So put your minds to rest about the recent, “What bird is this #32?” here is the answer. To those who got it right, well done! To the others, we will help coax you along with our birding journey this year as well.
On the morning of Wednesday, January 14th, the mood in the Londolozi Ranger Room was, to put it politely, “saturated.”
A handful of rangers were huddled around a cup of coffee, engaging in the traditional bit of banter about the weather. Londolozi’s landscape is a sponge right now. With 70% of the reserve inaccessible, off-roading a distant memory, and the remaining driveable tracks resembling small rivers, the general sentiment for morning safari was a little bit bleak. We are effectively confined to a tiny fraction of our usual world, debating the difficulty of finding a leopard in a landscape that is as close as what we could get to the Okavango Delta.
Thankfully, we are not as bad as a few other places nearby, but we are still inundated with water.
Then came the thud.
It was a dull, unmistakable sound against the window pane. Expecting to find the usual suspects, perhaps a confused sparrow or a blue waxbill, a few rangers stepped outside.
There, lying on the ground, was something that stopped the banter mid-sentence.
It was tiny, remarkably beautiful, and entirely not what we expected. Word spreads fast at Londolozi, and within minutes, the coffee was forgotten. A huddle of rangers and staff formed a tight circle around the unconscious visitor.
As far as our records go, this bird has only been noted once before at Londolozi, and even that entry was a “sketchy” one, a fleeting glimpse with no photographic proof or substantiating evidence. In the world of birding, if it isn’t documented, it’s a myth.
Bryce was swift to scoop it up; the bird was unconscious, but here it had started to regather itself.
The bird was gently scooped up into Bryce’s hands. For a few tense minutes, we waited. It’s a strange thing to see a group of people who deal with lions and elephants daily, standing in hushed silence, coaxing a few grams of feathers back to life.
Then, a flicker. It sat up, gripped Bryce’s finger, and gathered its senses. After a short recovery period, it took flight—first to a nearby tree to regain its dignity, and then off into the thickets. While we couldn’t see it again, its distinct call could be heard nearby later that afternoon, a vocal confirmation that our visitor was alive and well.
The bird in question? A female Green Twinspot (Mandingoa nitidula).
To the uninitiated, it might just look like another small “LBJ” (Little Brown Job), but to a birder, this is a heavy hitter. Green Twinspots are coastal and montane forest specialists. Their usual haunts are the lush, evergreen forests of the KwaZulu-Natal coast or the escarpment forests far to our west.
So, why was it here?
They are notoriously secretive and discreet birds. They spend their time foraging in the leaf litter of dense undergrowth, rarely venturing into the open. They are likely more common in the Lowveld than we realise; we just don’t see them because they are masters of staying invisible. However, this particular female, possibly pushed off course by the recent deluge or exploring new territory, found herself exactly where she shouldn’t be.
For many of us, this was a “lifer”- a bird seen for the very first time in our lives. It’s a reminder that even when the roads are closed and the bush is impenetrable, the wild has a way of coming to you.
Of course, once the awe wore off and the bird flew away, the competitive reality kicked back in. Lifers are great for the soul, but in the 2026 Birding Big Year, it’s also just one more very, very lucky tick on the Bindo app.
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on A Literal Stroke of Luck: The Mystery Guest at the Ranger Room