Mbuluzi Beckons

Belting out their rattle-like alarm calls, the Crested Guineafowls spin away from their dust bath and dash for cover. We’ve disturbed them in a grove of tamboti trees, on our walk to the Mlawula River, where fever trees line the banks.

A Half-collared Kingfisher darts upstream in a flash of cerulean blue, and three Woolly-necked Storks probe the shallows. Suddenly, a male African Finfoot appears, gliding silently across the surface to hug the far bank. When he clambers onto a fallen tree trunk we see the brilliant-orange legs and toes of this