Tanzania toddlercore (1 Viewer)

[Larry Sweetland]

Just back from a month in Tanzania with Nicky and Ronnie (now 19 months old).
Bit of an unusual trip, so if you're looking for tips on how to clean up this isn't the report for you.

Basically we had trouble deciding where to go for a month in Feb. Had to be hot with some seaside, doable with Ronnie, affordable for us, and for my part somewhere with a good chance of me seeing the 49 new birds needed to see my 5000th. Nowhere seemed quite right. At fairly short notice we found flights to Tanzania were pretty cheap (£800 rerturn for the whole family), if you went (weirdly enough) via the Seychelles. We could also then stay with our non-birding friend Kat who lives in Mwanza by lake Victoria, and she encouraged us to visit then, as we could check out a music festival on Zanzibar in mid Feb and hang out there for the end of the trip.

I tried to find some independent trip reports that didn't involve hiring a driver and guide for the whole trip, and gave up searching after I couldn't find any! It all looked like a very expensive country to 'do properly'. This meant I pretty much didn't bother doing any research or planning beyond flicking through the East Africa field guide a couple of times.

I must say, it ended up being really hard work (especially for Nicky) travelling for a month and trying to bird with a toddler in the heat of Tanzania whilst trying to keep costs down. Birdwise I had pretty low expectations, but in the end (thanks to some strange twists and turns) managed a trip list of around 400 species, all but a few of which were seen in the first couple of weeks or so before we got to Zanzibar, after which little birding was done.

Still waiting for our luggage to get home, so had to get home to Bristol from Heathrow in a t-shirt yesterday!

 

[foresttwitcher]

Looking forward to this, Larry.

 

[Larry Sweetland]

Seychelles

Thanks Pete, I'll have to post it in short bursts when I can.

Seychelles is somewhere I'd never had on my radar as somewhere to go, so when I discovered that on the outbound journey we were to have a 3 hour stopover at Mahe airport during daylight hours, I harboured excited thoughts of somehow seeing a couple of new birds. A glance at the very old field guide, and an enquiry on BF, gave me great hopes of finally catching up with childhood dream bird White Tern. Actually seeing anything with 'Seychelles' in it's name though was, I figured, far from guarenteed.

We descended on Mahe just after dawn, and I was not surprised to discover that the tiny airport was pretty much on the sea, but didn't expect it to have an immediate backdrop of picturesque forested peaks. As the plane taxied towards the terminal a couple of Whimbrel, Cattle Egrets and Common Mynas were the first birds seen.

Much to my delight, as the plane stopped I could see four very white looking terns flying around the terminal building itself! I couldn't wait to get off the plane, and during the walk from the plane to the building had great views of White Terns in the bins. Great birds, and a terrible shame in my opinion that they've been robbed of their rightful name of Fairy Tern by an antipodean glorified Little Tern. Surely they could have at least given our old Fairy Terns a new name to suit such an iconic creature, and at least called it Ghost Tern, or Angel Tern, instead of the humdrum White Tern it now has to suffer.

When in the building I discovered that if you ascend the spiral stair, you can access one window that looks directly out behind the building onto a couple of nearby trees and some frustratingly slightly too distant forested hills. I quickly got views of some introduced birds: more Common Mynas, a couple of Zebra Doves, a Madagascar Fody or two, and some more distant Streptopelias, presumably Madagascar Turtle Doves.

A few Great Frigatebirds sailed about out to sea on the other side of the building.

On my second visit to my window I couldn't believe my luck when a pair of Seychelles Sunbirds chose to fly into the nearest tree, providing great views. Pretty dull for a sunbird, but cracking first name!

I strained into the distance (a scope would be really handy here, but I didn't have my tripod in my hand luggage), and picked up a couple of White-tailed Tropicbirds against the forest, distant Common Mynas, Streptos, Fruit Bats, and a couple of what may well have been Seychelles Bulbuls but just too far away.

The big surprise was yet to come though, when something appeared in flight that totally confused me and I couldn't even classify it to order at first. Then it dawned on me what it must be: Seychelles Blue Pigeon! A very strange bird and a total surprise. I ended up seeing maybe up to four individuals of these rather distantly, perched and in flight a few times. Unfortunately they were rather far away, so I could only just about make out the red on the top of the head a couple of times, but their other colours, shape, size and mode of flight was very distinctive. So far I can only find written that they are in remoter parts of Mahe, which this clearly isn't, so I wonder if maybe they're doing better there now, or if there's a repopulation scheme going on?

1. Whimbrel
(Common Myna)
2. Cattle Egret
3. WHITE TERN
(Madagascar Fody)
(Madagascar Turtle Dove)
(Zebra Dove)
4. Great Frigatebird
5. SEYCHELLES SUNBIRD
6. White-tailed Tropicbird
7. SEYCHELLES BLUE PIGEON

 

[Jon Turner]

Glad you caught up with White Tern Larry - takes me back to Hawai'i last year!

Agree on the name - they were Fairy Terns when my Dad saw them in 1964!

 

[edenwatcher]

That's a pretty good haul from the airport.

