One night in my first own home, Whittington Court in Marriott Road on Durban’s Berea, I heard a strange sound. It was like a small dog barking, but not quite that and I remembered from all my reading and re-reading of Roberts and Newmans bird books: Nightjar!
Aitch! I shouted, a nightjar! Luckily she knew I was weird so she joined me and we peered out from our first floor window and a nightjar flitted past. I was over the moon with excitement and discovery. A Freckled Nightjar right outside my flat!
Investigation revealed it to be a well-known one, roosting on the roof of the residential hotel nearby. Eden Gardens, now a retirement home. It had been discovered by Philip Clancey, famous birder and splitter and Durban Natural Science Museum ornithologist and author and artist, who lived in the hotel. They usually roost on rocks and the roof was a good substitute. Their camouflage is impressive:
Durban museum ornithologist Philip Clancey took numerous expeditions into Zululand and Mozambique, discovering several new subspecies as well as one new species to science, the Lemon-breasted Canary in 1961. Clancey was a prodigious publisher of papers and books including “Birds of Natal and Zululand”, all lavishly illustrated with his excellent and distinctive bird paintings.
~~~oo0oo~~~
thanks stellenboschbirds.com – Chris Krog for Freckled Nightjar Caprimulgus tristigma pic
NB – Very important update 2025 – before visiting any of these areas, check about the safety of the area and the availability of amenities beforehand.
I must tell you about a wonderful trip we went on recently (well, back in 2015 actually) to Deepest Darkest Zoolooland.
It was actually a rugged and challenging course in which we were required to survive under tricky conditions, with carefully thought-out obstacles and challenges put in our way by the amazing outfit called:
. . who led us astray boldly into the back roads of wild Zooloo territory where we watched and learned as he reached out to locals to see if they knew where they were.
– Don asking perplexed local villagers for directions –
This capable and entertaining master tour guide dropped us off at the beautiful Ngoye Forest for the next phase, handing us over to our next capable leader:
. . who led the convoy boldly into a forest. Fully equipped, this part of the course led us carefully through: – Correct equipment – Packing for an expedition – The use of snatch ropes and tow ropes – Handy stuff to always have in your 4X4 (axes, bowsaws, forest vines & lianas);
You had to be really young and superbly fit to survive, and we WERE and we DID! Thanks to the bushcraft of the accountant in the group! Covered in the mud and the blood and the beer, we emerged smiling from the forest, much the wiser.
Both tours were excellently victualled, lots of sweet and fortified coffee, sarmies, fruit, biscuits, biltong and more. Those who brought deckchairs thinking they would sit back and gaze serenely at the tree tops were optimists in the mist. Someone came up with an idea as we were leaving to go on a completely different kind of trip next time with this sort of outfit:
But NAH! – we enjoyed the first two so much that we’d book with them again. Unforgettable (and not, as Don muttered once “unforgiveable”)!
It was amazing and a whole lot of fun with great people.
~~oo00oo~~
(Slightly) more boring version:
We did go to Zoolooland on a birding trip ably guided by Don Leitch. He did get us a wee bit off-course, and he did stop to speak to some local people, for which he got some leg-pulling.
We did get blocked by fallen trees in Ngoye forest and here’s the thing: Among all the rugged pilots, 4X4 experts and farmers among us, NOT ONE had brought along a tow rope or any decent rescue equipment! It took an accountant with a pocket knife to fashion a tow rope out of a liana that eventually saved our bacon. ‘Strue.
I will stand by my story and I will protect my saucers, even if they were in their cups. Here Sheila shows the total rescue equipment we managed to rustle up; and there’s the tow rope fashioned from a forest liana that saved the day.
Lydia of London is what we called Jessie’s room-mate on her field guide course. It’s a year later now and Lydia is back in SA doing her Masters thesis on vultures and people, including sangomas and the muti trade.
So the girls decided to get together before Lydia heads off back to London. We spent a lovely day in the reserve, not uneventful! In fact we saw nine interesting stand-offs: Three avian, where pairs of red-capped robin-chats, camaroptera and bulbuls chased and challenged each other; three mammalian, where two bull rhinos, two bull buffalo and two bull giraffes sorted each other out like boys do – much huffing n puffing, little action; and one inter-species where a chameleon huffed at Lydia as she rescued it from becoming road-kill.
The eighth was a fraught Rhino vs Ford Ranger:
This old bull had been pummelled and bullied and gored by a bigger younger bull who marched him backwards for a couple hundred metres then took him into the bush where we couldn’t see them but could hear the grunting change to squealing, ending in this guy emerging bleeding. We then got between him and the aggressive one and I decided I’d better get past. Upon which this poor fella tucked his horn down and feinted at the vehicle as we scooted past. I think Lydia of London did frown at me somewhat, but I decided I couldn’t have an unseen victorious rhino in the bush on my left, so I decided to scoot past the losing rhino on my right.
