marvellous MARABOUS

We emerged from a thicket into an open clearing with a shallow seasonal pan as the main feature.

- LEON MARAIS

A couple of Blacksmith Lapwings were pottering around the edge, as was a Three-banded Plover, but not much else was stirring in the midday heat. Behind the pan and off to one side, 211 Marabou Storks were standing around, looking like delegates at an undertakers' convention. Some were standing in the shallow water, others were 'kneeling' on the ground, but most were just standing there, backs to the sun.

I was with two waterbird counters from the Netherlands who are well experienced in counting birds in the fields, marshes and canals of their homeland, so '211' was more than just an educated guess. But it was harder to assess the number of storks in a large 'kettle' of Marabous in the sky some distance away: 200-300 would be a rough estimate. Add the resting flock and there were some 500 birds. We had seen another kettle of circling birds that morning and we surmised that there were perhaps up to a thousand Marabou Storks in the area. This may sound like a scene from Botswana or even East Africa, but in fact it was within sight of the Polokwane CBD in Limpopo Province.

This gathering of Marabous seems to be a fairly recent phenomenon in Polokwane Nature Reserve, just south of the city. Sharing a relatively small range between South Africa and Botswana, the Short-clawed Lark is one of the reserve's big drawcards for international birders, but there are plenty more wonderful arid thornveld species to be seen, such as the stunning Crimson-breasted Shrike, Barred Wren-Warbler, Shaft-tailed Whydah, Kalahari Scrub Robin, Black-faced and Violet-eared waxbills and Marico Flycatcher.