Rob

 

[temmie]

Please give as much Toddler info as possible, as I have one at the moment!

 

[Larry Sweetland]

arrival in TZ

Thanks for the comments guys.

From Mahe it was only a couple of hours to Dar Es Salaam, where we were in for a not very nice surprise. Basically the first person we met in TZ told us we'd all have to have and pay for yellow fever jabs if we didn't have a certificate. This is not what it says on the TZ government visitor information website. She wasn't interested in listning to that, only interested in showing us an old leaflet dated 2009 which said we did.

Luckily for us there were 3 other travellers from Russia who were expecting this scam, and had printed off a copy of what it now says on the govt website. She still didn't want to know! Luckily for us none of us were in a hurry for any connections, and luckily for us the other travellers all had phones with internet on, so they just told her we were'nt having the jabs, and we'll have to phone our embassies. Even then she kept up the "you have your jabs or you go home" spiel for a long time before she finally just said "ok go through". If it wasn't for the strength in numbers and the togetherness of the other group, lord knows what we would have done. It was hot and Ronnie was crying, I was getting angry, and there's no way we were letting someone pulling a scam stick god knows what with whatever needle in our son.

Bear in mind this was the very first person we met in the country, so we thought " what have we done coming here? Have we just let ourselves in for a month of this?" I have to say that during the rest of our time in Tanzania, we encountered nothing else like this, and were constantly just blown away by the friendliness and helpfulness of the other Tanzanians that we met.

.... oh, and while getting the bus from the plan to the terminal building I scored my first TZ lifer, a stuning male Zanzibar Red Bishop.

 

[Jon Turner]

Hmmm or grrrr! It's the sort of thing I was hoping wouldn't happen in Uganda Larry, but my whole experience was incredibly positive. The first person I encountered was a health official who pointed a thermometer at me and smiled to say you're ok! Stamped my piece of paper and off I went.
Glad to hear the rest of it was all ok....
Waiting for more birdy news now!

 

[Larry Sweetland]

Arriving in Mwanza

Glad your trip went smoothly Jon, that sure was an amazing heap of birds you saw there!

Dar Es Salaam airport was notably bleak for birds apart from that Zanzibar Red Bishop. Apart from Pied Crow and a Black-headed Heron, we only saw non-natives, House Crow, House sparrow and feral Rock Dove.

Our final flight was a domestic, arriving late afternoon in Mwanza, where our mate Kat picked us up in her Rav4. She whisked us off to a favoured bar by Lake Victoria for sunset beers, seing a fair few roadside Marabou Storks en Route. I mostly managed to resist chasing after little birds, and just sat there enjoying the swarms of Pied Kingfishers, Reed Cormorants, Yellow-billed Kites, Hadeda Ibis, and Black-capped Bulbuls that were impossible not to notice. An African Fish Eagle caused me to have to mention it, and then I eventually couldn't resist asking to be excused to chase after a sunbird that kept calling nearby.

Glimpses had made me assume it was going to be a Beautiful, but I was to be pleasantly surprised when it revealed itself to be a zonking Red-chested Sunbird, a species we certainly weren't going to find east of here.

We had no idea what it would look like where Kat was living, and I expected it to be urban, as all we knew about Mwanza was that it was one of Tanzania's biggest cities. As it turned out Kat lived in a very birdy area out of town, called Bwiru, where the leafy gardens, cultivated plots, and nearby papyrus swamp were thick with avian booty. We stopped at a 'corner shop' near her place for suplies, and picked up our first Variable, Collared, and Scarlet-chested Sunbirds of the trip, plus Bronze Mannikin, Speckled Pigeon and African Palm Swift. Purple Grenadier was a new one for me, and a common garden bird in Mwanza in spite of being slightly out of range according to the East Africa Field Guide. This was the first taste of just how innaccurate the range maps are in this book! I happily ticked the 'grey-headed sparrows' seen that first evening as Swahili Sparrow going on the range maps, but now, after seeing the Swahilis in the Serengeti and Northern Grey-headeds in Arusha, I'm inclined to tentatively call the Mwanza birds Northern Grey-headed Sparrow for the purpose of this report, as they looked more like the Arusha birds. Don't quote me on it though.

 

[Larry Sweetland]

8. Pied crow
(House Sparrow)
(House Crow)
9. Black-headed Heron
(Feral Rock Dove)
10. ZANZIBAR RED BISHOP
11. Yellow-billed Kite
12. Marabou Stork
13. Pied Kingfisher
14. Reed Cormorant
15. Hadeda Ibis
16. African Fish Eagle
17. Black-capped bulbul
18. RED-CHESTED SUNBIRD
19. Variable Sunbird
20. Collared Sunbird
21. Scarlet-chested Sunbird
22. Bronze Mannikin
23. PURPLE GRENADIER
24. Speckled Pigeon
25. African Palm Swift
26. Northern Grey-headed Sparrow

 

[Larry Sweetland]

The 26th of Jan saw us waking up at Kat's, and there was something very loud singing right outside. Kat lives in 'the shed at the bottom of someone's garden', and had kindly given up half of it for us to stay in for nearly a week.

