The Adventures of a Birder (Part 5)

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Written by Pauline Leinberger

Wednesday, 15 April 2009 19:46

The second trip I undertook with our club was to Vogelfontein near Naboomspruit. Part or the Nyl flood plain, this area was and still is a mecca for birders. The Nyl river (so named as it was once believed to be the source of the great Nile river) rises in the foothills of the Waterberg between Nylstroom and Warmbaths and on reaching flat ground near Nylsvley Nature Reserve, spreads and covers a large area when there have been good rains in the catchment area.

When I first visited the area in 1978 we camped on the farm of Oom Hendrik Geyser who had built a series of dykes over the flood plain on his property, thus creating a number of shallow pans which attracted a multitude of waterfowl. The purpose of this was to create good shooting for him and his influential friends.
Our campsite was on the far side of the causeway between the pans and on one memorable occasion when the water level was high one of our members drove her car off the road and appeared at the campsite carrying her tent on her back. The level of the road was subsequently raised and it wasn’t nearly so much fun as the egrets no longer sat on the edge of the road fishing. In those days ducks and geese would come flocking in in the early evening from their feeding grounds on neighbouring farmers’ fields. The atmosphere at sunset was magical with the sound of a multitude of wings accompanied by the booming of the Bittern, the honking of the Egyptian geese and the whistle of the Spurwing. Since then this part of Oom Hendrik’s farm has been acquired by Nature Conservation to form part of the Nylsvley reserve, and though some of the dykes have broken, after good rains the pans still fill up and water birds still arrive from far and near.

My first experience of this was in a borrowed tent and in those days we provided our own mod cons. I had three small thermos flasks which I would fill from a kettle boiled over the campfire. One flask would do for early tea, one to brush teeth and the other for a bath in a small basin. Surprising how refreshing such a wash could be.

This campsite served us well for a good many years and strangely enough we seldom visited the Reserve proper, mainly because one of our members used to bring a collection of little dogs that were indispensable to the outing and would never be allowed in the reserve.