On 23 January a friend phoned me to report an exceptional occurrence in our area. On the farm Rooipoort in the Burgersdorp district a swarm of locusts had been sprayed on 7 January. The dead insects were spread over an area of about 250m wide and 1km long. This source of easy delicatessen was just what some of the birds of the area – and even some rare visitors – came to enjoy. More than 850 White Storks were counted – the photo shows only a small portion of this macnificent sight. Other species that came to gorge themselves on the dead locusts were amongst others: Blue Cranes, 3 Marabou Storks, Ludwig's Bustards, Pied Crows and even a Martial Eagle had been seen early the morning. By the time the pictures were taken, the birds had been feasting for more than a week on this specialty. Apparently the insecticide had no obvious detrimental effect on the feasting birds. I atlased the pentad for SABAP2 while visiting the site and added a new pentad to the Eastern Cape tally of atlased pentads.
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