I tracked down the singing bird, which looked distinctive enough, hadn't a clue what it was, so out with the bird book. Hmmm, after several flicks through, the only thing that came close (and it was very close, especially the description if the pic was very slightly off) was Spotted Morning Thrush. The trouble was that Spotted Morning Thrush was way out of range according to the field guide. Not a good start to the day. As it turns out, SMT is a common, very loud, pretty conspicuous garden bird in the 3rd most populous city in the largest country in the field guide. Best forget the range maps then, it was obviously going to be tougher than I thought working out what birds I'm seeing on this trip...

Anyway, can't spend all day looking down at the book...wow what's that?... Wow Golden-backed Weaver....nice. What else is in the garden......

Just hanging around the garden was fairly productive , but a short walk round the corner through overgrown mixed cultivated areas produced more stuff. Especially a shady pig-pen in a palm-filled gully. This spot produced some friendly amused locals, and another 'out-of-range' headscratcher, and this time the habitat seemed all wrong too. The 2 Swamp flycatchers though, just refused to be anything else, and it all made more sense when I discovered that hidden immediately behind the palm-clad hummock, was a papyrus swamp about the size of Radipole Lake.

 

[Jon Turner]

Papyrus Gonolek in range there? Or Uganda/Rwanda only - as in the book....

 

[Larry Sweetland]

Papyrus Gonolek in range there? Or Uganda/Rwanda only - as in the book....

That's just it Jon, who knows? All of a sudden just about anything seemed possible (though I had to settle for the more expected Black-headed Gonoleks that periodically passed loudly through Kat's garden). The south side of Lake Victoria seemingly wasn't devoid of just about everything after all, but was in fact decently ndegefied. Yes that's right. Ndege (birds) was one of the first swahiii words I made sure I learnt, so that I could look more nuts and less threatening, when people caught me snooping round their pig-pens. I could just gesticulate idiotically, blurt out some swahili greetings and add 'ndege...ndege...ndege', and it would all be ok.

Some toddler stuff for Temmie: our main prob here was keeping Ronnie out of the sun. He loved Kat's garden, with it's big dogs and kiddies' play area with a slide, but he hates putting a hat on. The only way we can sometimes get him to put one on, is telling him he's Mr Diggy, a toy lego man with a hard hat on that he's obsessed with. So we took to carrying him about in either a kiddie-carrying rucksack and holding up a big umbrella (the pig-pen owners loved this!), or in a sling front or back with an umbrella. I'm ashamed to say that Nicky did more than her fair share of this side of things.

so by lunch time round Kat's the trip list was shaping up thus:-

27. SPOTTED MORNING THRUSH
28. GOLDEN-BACKED WEAVER
29. Marico Sunbird
30. Speckled Mousebird
31. Grey-backed Camaroptera
32. Rock Martin
33. Grey-headed Kingfisher
34. African Pygmy Kingfisher
35. Red-eyed Dove
36. Red-cheeked Cordon-bleu
37. BLACK-HEADED GONOLEK
38. WHITE-BELLIED CANARY
39. Reed Warbler
40. African Paradise Flycatcher
41. SWAMP FLYCATCHER
42. Laughing Dove
43. Lesser Swamp Warbler
44. Little Swift

Kat then whisked us off into the city centre, which was impressively chocker with alarmingly tame Marabou Storks. She took us to the office of Masumin Safaris, where we bit the bullet and splashed out for a 'budget' 4day/3night camping safari that would get us across the Serengeti and on to Arusha via the Ngorogoro Crater after we were to leave the womb-like Kat's. In Tanzanian Safari terms this was bottom end. In our terms it was easily the most we've ever spent for such a short period of time, weighing in at a whopping £600 per adult for the trip :eek!:

After hanging out in the leafy compound where Kat had a work meeting, and where we got great views of 3 impressive Eastern Grey Plantain-eaters and Red-fronted Tinkerbird, we headed back to hang out with Kat around Bwiru.

So by the end of the first full day, the trip had been further ndegeralized in this fashion:-

45. African Pied Wagtail
46. African Mourning Dove
47. Red-fronted Tinkerbird
48. EASTERN GREY PLANTAIN-EATER
49. Black-backed Puffback
50. Tawny-flanked Prinia
51. Yellow-breasted Apalis
52. Village Indigobird
53. Red-winged Starling
54. Little Egret
55. Palm-nut Vulture
56. African Openbill

 

[Larry Sweetland]

Next day Kat had a meeting in a village east of town, alongside the main road in the direction of the Serengeti. We tagged along, and while the meeting was on we went for a walk in the blazing heat.

It was open and flat, with few birds in evidence so we mostly sat in the shade by the main track. After a while we decided to try a quieter track, and found a shady area that ended up producing a few birds. These included a sazzling Black-winged Red Bishop, a couple of Brown-crowned Tchagras
, and an African Grey Flycatcher. The more open areas produced Sacred Ibis, Common Fiscal, and Wire-tailed Swallow.

