drive safe everyone. Can't wait to meet all the birders from the forum!

Well now ... it seems to me that I will have to crash this party!

I will be in Punda this weekend ... but for other reasons!

Came back from the Punda BBW yesterday. WOW what a special weekend. Just wanted to thank JvR for arranging everything and the effort put in by him! Really nice meeting him and some of the other member s on the forum.

I will give a short report at the end of the week on how it went. 238 species recorded by our group and over 13 lifers for me.... (am still counting )! Some real special sightings too!

Thanks to Johan and Chris from WRHG!

Special Thanks also to our two experts on the truck Chris and Richard, and the other 7 group members.

Boy what a busy weekend we had! 17 hours birding on a very noisy (diesel driven) gameviewer truck and a total of 236 - not to shabby I would say!

It was a great day and nice meeting some of the forum members, especially JVR. Our team won the prize for best group name: Bull snapping Rollers Inc, we combined group A & D on the 20 seater truck(Inc) and half way through the day we were snapping red bulls (bull snapping) to stay awake.

The sighting for the day must have been the Ayres's Hawk eagle and the bogey bird probably the Pink-throated Twinspot in the sandveld.

I will post a few pics of some of the birds we saw a bit later...

WOW, what a privilege it was for me to be on a truck with 16 fellow birders. 17 Hours of nonstop birding with experts galore. Thanks to JvR, Johann, Lizet and Tertius our expert for providing us with all their knowledge and expertise. Special thanks to JvR, Johann, Tertius and Heinrich for loading and unloading. It is greatly appreciated. Got 24 lifers
What a fantastic weekend!! Thanks to everybody involved.

And me? you weren't even faced by meeting moi?

Ouch Tilandi.. that hurt me so bad.. you cut me deep there.. real deep!!

Thank you all the people involved in making this one helluva great weekend.. I haven't laughed like that in a long time..

A special mention to Chris and Richard our guides for the day.. was a blast, and listening to Richard's stories of baboon hunting almost killed me


Hell, but how good looking was that Pink Throated Twinspot ?

We had a super time. Even my wife who is not a serious birder enjoyed it immensely.
Thanks to JvR for organizing. It was good meeting forum members and other like-minded people as well as Tertius, our expert.

Looks like the drenching we experienced after the Pennant-winged Nightjar sighting might have affected my voice as I am much more softly spoken today! (Laryngitis)

I hope to see all the attendees and some new faces at next year's event!

I ended with 10 lifers, the special ones being Pennant-winged Nightjar, Rudd's Apalis, Ayers Hawk-Eagle and African Crowned Eagle.

And of course, thanks to West Rand Honorary Rangers for organizing the whole BBW. May there be many more.

As promised some of the specials I managed to photograph,

Böhm's Spinetail

Ayres' Hawk-Eagle

Broad-billed Roller

Grey-headed Parrot

Black-throated Wattle-eye

Meves's Starling

Grey-rumped Swallow

The weekend has come and gone so let the reports and feedback begin. I'm still on leave for 2 weeks so will not open the account but can say that once again the weekend at Punda Maria was a huge success with the teams ticking 238,236 and 235 birds respectively.

These high totals was due to, I think the amount of “real” birders present on the second weekend with a number of Stiffneck members present. The best total for the 1st weekend was 215 and when we reached 235 after 16 hours we thought we did good just to be outdone by the other 2 teams.

It was good to put a couple of faces to the names so let's hear how you experienced it ansd also hear from forum members who participated in the other camps.

Great shots Lizet.. how in the everlasting hell, did you get a shot like that of the Wattle Eye?

Lovely shots Lizet I would love to see grey-rumped swallow & Ayres' hawk-eagle

Thanks guys! DD, just a little bit of soft "spiching" and no playback.

The Ayres' is not that great, I think Tersius has a beauti and hopefully he will show us? He was on that ID like lightning, well done! We had a wonderful day, thanks T.