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Well done Dot Dan! Nice pics....

Stunning pictures DotDan ! Nice pictures and interesting reading Ferdelance ! Thanks for sharing.

Oh such good photos Dotdan and Ferdelance!

So good to hear from you all on this adventure of a lifetime. Kruger in the middle of the night and not just a night drive!!

Dan! about that twinspot! Nice male lion too! Thanks for continuing the story with a vibrant contribution, Ferdelance

Sorry for bolding some of your lines, Cherries... but you hit the nail squarely on the head! The BBW is accentuated by the special and unique birding effort put in on Saturday... starting at 02:00, nowhere else can you enjoy that kind of a night adventure! culminating in 17 hours of non-stop birding in the company of equally crazy birders, under the direction of some of South Africa's best KNP birding experts. By quitting time your insatiable craving for all things birding has taken a decent hit, leaving you tired but still charged!

But to get back to the previous evening's pennant-winged nightjar event: some 'mites and I may have already have alluded to it as being special in itself! Where else in KNP can you park and wait for this exceptional species to show up - as consistently as the sun setting in the west!? I have done a couple of PWNJ- watches at this spot and the nightjar has never disappointed... True that on this occasion it arrived later than usual, giving only glimpses of its large nightjar shape... The first time I saw it was also during a BBW in February, and I also felt dissatisfied with the sighting. I booked a trip to Punda in November that same year because that is when these nightjars are in full stepouts! What a spectacular difference! It leaves your hand so shaky that making THAT TICK is not possible for some time after the sighting! Subsequent sightings fixed other features in my mind… like its sound and its large size! Its flight is very fast and agile.

We arrived at the PWNJ spot quite early with daylight still dominating. The HRs quickly set out a cheese-and-wine fare. We Stiffies yakked expectantly and then camp leader, HR Chris Spies, called us to order...


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Chris eloquently directs our attention to the sounds of the night and gets us all to shut up and listen... In the distance Friday night human activity blares out of a multitude of boomboxes, but we filter the party noise out mentally and listen to the song of the day making way for the night.

Expert Chris Patton reads out an impressive list of species that bid the day farewell or announced their awakening as night’s creatures... It is time for the nightjar show! 'mites start to seriously scan the skies...


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...some with binoculars...


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...others rely on sight only..


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...and others listen intently...


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...while some do the bino shuffle, alternating between peeks through the glasses and naked eye effort...


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Some are oh sooooo prepared for that bird... "Show yourself! I am ready to nail your feathers!"


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And then there were the revelers! They celebrated the PWNJ sighting AHEAD of time!

JvR - Do you have permission to put names next to the faces?

DD, great pics. I am

Glad you got the Magpies, JVR.

You don't see names next to faces because I forgot to ask permission! And some Stiffies threatened with legal action after noticing the flash going off... so I am treading very carefully here...

JvR, Ferdelance and DD

I am putting a BBW in Kruger on "my bucket list" especially with the line up of Stiffies this year. That way I can cross items on the bucket list in one go

1. BBW with Expert Stiffies
2. WTM sighting

Typical, with a drink in his hand

So that was what you were doing JVR?

*I look like I am seriaaasly de hell in..

Not to worry DD, we know that you were just concentrating real hard!

I tried to hide behind my camera but JvR sneaked up from the side! Wonder what I was doing?

We enjoyed the PWNJ so much that the rain surprised us. Everybody seemed to ensure their cameras stayed dry resulting in most of us getting soaked to the bone. But you cannot keep the birders down, Lizet's husband even spotted a few other nightjars in the pouring rain on the way to the camp. Still, the nightdrive and PWNJ adventure was a good taste of what was to come.

Aaah.....

Great trip report Johan! Good quality photos and well done getting shots of the group, a really difficult subject!

Can't really add anything else, here is just a few of the more common birds we saw that weekend and some of them were so nice and colourful!

Common Cuckoo

Little Swift

African Cuckoo

White-fronted Bee-eater

Melba Finch

African Hawk-Eagle

Golden-breasted Bunting

African Cuckoo imm.

Oooooo... WOW! And Melba finch is so much more of a pretty name than GWP! Lizet, this is my favourite picture posted so far!

I took a really stupid decision for the next day... I consciously (bad word choice) decided to leave my camera behind for the BIG trip! So, I hope lots of other Stiffies have more pix to post about sightings on Saturday...