Back in Bwiru, Kat's garden kept producing, with Fischer's Lovebirds, Red-faced Crombec, Red-billed Firefinch, and Spectacled Weaver all showing up. It was only then that I discovered the swamp behind the pig-pen (doh), and it's colony of Black-headed (as in Yellow-backed as opposed to Village) Weavers, White-browed Coucal, Grey and Squacco Herons, a Thick-billed Weaver, and eventually some hoped-for Winding Cisticolas.

Kat had the next day off, and we went for an early walk from her place up to the main road and ascended the wooded bouldery slopes to Dancing Rock, from where there was a great view over the surrounding landscape and Lake Victoria. I had hopes that the woods here would produce a fair view birds, but a party of Slate-coloured Boubou provided the only major ndegerific value. Other stuff included a couple of Brown-throated Martins, and 3 Black-collared Barbets. Nearer to Kat's Malachite Kingfisher was seen, and Blue-spotted Wood-Dove (it should be Emerald-spotted here according to the field guide's maps).

A visit to the children's home in Bwiru where Kat used to work was overwhelming and exhausting, as I was to discover that if you pick up a small child and swing them around you are immediately surrounded by loads more that want a go, and they don't get bored with it! Ronnie seemed to manage ok amongst a mass of kids wanting to touch his blond hair, and it was hard not to think of him as spoilt just for having two parents, when all these kids had none.

The day ended birdwise with a Barn Owl calling after dark.

57. Sacred Ibis
58. Common Fiscal
59. Kestrel
60. BLACK-WINGED RED BISHOP
61. AFRICAN GREY FLYCATCHER
62. Brown-crowned Tchagra
63. Wire-tailed Swallow
64. RED-FACED CROMBEC
65. FISCHER'S LOVEBIRD
66. Red-billed Firefinch
67. Spectacled Weaver
68. BLACK-HEADED WEAVER
69. White-browed Coucal
70. Grey Heron
71. Thick-billed Weaver
72. Squacco Heron
73. WINDING CISTICOLA
74. SLATE-COLOURED BOUBOU
75. Brown-throated martin
76. Black-collared Barbet
77. Blue-spotted wood Dove
78. White-browed Robin-Chat
79. Malachite Kingfisher
80. Barn Owl

 

[dandsblair]

Good stopping point

Nice report so far. You certainly got better birds going via Seychelles than we did via Dubai on way to Tanzania.
Did you get to the Usambara Mountains ?

 

[Larry Sweetland]

Did you get to the Usambara Mountains ?

Funny you should mention that. When we set off we'd intended to visit Amani in the East Usambaras. Nicky spotted it in the Lonely Planet, and we tried emailing Emau, Sigi and another contact email for the park officer. We had no responses but thought we'd just try and get there anyway and see what happened.

..... Then at Seychelles airport we got chatting to a woman who'd been to Amani. She warned that the bus ride up there was quite an ordeal and might be tough with a toddler. She wasn't a birder but she said maybe we should try round Lushoto in the West usambaras, which was easy on the bus, and had forest round it too.

So at this point in this trip report (still in Mwanza), we figured we could only fit in one aside between Arusha and Zanzibar, and fancied the easier option for the family, which was see what it was like round Lushoto.

What did we end up doing? Well its probably best to just let the story unfold

 

[Larry Sweetland]

last of Mwanza and Kamanga

The 29th wasn't a particularly birdy day, but a morning wander to what we'd been calling 'my swamp' produced a flyover Abdim's Stork, 2 birds that I'm convinced were Little Rush Warblers, but the range map says no, so I'm prepared to be convinced otherwise, and the usual African Openbills, Pied Kingfishers, Winding Cisticolas etc. A couple of pretty big monitor lizards flushed from the swamp edge gave me a start.

Kat's next door neighbour's garden produced a couple of the strange looking Buff-bellied Warbler in a magic little stretch of tiny acacias that had been productive over the last few days. And then it was time for Nicky , Ronnie and I to make our own way into town. We'd planned to get a dala dala (local minibus) but before we got to the main road, Kat's friend Hassan, who'd seen us walking around with Kat a couple of days before, happened to be passing and gave us a lift into town. He dropped us off at the cash point, but I suggested we walked back 100m or so to a very dirty stream we'd just crossed, to check out some suspicious-looking hirundines. Much to my delight these did turn out to be Angola Swallows, belting low along the stream and making passes under the bridge. After doing our shopping the dala dala ride back to Bwiru was a bit of a struggle for Ronnie, as it was very hot and crowded and he banged his head on the roof.

A brief later visit to my swamp produced a flushed Litte Bittern and a Swamp Flycatcher in more 'proper' habitat.

Next day we were off into the unknown again. Kat's work team had an important meeting in Kamanga village, and we were invited to tag along. It involved an early start and getting a ferry to Kamanga, which is west of Mwanza. Again, we had the opportunity to wander off and explore, but this time the village was by the edge of Lake Victoria with some pretty good birding habitat around. There was a narrow swampy margin to the lake, a narrow belt of small cultivated fields immediately inland, and scrubby rocky slopes inland from this.

