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MIDRAND marvel
African Birdlife
|March/April 2024
Gauteng birders don't need to travel far to get their feathery fix. Midway between Johannesburg and Pretoria, Glen Austin Pan has become a favourite patch for this returnee expat.
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After having lived and worked in the Middle East with my family for 15 years, I returned home permanently to Midrand in December 2020. During the time away, I didn’t man age much local birding because most family holidays were spent exploring other countries, and as a consequence my South African bird list hardly grew.
Being back home has given me the opportunity to rediscover many old birding haunts as well as a number of new sites, and get re-acquainted with old birding friends and make new ones. In many instances I am seeing birds I haven’t seen for more than 15 years, so it’s a little like starting afresh, which is incredibly rewarding.
There are two reserves close to my home in Midrand: Beaulieu Bird Sanctuary and Glen Austin Bird Sanctuary. The latter is steadily becoming my favourite birding spot and I try to visit it at least once a month. I have seen many of the more common and resident species, but there are still many that I need to connect with, like Greater and Lesser flamingos, Black-necked Grebe, South African Shelduck, Lesser Blackbacked Gull and Lanner Falcon.
This story is from the March/April 2024 edition of African Birdlife.
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