A Visit to the Citrine

I often wonder to myself what goes through a non-birders head when they ask you simple questions yet the answers they get are somewhat unexpected, for example: Ralf; "Morning John! How was your weekend? Well spent?" to which a reply along the lines of "yes indeed it was, I went for a lovely afternoon trip around the sewage works" doesn't exactly get the excited reaction a birder would have expressed had you told him this exact same response. Thus when I told my family I was flying down to Cape Town for a day to try find Southern Africa's 4th ever Citrine Wagtail hanging around the local sewage works, the dumbfounded looks of complete shock and bewilderment were enough to make me smile...!

The Origins of South African Law; a subject I actually enjoy to a certain extent but somehow sitting at my desk with the windows open, peace and quite filling the houses every empty space, I still sat day dreaming about all the world's exotic localities and what natural treasures lie undisturbed and hidden away from the danger that is the human race. Of equal importance on the day-dreaming playlist is my countries very own natural wonders and in particular our avian treasures which wildlife enthusiasts from various corners of the world travel to see. And then the thought of which exotic species will be discovered next? Or even better, which exotic bird species will find its way to our shores next? Almost as if it was timed by Birding Africa Guide Ethan Kistler, my phone went off with a notification which simply read "MEGA ALERT: Citrine Wagtail at Strandfontein Sewage Works, Cape Town".  

The email which sent South African birders into panic mode

Of course this sent the entire country into absolute chaos because with this notification came the knowledge that this was infact only the 4th ever record of this species in the Southern African sub-region with only one previous record ever being "twitchable" (birding term for being able to twitch a bird, i.e. spend copious amounts of money in the hope of finding a particular species in order to add it to ones list). Would this be one of those records where the bird is seen but "flocks off" before anybody can dig into their pensions in order to pursue it? Or is this the one which will make our wallets cry but our hearts race? 

Well the Cape Town based birders most definitely did not waste any time and the first batch of birders were on scene within the hour but had no success in relocating the bird however the afternoon shift did which confirmed it, all of us who were not based in Cape Town needed to make a plan, and make one fast! The first of us Gauteng based birders had arrived the following morning, Sunday blues not evident at all and instead of waking up to an alarm, a nice cup of tea and Michael Bublé (don't ask about it....) I was awoken by more "pings" and "dongs"

from my phone which confirmed the fact that I shouldn't get out of bed but merely turn over and crawl into the foetul position so as to avoid any further pictures and reports on this bird. The previous day saw me having priced plane tickets but immediatly stop pricing them after I turned up the first few results which portrayed the news I least wanted to hear and that was that a twitch to Cape Town would just not be feasable at present. Bye-bye Wagtail....

However, much like the higher powers that be granted me my subconscious wish of having a massive birding rarity find its way to our sub-region, the same power clearly spoke to the Local airlines because as Sunday evening approached my now relaxed, calm demeanor, which was acceptant of the fact that this was just another one that got away, was itching to re-check the prices of airline tickets, and thankfully I did! In the space of a mere day the airlines had dropped their ticket prices by almost half immediatly making this twitch feasable, my now calm and collected thought process turning into utter mayhem as the adrenaline started to flow through my veins, shaking while fumbling for my cell phone to call my close friend Werner, to share with him the good news. We ended up booking our tickets onto the first flight out of Johannesburg for the following morning and from then onward all we could do was cross our fingers, pray continuously for +-12 hours and hope that Mr Citrine didn't flock off during the night. 

Nervous smiles all round

The drive to the airport the following morning was absolute torcher and that sense of anxiety stayed with Werner and myself right through until the very moment we got to Strandfontein. Adrenaline had been pumping through our systems from the minute our alarm's went off with a deeper underlying concern mixed in among it. Was the bird still there? We arrived on site at just after 8:30 immediatly drawn to a group of birders all facing one direction, cameras and binoculars at the ready, surely this was a good sign? Breaking out into a full sprint we arrived and slowed into a casual jog so as to look calm and collected, you never quite know where the next Baywatch talent scout will be, best to run majestically! 

Birding traffic jam, Strandfontein

The birders on scene then broke the news to us, the bird was last seen at around 8:00am that morning and had subsequently disappeared into the reeds. We had missed the little bugger by 30min! After roughly an hour of painstakingly waiting we then decided to go and walk the edge of the pans and see if the bird perhaps hadn't slipped away among the comossion. Following suite was John Graham and Sean Overmeyer a mere few meters behind us when all of a sudden their talking ceased and their eyes fixated onto a small clump of reeds to the left of the road, John had picked up on something. 

All of a sudden, like a bat out of hell, Mr Citrine burst out from the reeds in a flurry and flew, flew some more, and didn't stop flying until he landed inside the actual works themselves. The views we managed to get: not tick'able in our books...had we missed our opportunity due to just having been in the wrong spot when the bird was flushed? 

The following moments reminded me very much of a scene in the movie "The Big Year" starring Jack Black, Owen Wilson and Steve Martin whereby a whole bunch of birders were on the island of Atu, a report having been received of a Rustic Bunting and in true birding fashion the birders swamped to the location it was reported from just to be greeted by the birders who were already on scene running back up the hill screaming "the buntings gone back up the hill, the buntings gone back up the hill!". This was repeated a few times before the Bunting actually stopped flying about and settled at one point allowing all birders present to get decent views of it. Well the next few moments I felt an odd sense of déjàvu as I found myself running back and forth to where the Citrine was moving to and from, who needs cardio when you can chase a rare bird up and down a hill? 

Citrine Wagtail in the bag!

Finally (thank heavens!) the Wagtail decided to land at exactly the same spot it was present earlier that morning. Through my binoculars I saw fixated eyes, cameras and binoculars on one spot, he must be there! Breaking out into a full sprint and covering a distance of about 200m faster than the Flash could ever dream of I arrived, alive (surprisingly!) and in those few moments where I struggled to pin point it's exact location, my heart sat in my chest beating at an abnormally fast rate when all of a sudden a flash of yellow interspersed with grey fillied my field of views as I managed to get my eyes onto Southern Africa's 4th ever Citrine Wagtail, and damn was it a beauty! 

One can never really describe to a non-birder the excitement, the adrenaline rush and the pure energy surge one feels when there is some obscure rarity which pops up somewhere in our region and when you attempt to enlighten them saying something along the likes of "The minute those reports come through your body starts to shake as the excitement is just far too much!" the looks received are but a mixture of confusion and concern, almost as if they are busy calculating your level of sanity and thus I find it best to merely embrace it, embrace the absolute craziness which drives a birder to twitch! And as we sat on our flight home that evening I couldn't help but caste my mind off in wonder of which part of the region I would be racing off too next...!