While waiting for the ferry we saw plenty of White-breasted and Reed Cormorants, a couple of Yellow-billed Storks among the many Marabous, a couple of Gull-billed Terns. a Hammerkop, and an Egyptian Goose looking out of place atop a giant boulder. Upon arrival at Kamanga a big tree had a large weaver colony in it, with Village and Lesser Masked Weavers both present.

After Kat's work team got settled in for their meeting, we wandered through the village and around the edge of the lake. We quickly picked up Rattling Cisticolas, Diderick Cuckoo and a Southern Red Bishop.. Then we hit a patch of weaver nests at the water's edge. This produced not only the weaver I was most hoping to see while still in this part of the country, Slender-billed Weaver, but also some surprise Northern Brown-throated Weavers which hadn't checked their range maps to see where they were supposed to be. Along with the Golden-backed, Black-headed and Spectacled Weavers in the area, that made an impressive 7 species of 'yellow and black' weavers round Kamanga village!

More and more birds kept popping up. A nice male Marsh Harrier, 3 Red-billed Oxpeckers, some Lesser Striped Swallows, a pair of Brimstone Canaries, a Common Sandpiper, and then a shock of black and white in the form of a White-headed Barbet. Quite a few still very much theotetically out of range Swamp Flycatchers, Lesser Swamp Warbler, Blue-spotted Ground Dove, Eastern Grey Plantain-eater, Red-chested and Marico Sunbirds, Spotted Morning Thrush, 5 Malachite Kingfishers,, Black-winged Red Bishop, Black-headed Gonolek, Tawny-flanked Prinia and African Pied Wagtail,

Back in the centre of the village produced Palm-nut Vulture and African Fish Eagle, 2 Angola Swallows, Yellow-fronted and White-bellied Canaries, 3 each of Silverbird and African Yellow White-eye, African Palm Swifts, and Willow and Buff-bellied Warblers.

Shame we couldn't spend a bit more time round here! A final goodie, the only Reichenow's Seedeater of the trip, was seen while waiting to board the return ferry in the late afternoon.

81. ABDIM'S STORK
82. Little Rush Warbler
83. BUFF-BELLIED WARBLER
84. ANGOLA SWALLOW
85. Little Bittern
88. White-breasted Cormorant
89. Yellow-billed Stork
90. Egyptian Goose
91. Gull-billed Tern
92. Hammerkop
93. Lesser Masked Weaver
94. Village Weaver
95. Rattling Cisticola
96. Diderick Cuckoo
97. Southern Red Bishop
98. NORTHERN BROWN-THROATED WEAVER
99. SLENDER-BILLED WEAVER
100. Marsh Harrier
101. Red-billed Oxpecker
102. Lesser Striped Swallow
103. Brimstone Canary
104. Common Sandpiper
105. WHITE-HEADED BARBET
106. Yellow-fronted Canary
107. SILVERBIRD
108. African Yellow White-eye
109. Willow Warbler
110. REICHENOW'S SEEDEATER

So that was it for the first leg of the trip, and we were about to flutter off, leave Kat's place, and thus leave 'Bristol' properly behind. At least we were now armed with some useful swahili, like enough to get cold beers, and a meal of rice beans and veg for 40p..

 

[Larry Sweetland]

entering The Serengeti

The Serengeti. So famous that even the most non-birding of urban gangster rappers have heard of it:

" I'll set your feet in concrete and fro you off the jetty
cos I'm wild like an animal from the Serengeti"

Yet compared to Kruger, there are far fewer trip reports on BF. And Kruger's far less generally famous, or we'd be hearing rhymes like

"I'm comin' outta Bristol like a lion from the Kruger
shootin' from my pistol it's an uzi not a luger"

wouldn't we?

We were picked up from Kat's by Jonathan (driver guide) and Hamisi (cook) in a pop-top Toyota Landcruiser as arranged, at 8am on Jan 31st. They were a bit early even, and had taken the trouble to follow us back to Kat's when we arranged the safari to make sure there would be no delays at the start of our trip. Very professional.

It was a fairly long drive to the park on tarmac road, and we made a few stops whenever I spotted something interesting, or what looked like a good patch of habitat for a quick scan. This meant that before we hit the Serengeti, we'd picked up a couple of African Spoonbills, a Holub's Golden Weaver, Blue-naped Mousebird, a group of 3 Black Bishops (the only ones seen on the trip), Superb Starling (which was to become very common over the net few days), Fork-tailed Drongo, and hundreds of Swallows and Sand Martins. There were also 2 Isabelline Shrikes that I was unable to identify to species.

Other stuff included Abdim's and African Openbill Storks (common), Sacred Ibis, Black-headed Gonolek (2), Silverbird, Village Weaver, and Scarlet-chested Sunbird.

It was quickly apparent that the guide and cook were pretty clueless when it comes to spotting and identifying birds, and inspite of many years in the business, very rarely came across birders. This didn't matter much, as they were happy to stop just for ndege, whenever I yelled 'si mama' and carry on again when I said 'tuende'.

