We spent the whole of 19 August at the remarkable Isimangalito Wetland Park, with is a huge 3,280 square km protected area that extends 280 km from the Mozambique border in the north to the St Lucia Lake estuary in the south. At its heart is St Lucia Lake, which is an excellent place to see hippos and water birds while the surrounding grasslands are good for big mammals and many bird species.
Almost as soon as we entered the park we began to see the large mammals in the grasslands bordering the road, with Waterbuck, Impala, Giraffe and Zebra being close to the vehicle.
The park was full of birds, many of these being close, so we got good photographs of many species.
After a remarkable bird-filled morning during when we photographed 25 species, eight of which were new to us, we drove into a nearby town for lunch after which it was back to the park for more birding.
On 20 August we had a final birding session in St Lucia, with a pre-breakfast visit to the Gwalagwala (iGwala Gwala) Forest Trail, which was a short distance from our hotel. The birding was excellent at this early hour, with highlights being photographed including Narina Trogon, Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird, Woodwards’ Batis and Livingstone’s Turaco. We also surprised a Red Forest Duiker as we walked the trail.
After our very productive few hours on the Gwalagwala Forest Trail we returned to our hotel for breakfast before setting off for our next destination, Mkhuze Game Reserve. On the way we did some birding, stopping first at False Bay on the edge of the massive Lake St Lucia. Here highlights were a Goliath Heron at the water’s edge, Southen Banded Snake-eagle, Crowned Lapwing and a Common Hoopoe that allowed us to get very close in our vehicle.
