ID A South African bird from a description

My daughter, Kate is on a gap year in Gauteng and sent me a description of the following birdie:

Quote:

K. I saw the weirdest bird yesterday, you might know what it is, it was quite small and dark brown with a black head and the longest thinnest beak I've ever seen! Any idea? MM. Was it in a tree? Running along the beach? Pecking at a wildebeast's corpse or what? Details Kate, details. K. It was on the ground pecking at the grass MM. Was it a wader then? A shorebird? Or was it more like a lark? Was its beak curved or straight and did it have long legs or a long tail? K. It had short legs and a long straight beak, it was small too, no bigger than a blackbird

Any South African birders want to take a stab at that? Bit of a long shot I guess.

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