When we reached the park we stopped for packed lunch at the entrance buildings. It was very hot and apart from the Little Swifts that were breeding in the buildings, and a lone Fork-tailed Drongo, there was no sign of any birds. Ronnie got to experience his first close up encounters with Vervet Monkeys. I was starting to worry that this was going to be an expensive mistake birdwise, as comparing it to Kruger, there were always heaps of birds in evidence around entrance gates and camps.

As we drove into the very dry savanna of the park I was quickly to be proved wrong.

Magpie Shrikes were pretty common, as were the initially confusing little Grey-capped Social Weavers. I figured we must have seen about 300 Rufous-tailed Weavers that day, a strange, almost turdoidesesque TZ endemic. As we rolled through the savanna, Northern White-crowned Shrikes and Grey-backed Fiscals proved rather common, there were a handful of European Rollers, Speckle-fronted Weavers,and D'Arnaud's Barbets (the form here being the sometimes split Usambiro Barbet). The open savanna had trees sparsely lining the track, and from these we disturbed plenty of birds that were resting in the shade. Fischer's Sparrow-lark was well into 3 figures.

Here's what else I noted as we trucked on through: Crowned Lapwing(60), Little Bee-eater (5+), White-bellied Korhaan (a pair right by the side of the road), Martial Eagle (3), Wattled Lapwing (2), Red-backed Shrike (1), Lesser Black-winged Lapwing (2), Saddle-billed Stork (closest I'd ever been to these huge beasts), Kori Bustard (1), Helmeted Guineafowl (c30), Vitelline Masked Weaver (1), Chestnut Sparrow (c50), Lilac-breasted Roller (10), Wattled Starling (30), African Grey Hornbill (6), Blue-capped Cordon-bleu (5+), White-headed Buffalo Weaver (c15, and wow, what a bird), Black-lored Babbler (3), Red-billed Buffalo Weaver (c60), Dark Chanting Goshawk (1), Beautiful Sunbird (1), Common Ostrich (c20), Black-faced Sandgrouse (a roadside pair was a nice piece of luck) Rufous-naped Lark (4), Bateleur (1), Bare-faced Go-away-bird (1), Ruppell's Long-tailed Starling (c20)...

From about there we were in a hurry to get to the Seronera camp before night fall, so Jonathan had to tell us we'd have to pretty much stop stopping! This was a bit frustrating, but we continued to rack up Goliath Heron (1 at a river crossing full of hippos), Secretarybird (1), White-backed Vulture (1), Two-banded Courser (1), Temminck's Courser (2), Wheatear (4), Yellow-throated Longclaw (1)
, Cape Turtle Dove (common), Von Decken's Hornbill (3), Eastern Paradise Whydah (1+), African Hoopoe (1), Rattling and Winding Cisticolas , and as we finally approached the Nyani camping area, Hildebrandt's Starling (c10).

As our guide and cook set up the tent and started preparing our meal, we headed for the loo, where there was also a White-browed Scrub Robin and a Grey-backed Camaroptera. The 'grey-headed sparrows' around here looked considerably duskier and greyer mantled than the ones we'd been calling Swahili Sparrows in Mwanza, so these at least were the real deal.

As we were having our rather big meal, a truck pulled up selling cold beer. Pretty pricey at 3 dollars a small bottle, but worth it after a very hot day with heaps to celebrate. The campsite here is completely unfenced, so Hyenas prowl round the tents at night, and other big stuff passing through eg Lions and Elephants is a very real possibility. A far cry from the electrified camps at Kruger for sure.

The only really bad thing to happen that day is Nicky's camera packed up, leaving us with just a little one for scenic shots. Bad timing.

Ronnie had had his first close up encounter with Giraffes, an animal he knew the word for, seen pictures and models of, but I don't think he was epecting them to be quite so big!

The birding had been amazing, and it had taken me to the point where I went to sleep excited to know that the very first new bird I'd see the next day would be my 5000th.

111. African Spoonbill
112. Holub's Golden Weaver
113. BLUE-NAPED MOUSEBIRD
114. BLACK BISHOP
115. Sand Martin
116. SUPERB STARLING
117. Fork-tailed Drongo
118. Swallow
119. Magpie Shrike
120. GREY-CAPPED SOCIAL WEAVER
121. RUFOUS-TAILED WEAVER
122. Roller
123. NORTHERN WHITE-CROWNED SHRIKE
124. Crowned Lapwing
125. GREY-BACKED FISCAL
126. SPECKLE-FRONTED WEAVER
127. USAMBIRO BARBET
128. Little Bee-eater
129. FISCHER'S SPARROW-LARK
130. White-bellied Korhaan
131. Martial Eagle
132. African Wattled Lapwing
133. Red-backed Shrike
134. Lesser Black-winged Lapwing
135. Saddle-billed Stork
136. Kori Bustard
137. Helmeted Guineafowl
138. VITELLINE MASKED WEAVER
139. CHESTNUT SPARROW
140. Lilac-breasted Roller
141. Wattled Starling
142. African Grey Hornbill
143. BLUE-CAPPED CORDON-BLEU
144. WHITE-HEADED BUFFALO WEAVER
145. BLACK-LORED BABBLER
146. Red-billed Buffalo Weaver
147. Dark Chanting Goshawk
148. Beautiful Sunbird
149. Common Ostrich
150. Rufous-naped Lark
151. Bateleur
152. BARE-FACED GO-AWAY-BIRD
153. RUPPELL'S LONG-TAILED STARLING
154. BLACK-FACED SANDGROUSE
155. Goliath Heron
156. Secretarybird
157. White-backed Vulture
158. Two-banded Courser
159. Temminck's Courser
160. Wheatear
161. Yellow-throated Longclaw
162. Cape Turtle Dove
163. VON DER DECKEN'S HORNBILL
164. African Hoopoe
165. HILDEBRANDT'S STARLING
166. White-browed Scrub Robin
167. SWAHILI SPARROW