On a more peaceful note, Jess made us a lovely lunch, we saw a finfoot in the river, and we organised a dozen vultures to do a special flypast for Lydia of London!
We also saw a rhino named Frank:
(Couldn’t resist! Got a pic of an ele with egrets with that caption on whatsapp and thought of this picture).
The ninth event was a champagne opening, where Lydia tried her best not to intervene as Jess struggled, miming in the background with great restraint. But eventually she just had to assist her old roommate.
Sy Montgomery sounds like a wonderful person. You think she has to be interesting, anyway, when you learn she wrote a book called The Soul Of An Octopus. Then you learn she kept a pet pig and you think, Hmm, maybe dodgy like some other people you know who will remain nameless, right Bruce and Heather Soutar? She wrote a book on the pig called The Good Good Pig, so you think, OK, maybe unlike Bruce and Heather she turned it into tasty bacon, but no, she loved the pig live. Then you see her petting a tiger and again you think Hmmm . .
People know that birds are descendants of dinosaurs, but actually the truth is that Birds Are Dinosaurs. That may be difficult to see when you’re watching a flycatcher, but it is more apparent when you are watching an ostrich or a cassowary, as tall as a man, crowned with a helmet of bone on its head and a killer claw on each foot.
Most of the dinosaurs that became today’s birds took up flying. And in doing so, they utterly reshaped their bodies inside and out. Their bones are hollow and their bodies are full of air sacs; their feathers weigh more than the skeleton and are hollow shafted and shaped to capture and move air. Birds are essentially feather-fringed air bubbles.
Birds can see polarized and ultraviolet light, experience colors we can never know, sense the earth’s magnetic field, and navigate using subtle changes in odor and barometric pressure.
In Birdology Sy Montgomerycommunicates a heartfelt fascination and awe for birds and hopefully kindles in more of us humans a connection to these complex, mysterious fellow creatures that I personally find so fascinating.
Birds are the only wild animals most people see every day. No matter where we live, birds live with us. Yet many of us don’t appreciate how very strange they are, how different to us. Their hearts look like those of crocodiles. They have no hands. They give birth to eggs. And they’re covered with modified scales called feathers. We shared a common ancestor with even the most distant of our fellow placental mammals as recently as 100 million years ago; The last ancestor we shared with the birds, however, traces back 325 to 350 million years ago.
Sy says her life with animals has taught her “how to be a good creature. How to be compassionate. How to get yourself inside the mind and heart of someone else. Seeing someone’s soul, looking for their truth. Animals teach you all of that and that’s how you get compassion and heart.”
After a slow drive from Mombasa we spent a night at a plush hotel in the metropolis of Voi. There it is in the left background. I think it was called Voi Safari Lodge. Don’t let Aitch tell you we didn’t spoil ourselves at times. The dining room had a linoleum floor, plastic chairs and metal tables, no table cloth. It was clean, the chicken and rice was hot and delicious, and the waiter was attentive. I had a Tusker beer that was cold and delicious. As was Aitch’s ginless Gin n Tonic. Luxury!
– the metropolis of Voi in October 1998 –
Then on to a destination I had looked forward to all my life: Tsavo National Park!
All my life? Just about. We got the quarterly African Wildlife magazines at home back in the Vrystaat and I eagerly read about Africa’s great parks. I also knew of Bernhard Grzimek’s work in the Serengeti and his book Serengeti Shall Not Die. The great parks I knew and fantasised about included Kruger, Etosha, Luangwa, Masai Mara, Amboseli, Wankie, Serengeti, Okavango, Ngorongoro, Gorongosa – and Tsavo. I remember seeing an aerial picture of the drought in Kenya and how the vegetation IN Tsavo was worse than that outside the park. The story was it was due to Kenya (Leakey?) refusing to cull elephants and other game. Of course it may have been a story by the pro-culling people in SA’s parks. Who knows? Lots of jealousy and rivalry among the ‘good people in conservation!’ Me, I hang my hat on the need for active conservation management, no handwringing and no decisions made by anyone not on the scene. Once you fence an area you are responsible for that ecosystem, and you have the duty to care for it, difficult decisions notwithstanding. Overstocking kills everything. Here endeth the sermon.
* Tsavo East *
Chris and Tilde Stuart, great Africa-philes, chose Tsavo as one of ‘Africa’s Great Wild Places’ in their book of that name, mainly for the huge wild expanse of Tsavo East where you can drive for hours without seeing another vehicle.
