Giants Castle has always been one of my favourite places to visit in the Drakensberg. It is a relatively short drive and is beautiful with the Bushman’s River valley, rolling foothills and dramatic escarpment bordering Lesotho. The last time we had visited on a day trip from Glen Garry, I had enjoyed some nice opportunities to photograph Malachite and Greater Double-collared Sunbirds and Edin was very keen to see if we could repeat this.

It was a family day trip so after morning tea and a lovely lunch at the restaurant, with Gran comfortably seated with a view of the valley, the rest of us headed off to explore. Edin and I were focussed on birds while the others headed off to the caves for a presentation on San history and art. Edin had made a great start with a stunning shot of a Greater Double-collared Sunbird from the deck of the restaurant and our first stop was a flowering tree with a couple more feeding in it. We then headed slowly along the path getting some lovely shots of the valley and seeing Cape Robin-Chats and Ground Woodpeckers. Our main hope had been for Malachite Sunbirds as the males are quite stunning in their iridescence but, despite hearing some in the distance, we hadn’t seen any until I saw one in the distance on a beautiful protea bloom. I managed a long-distance grab shot and then we cautiously approached and settled into the grass waiting for him to pose again. After an hour numerous females had obliged but every time a male arrived he would keep well away from the stage.

The others returned from their hike walking right past us in our concealment and we headed back for a drink before negotiating an opportunity to return to our spot to again be frustrated by a male who perched near the bloom but simply refused to land on it and feed.

See Edin’s blog for her account of this episode.