 

[JWN Andrewes]

The birding had been amazing, and it had taken me to the point where I went to sleep excited to know that the very first new bird I'd see the next day would be my 5000th.

Ha! Brilliant! Love a cliffhanger!

James

 

[Larry Sweetland]

full day in the Serengeti

When we were packing our bags in Bristol, I ummed and erred about taking a scope. I'm really glad I did, as it was truly indispensable in the Serengeti, and easy to set up in a pop-top vehicle, without the excruciating twisting and propping required to use a scope in a teenie car in the Kruger.

We woke up uneaten for our predawn breakfast, with a potentially exciting day ahead. As it started to get light, birds began gathering around the cooking and dining blocks hoping for scraps. There was a cheeky little gang of Greater Blue-eared, Superb, and Hildebrant's Starlings, White-headed Buffalo Weavers, Swahili Sparrows and hornbills. And there it was :king:B B . A more spangled individual among the Von Der Decken's Hornbills drew attention to itself and hopped cheerfully onto my IOC list in position five zero zero zero. Whooop de wooo. A Tanzanian Red-billed Hornbill. Hopefully at least a couple on there aren't complete string anyway.

And off we drove. We slowly headed out into the surrounding acacia bush country, picking up the first Chin-spot Batis of the trip, and then a group of 3 Great Spotted Cuckoos sitting in the dusty track ahead. A little bird in a small track-side acacia played hide-and-seek for a while before revealing itself to be a Banded Parisoma. A couple of jazzy Pin-tailed Whydahs jazzed about, then a (from my perspective) weirdly out of place Rock Thrush in an acacia tree. 2 more annoyingly unidentifiable 'Isabelline Shrikes', and then a real corker, a shiny new Abyssinian Scimitarbill flapping weirdly along it's way.

A smattering of Foxy Larks were singing from the tops of the acacias, or feeding unobtrusively in the bare patches in the grass. A rather messy looking cuckoo, either African or Common.

Then we headed into some more open grassland down to a long winding 'stream' very sparsely bordered by much taller trees, and some more swampy vegetation. Here we encountered first of about 60 Lesser Kestrels we were to see that day, some in quite big groups, a nice male Namaqua Dove walking down the track, African Pipits, 2 perched Pygmy Falcons, several Croaking and Zitting Cisticolas, several White-winged Widowbirds, and single Brown Snake and Wahlberg's Eagles.

A lone Whinchat was the only one of the holiday, then came the first of 3 new birds in row that we'd missed on our southern Africa trip when Nicky was pregnant with Ronnie, and great views of them all. First up was a group of 4 fabulous shrieksome Meyer's Parrots, remarkably hard to spot in relatively skimpy trees. Then a big surprise: 2 Black Coucals together. I think Nicky managed a pic of them, if so I'll try and post it at some point. Then number 3, one we 'ought' to have seen in SA: Coqui Francolin. This time a pair walked right up to and alongside the car, so we looked right down on them.

This stretch also produced Banded Martins, 3 Black Crakes, Blacksmith and Three-banded Plovers; a Ruff, 6 Little Stints and 6 Wood Sandpipers at a wetter stretch where a couple of parties of Chestnut-bellied Sandgrouse came briefly to drink. Fan-tailed Widowbirds, a couple of Bearded Woodpeckers, Fischer's Lovebirds, and Yellow-billed Oxpeckers.

Next we headed out into some much more open grassland, in the direction of some distant kopjies. We started running into open country birds: Capped alongside the Northern Wheatears, scores of Red-capped and hundreds of Fischer's Sparrow Larks.a few Montagu's Harriers, Lappet-faced, White-headed and White-backed Vultures, Tawny and Steppe Eagles, Desert Cisticolas, Quail Finches and some interesting Mirafra larks.

