Durban: a Great City for Wildlife

Swift Terns with Grey-headed Gulls at Umgeni Mouth, Durban.

This past weekend I got an opportunity to visit Durban and had a great time relaxing and seeing some interesting wildlife. Here are a few pictures of the wildlife I saw in and around the city.

The highlight of my Durban holiday was seeing this Black Mamba (Dendroaspis polylepis). The animal was seen at Mzinyathi. The snake allowed very close approach, these photographs were taken at about two metres.

I had heard of suburban Banded Mongooses (Mungos mungo taenianotus) in Durban before, but was yet to see them. I was lucky enough to see a troop of them cross the road. Managed to get a photograph of this one through the vegetation.

This Collared Sunbird was busy pecking at its reflection in the kitchen window. Birding in Durban is very good.

An African Fish Eagle soars high above the Mzinyathi close to the confluence with the Umgeni at Inanda.

An Olive Sunbird at Pigeon Valley Park in Durban. This little park has some spectacular trees and very special birds. Spotted Ground Thrushes and Buff-spotted Flufftails are often seen in the park.

A Tree Agama (Acanthocercus atricollis) on a tree in the suburbs of Durban.

A Pied Kingfisher hovering above the Umgeni River at the river mouth.

My favourite skink Trachylepis varia, the Variable Skink. These are one of the most common lizards in South Africa.

While in the Mzinyathi area, Ebuhleni, Inanda, I saw what is going to be a big problem in the area: illegal sand mining. Basically people are taking huge quantities of sand away in trucks for the building industry. It is not just locals taking sand for their own use, but I saw trucks linked to corporations getting sand at the site. The operation is rather big and there is some earth moving equipment on site which indicates that someone is putting money into the illegal mining. The upside is that there are quite a lot of people employed on the site, but still the environment up there is getting completely destroyed.

Illegal sand mining operation at Mzinyathi. The caravan is the mine's office.

Looking at the site makes me wonder what legal and more organised forms of sand mining must do to the environment. I think that these small guys are just that: small guys. It makes me think what damage are the big mineral miners doing with their large operations, money and endless demand for their products doing to the environment.  

A strange thing to see in the middle of the veld. Dumped cows heads and some hides. There were about 20 heads in total. The cynic in me sees this as a harbinger of things to come.