South Africa and Lesotho – Kiara Lodge

Atlasville, 01 Mar 2012

I will not have as much free time on my hands for the next 2 years. On the work front it is very much a case of ‘and now for something completely different’, as I will be spending extended periods in Chile, based in the capital, Santiago. My wife will remain in Atlasville.

So, before I head off next week, we spent a few days at Kiara Lodge near Clarens in the southern Free State, bordering Golden Gate Highlands National Park. It was a combination of birdwatching at Kiara and other localities along the edge of the northern Berg, and a day trip into Lesotho to see the Katse Dam and the spectacular scenery.

On Friday, 24^th February, we made the easy 290 km drive down to Kiara from Atlasville, arriving mid-afternoon. This gave me a couple of hours to start birding the grounds of the resort. On Saturday morning we took the short drive to Golden Gate and completed drives around the Oribi and Blesbok Loops. On Saturday afternoon, all day Sunday, and on our final day, Wednesday, I birded around Kiara.

Kiara sits in a short valley between sandstone cliffs, but has several different birding environments. The resort itself has grass lawns with a variety of large trees and flowering shrubs, attracting bulbuls, thrushes, robins, barbets, white-eyes and cuckoos. A reed-fringed dam above the camp provides a haven for weavers, coots, moorhens and ducks. Above the dam the small stream feeding it runs through scrubby bush, home to prinias and grassbirds. The sandstone cliffs provide a good environment for red-winged starlings and ravens, while overhead there is a constant traffic of swifts and swallows.

Some of the birds seen across these environments were Red-knobbed Coot, Yellow-billed Duck, White-necked Raven, Red-winged Starling, Southern Boubou, African Red-eyed Bulbul, Diederik Cuckoo, Familiar Chat, Speckled Pigeon, Cape Robin-Chat, Olive Thrush, Green Wood Hoopoe, Willow Warbler, Cape White-eye, Karoo Prinia, Cape Grassbird, Southern Masked Weaver, Cape Weaver, African Stonechat, Levaillant’s Cisticola, African Olive Pigeon, Greater Striped Swallow, African Black Swift, Alpine Swift and Jackal Buzzard.

Monday was our day for the Lesotho trip. It took just under an hour to reach the border crossing outside Fouriesburg, where a bridge crosses the Caledon River into Lesotho. It was a 64 km drive to Pitseng, from where the road built specially to accommodate heavy construction vehicles begins its winding path into the Maloti Mountains up the Mafika Lisiu Pass. Another 29 km took us to the viewpoint at the top of the pass, at an elevation of 3,090 m. The pass had climbed 1,000 m in the last 10km. The view from the top was definitely worth the drive.

3 km further on was our chance to stop for refreshments, at the visitor’s centre of the Bokong Nature Reserve. Here also there are some spectacular views. From here you can see 60 m (approx. 200 ft) Lepaqoa Waterfall (higher than Niagara Falls and about the same as Victoria Falls) and look down the Lepaqoa River valley. When you get to grips with the fact that you about 3,000 m above sea level, you can truly appreciate the dissected mountain plateau that gives Lesotho its name ‘Kingdom in the Sky’.

From Bokong it is another 64 km to the Katse Dam, with many superb views of the 25 km long lake created by the dam.

The majority of the birding done along the way was of birds easily identifiable sitting on fences or posts, or larger ones in the fields, such as Rock Kestrel, Amur Falcon, Pied Starling, Pied Crow, Mountain Chat, Black Stork, Southern Bald Ibis and African Stonechat. At our two stops I was able to take out my binoculars. At Bokong I noted Jackal Buzzard, Cape Bunting, Horus Swift and Rock Martin. At the Mafika Lisiu viewpoint I added White-necked Raven, Drakensberg Rockjumper, Cape Wagtail, African Black Swift, Alpine Swift and the only bird close enough to photograph all day, a Sickle-winged Chat.

The following day my wife stayed at Kiara and I did some birding on rural roads towards Kestell, before heading for The Sentinel car park at Witsieshoek. The last few kilometres of this road command some stunning views of the northern Berg, particularly The Amphitheatre. For me this has to the best scenic view in South Africa, pushing even Table Mountain into second place, only marginally ahead of the Three Rondawels in the Blyde River Canyon of Mpumalanga.

Birds seen included Natal Spurfowl, Red-collared Widowbird, Long-tailed Widowbird, Yellow-crowned Bishop, Ant-eating Chat, Levaillant’s Cisticola, Wailing Cisticola, Ground Woodpecker, Cape Longclaw, Bokmakierie and Jackal Buzzard.