We'd left the Foxy Larks behind, Rufous-naped Larks were still about, and at one perch-less densely grassy spot, a few small Mirafras with strikingly white outer tail feathers were performing a song flight over the grass. Having now heard song recordings and had extra advice, I'm happy these were White-tailed Larks, though at the time I considered Singing Bushlark a possibility, as like SBL they also had mainly whitish looking underparts, and the light was too intense to make out how dark or patterned the ups were. To complicate the issue at the time, a few hundred metres beyond this spot the terrain got more broken, the grass more patchy, and a few bushes started to appear, and here we saw another lark 'singing' a few very brief short spaced phrases from on top of a very stunted little bush by the side of the track. This lark was obviously paler and less heavily streaked than the Foxy's seen earlier, and had white outer tail feathers, but the white didn't seem as extensive as on the displaying birds a few hundred metres away. I considered though that although it did spread it's tail before landing, maybe it wasn't as spread as the displaying birds, and not revealing as much white for that reason :smoke: The only thing I could think this bird could have been was Singing Bush Lark, but I'm not sure the flight feathers were rufous enough. I'd describe them more as washed out tawny, certainly far less rufous than on Foxy or Rufous-naped Larks. Can Singing Bush Lark's flight feathers be only faintly rufous in E African birds? If not, then this one has me stumped.

We then checked out a few kopjies and finally came across a small group of sleepy Lions, which included a very cute young cub. A Greater Kestrel sat on a rock just above them.

Jonathan might not be up to speed on his birds, but he was far better than us at spotting the big mammals. Thanks to his keen eye for this, we were treated to a superb look at two Cheetahs on a kill. Eventually approachable enough for Ronnie to see them well too. Jonathan had first spotted one very distantly in the heat haze sitting on a termite mound. It was then time for us to head back to the camp for lunch.

In the afternoon we headed out again, this time through bushy country, and along a different water course. We quickly hit a little patch with a fair bit of bird activity, and here we picked up Grey Woodpecker, Grey-headed Silverbill, a daft-looking Straw-tailed Whydah, 3 Rufous Sparrows and our first Striped Kingfisher.

Trundle trundle we go, and out pops a group of 3 Crested Francolins, followed by Grey Penduline Tit and Yellow-spotted Petronia. Net up were a couple of superb mammalian treats. Ronnies first Elephants. A group of about 16, which we got to see right net to the car. Then Jonathan spotted a Leopard in a tree alongside the water course. We had great scope views of it slinking along the branches, but it was all lost on Ronnie at that range.

Continually checking the small parties of hirundines that visited the water course finally paid off when one of them turned out to be the trip's only White-headed Saw-wing. We were now hitting late afternoon, and added African Harrier-Hawk and a party of Red-billed Quelea before coming upon a sleepy pride of 17 Lions right alongside the track surrounding a dead Buffalo that a few were still gorging out on. One was in fact asleep in the middle of the track, and didn't budge an inch when we drove round it. Ronnie loved this, and began 'roaring' at them.

Unfortunately a ludicrously distant bustard seen from this spot, could not be identified beyond Black-bellied/Hartlaub's, the latter being not only the desirable one, but I think the expected one here :C.

The journey back to camp further produced a Stout Cisticola as we parted from the water course, great views of Grey-breasted Francolin, a Grey-crowned Crane, a Pallid Harrier and finally a Spotted Dikkop, in the near darkness as we approached the camp.

Mustn't grumble.

So another mind-blowing day, but particularly tough for Nicky, as Ronnie was pretty clingy and tough to deal with on the bumpy stretches in particular.

168. Greater Blue-eared Starling
169. TANZANIAN RED-BILLED HORNBILL
170. Chinspot Batis
171. Greater Spotted Cuckoo
172. BANDED PARISOMA
173. Pin-tailed Whydah
174. Rock Thrush
175. ABYSSINIAN SCIMITARBILL
176. FOXY LARK
177. African Pipit
178. Lesser Kestrel
179. Namaqua Dove
180. Pygmy Falcon
181. Croaking Cisticola
182. Zitting Cisticola
183. Brown Snake Eagle
184. White-winged Widowbird
185. Wahlberg's Eagle
186. MEYER'S PARROT
187. Whinchat
188. Banded Martin
189. Black Crake
190. Blacksmith Plover
191. Three-banded Plover
192. Fan-tailed Widowbird
193. Chestnut-bellied Sandgrouse
194. Little Stint
195. Ruff
196. Wood Sandpiper
197. Yellow-billed Oxpecker
198. BLACK COUCAL
199. COQUI FRANCOLIN
200. Bearded Woodpecker
201. Montagu's Harrier
202. Capped Wheatear
203. Red-capped Lark
204. Lappet-faced Vulture
205. Tawny Eagle
206. White-headed Vulture
207. Steppe Eagle
208. WHITE-TAILED LARK
209. Quail Finch
210. Desert Cisticola
211. Greater Kestrel
212. Grey Woodpecker
213. GREY-HEADED SILVERBILL
214. STRAW-TAILED WHYDAH
215. RUFOUS SPARROW
216. Striped Kingfisher
217. Crested Francolin
218. Grey Penduline Tit
219. YELLOW-SPOTTED PETRONIA
220. WHITE-HEADED SAW-WING
221. African Harrier-Hawk
222. Red-billed Quelea
223. GREY-BREASTED FRANCOLIN
224. STOUT CISTICOLA
225. Grey Crowned Crane
226. Pallid Harrier
227. Spotted Dikkop