Today is a rest day.   We go out early in a southerly direction and try to find the lions but we have no luck and find out later that nobody else had a particularly successful day today either.

The highlight of the drive is at Casper se Draai.  We spot the melanistic Gabar settled in a tree which does not make for good photography.  But it flies off and we head in the same direction and find it perched in a tree with a juvenile and another Gabar of normal plumage.  It is obviously a family – Mom, Dad and junior.    They have a dove in the foliage and are feasting on it.  Luckily for us they are on the correct side of the road – not into the sun – and we get some reasonable photographs.

Melanistic Gabar Goshawk

Normal plumage of Gabar Goshawk

Parent and juvenile on right

We decide to return to camp and have a rest day as we are leaving for Polentswa tomorrow.  On the way back we do some more birding.

Familar Chat

Yellow Canary

Crimson-breasted shrike

Burchell’s Sandgrouse

After lunch I go for a swim and meet some people from Somerset West.  They ask where I live and I say – Fish Hoek.  Oh says the lady, we are with our aunt and uncle from Fish Hoek – Eric and Margaret.  I am gob-smacked.  They are members of The Bird Club and I know Margaret and Eric very well.  I also know their daughters!  Later Earl and I pop up to their chalet to say hi.   I had told Eric that we were off to KTP and he’d said – You lucky fish!   At that stage he didn’t know that he would also be having a trip here – two weeks ago his daughter, Alison, suggested he and Margaret go in their place as here hubby, Alan was not well.  Margaret tells me that it has been a brilliant trip with their niece and nephew treating them like royalty!  Her niece also said that they’d learnt a lot about birds from Eric!