Birding buzz in Mtunzini
Wander along dunes and through palm forests as you explore Mtunzini – a lesserspotted, bird-friendly town in Zululand where nature still has a say.
Once a year, before the onslaught of the frigid Siberian winter, the common greenshank flaps its miniscule wings and sets course for Mtunzini on the coast of Zululand. When it arrives on the other side of the world, it gets to extend its summer as it joins a cacophony of other birds – including palm nut vulture and African finfoot – that have chosen to take it easy in Mtunzini’s forests. After all, hiding out in a forest is what you’re supposed to do here: The town’s name is derived from emthunzini, which means “a place in the shade” in isiZulu. Explore the Umlalazi Nature Reserve, which borders the town and offers peace and quiet away from the industrial hullabaloo of nearby Richards Bay, and it’s easy to see why birds flock here: You’ll find towering raffia palms, pristine dune forest and the tranquil estuary around the Siyaya River, where the swampy banks bristle with mangroves.
Mtunzini was declared a conservancy in 1995 and there’s a long history of efforts by residents to preserve its natural beauty.
One such resident is Dr Hugh Chittenden, the co-author of Roberts Bird Guide. He has an honorary degree from the University of KwaZulu-Natal for his contributions to ornithology, but he has no academic background and is self-taught.
“There’s a group of us here who push the birding agenda,” he says over coffee and rusks on his patio. “It creates local enthusiasm, and that spreads.”
For Hugh, it’s less about ticking a list and more about understanding the ways and wiles of a bird: “When I look at the birding fraternity worldwide and in South Africa, there’s a big interest in ‘twitching’. Twitching is having a life list or a South African list or a KZN list, and you go out and try to see as many birds as possible. I’m not criticising it, but I’m no twitcher. I don’t need to know how many birds I’ve seen, although there aren’t many more for me to see; my interest is more about the biology of birds – what they feed on, how they exist in an overpopulated world, how they adapt to the habitats they live in…” In keeping with this, Hugh decided to create a buzz around birding in the local community – he started sending fun and informative e-mails about birds to people who were interested. The e-mails were forwarded over and over, and readership has grown exponentially.
Another thing he, and the Mtunzini Bird
Club, has been doing is building hides on the mudflats next to the Mlalazi River so people can get closer to waders. “Waders need mud; they need sand and organisms that live in mud to feed on,” he explains. “People will be able to go into the hides and read an info board about the bird they’re looking at – how it has flown all the way from the Arctic and so forth.”
Hugh talks about how environmental changes have attracted new species of birds to the area. “If you go back to 1937 aerial photographs, it was all grassland,” he says. “Now it’s fruit trees. White-eared barbets never used to occur here; now they do because of those trees. Our garden is 99 % indigenous – we did it that way to encourage the birds. An indigenous fruit tree like a wild fig produces flowers for nectar and fruit or seeds – all of it food for a bird. Many other residents have done the same, so there’s a lot more food available for certain species.”
Mtunzini seems to attract people with enquiring minds. Another such person was Johan August Wahlberg, a Swedish naturalist and explorer, after whom Wahlberg’s eagle is named.
“Wahlberg did a trip up to Zululand in
1842 in an ox wagon,” Hugh says. “He was meticulous in his diaries and in his collecting – there are specimens from Mtunzini in the Stockholm museum, which were new to science at the time. They’re 177 years old and still in perfect condition.”
Before Hugh Chittenden, Mtunzini’s resident conservationist was Ian Garland, who grew raffia palms on his farm Twinstreams outside town. It’s said that the original seeds came to a Mtunzini magistrate from Pretoria – apparently the Director of Prisons at the time hoped that the leaves could be used by the prisoners to make brooms and brushes. Unfortunately for him, you need Raphia vinifera for that, and he’d ordered Raphia australis.
Raphia australis nevertheless flourished under Garland’s tending, and with the help of vultures and vervet monkeys spreading the seeds, his grove became a thriving forest. In 1942, the site was declared a national monument.
The raffia palms attract a colony of palm nut vultures – one of South Africa’s most rare birds of prey. It’s a fascinating creature, somewhat seagull-like, and even though it feeds on crabs, frogs and small mammals, the majority of its diet consists of the fleshy husks of raffia palm fruit, which can take up to two years to mature.
Active community
You’ll struggle to find a bored Mtunzinian. Everyone has a hobby or a sport, whether it’s boating, fishing, birding, trail running, walking, tennis, golf, or making pancakes at the Saturday market.
I meet Ernie van Niekerk on the deck of the Fat Cat restaurant. After some chit-chat, he invites me to join him for a walk through the raffia forest the next morning. Ernie is a handyman. When he’s not fixing houses, he’s also the town’s top body-piercer at his wife’s beauty parlour, The Nail, Pedi & Beauty Lounge. He suggests we get up early. “Early” in Mtunzini is the real deal: pre-dawn. But sunrise is definitely the best time to experience this phenomenal forest. The walk is a combination of the Swamp Forest Trail and the Siyaya Dune Forest Trail. It follows several boardwalk sections, taking us through Jurassic Park- like scenery as we weave between raffia palms that tower up to 25 m. Onward we go, through dense indigenous forest and over a bridge across the sleepy Siyaya River, giving a splendid view of the mangrove swamps in the estuary. Fidgeting fiddler crabs scuttle around on the banks, making the most of low tide. After we pass through the mangrove forest, we walk barefoot in the sandy dunes towards the beach where the Siyaya River just about reaches the sea. Fishermen sit in camping chairs rifling through tackle boxes while their lines lie taut in the surf.
We walk back across the beach, cutting through the Umlalazi Reserve to the car park, and then it’s time for another coffee at the
Fat Cat.
I go back to the forest again later in the day – this time on the Siyaya Dune Forest Trail. Duikers dart in and out of the undergrowth while vervet and samango monkeys scramble along vines and branches in the canopy.
The sun sets quickly, and then it’s time for a burger at the Mtunzini Country Club. Children chase each other on the tennis courts in the warm night air. In the bar, locals are eyeing the Proteas’ batting innings and asking the important questions: “Does T20 count as real cricket? Why is David Miller so good at it?” One guy has a theory that batsmen can see the ball more easily at St George’s Park in PE because it’s close to the sea. The others nod, even though you can tell that no one is entirely sold on the idea.
The 10th wicket falls and I head home, accompanied by a frog choir in full surround sound.
At the beginning of winter – if you can call it that in Mtunzini – the Siberian summer calls the greenshank back from our hemisphere. “Their migration is mind-blowing,” says Hugh Chittenden. “They take off from here in late March, early April, and their first stint is non-stop to the Middle East. They basically fly the length of Africa in one go. They don’t stop and they don’t rest; they fly day and night. One half of their brain switches off and the other half guides them to their first landing, where they eat and drink to refuel for the next leg to the Arctic.”
Luckily, you don’t have to go to such lengths. You can come to Mtunzini any time. Were it not for biological urges, the greenshank would probably stay here, too. Your place in the shade awaits you.