– arrival at Elephant Hills Lodge – whattacar! says Aitch –– here’s where the underground path to the underground hide leads down to the waterhole –Tsavo East – Another ice-cold Tusker beer for you, sir?
Driving around Tsavo East was amazing. We hardly saw any other vehicles.
In places like a smooth highway – only better: No traffic!Into Tsavo East and peace! Vulturine guineafowl– the Galana River in Tsavo East –
Firsts for us – ‘lifers’ – Gerenuk, Lesser Kudu and Vulturine Guineafowl: Wow! at last.
GerenukLesser kudu
Also Golden-breasted Starling, Red & Yellow Barbet, Superb Starling & White-headed Buffalo Weaver:
Birds I’d pored over as a youth in my Birds of the World book. One day . . And here they are! (internet pics, thank you)
~~oo0oo~~
* Tsavo West *
Tsavo West
We saw Kilimanjaro! We weren’t expecting to, but as we drove around we suddenly saw a snow-topped mountain top WAY higher than one would expect above the low clouds and through the higher clouds; way higher than the hills around us. We realised that it must be Kili, the world’s highest free-standing mountain!
Of course we should have realised we’d be close to Kili, but we didn’t give it a thought. We were in Kenya, Kilimanjaro is in Tanzania, and it just didn’t occur to us! That’s our pic of the low clouds on the left and an internet pic of Kili from Tsavo West. Our view was a glimpse through a break in thick clouds. That was an unexpected treat.
– Aitch snuggles in on the veranda with her torch – looking for nocturnals –– Genetta genetta – come to look at the lady on the veranda –
Here we also saw the magic clear waters of Mzima Springs.
~~oo0oo~~
Tsavo National Park was created in 1948. At approximately 21,000km², it’s the largest protected area in Kenya. In the late 1960s, there were approximately 35,000 elephants in the Tsavo region. This population has suffered two population crashes, probably due to mismanagement or misguided management in both cases!? Firstly there were simply too many elephants, so in the drought in the early 1970s many died, especially pregnant females, females nursing a calf or young calves. Independent bulls’ mortality was lower as they were able to travel greater distances in search of vegetation and water.
The second crash was due to the illegal killing of elephants for their tusks. The bulls who survived the drought were now the victims. Kenya had banned legal trophy hunting in 1977. By the late 1980s, at the height of the ivory poaching era, about 6,200 elephants remained in the entire Tsavo region. Not all conservationists – and few bleeding heart animal lovers far away – understand that when you fence an area, you have to manage that area. Pretending it’s still natural does a lot of harm; and allowing ‘rich donors’ to dictate what happens on unscientific, emotional grounds ends up killing many animals, and – a much worse disaster – their environment. Leading to way more animals dying starvation and disease deaths than the number that needed culling. Anyone doubting this, buy a cattle farm and never kill – or allow to be killed, so selling is no solution – any of your cattle. Soon you’ll have a desert full of many dead animals.
From this deck at Elephant Hills you can watch animals approaching the water from miles away. I’ll wait with my binocs and spotting scope while the obliging waiter sees to it I don’t go thirsty. Two Tuskers later, they’re still plodding closer, not here yet. It’s a long slow movie.
Tsavo East – Another ice-cold Tusker for you, sir? I scope the plains, Aitch wanders around with camera, our waiter sees to it we don’t go thirsty. Heaven!
~~oo0oo~~
Those wonderful old African Wildlife magazines. Official Journal of the Wild Life Protection Society of South Africa. Published 1946 to 2009
I know it may seem boring and Tom definitely voices that opinion strongly but we went to Hluhluwe again – and he came along, a rare event nowadays. What swung him was the restaurant food. We debated as a family and decided to stay in the cheaper rondawels, but to eat at the buffet. Tom also slept in both mornings as we went on our 6am game drives, so all-in-all he quite enjoyed the chilled vibe and the grub.
Leaving home was interesting. We left at 5am . .

Westville dawn
. . and then again at 8am with a changed tyre plus a repaired spare. It’s a tedious story.
In Hluhluwe we saw the usual stuff – plus these:

Acontias plumbeus
As I spotted the first one crossing the road I thought Bibron’s Blind Snake! Not for any good reason, but it was the first thing that came to mind. I’ve always wanted to see a Blind Snake. Then I thought beaked snake, snouted snake, some underground snake! What were they? I’ve asked Nick Evans, maybe he’ll enlighten me. Length: About from my wrist to my elbow. Say 300-350mm.
Back at the camp the buffet was a big hit. The only gripe Tom had was, “Dad, they’re playing Tobias’ music in the dining room!” Yeah, Tom, I’m relieved they’re not playing gangsta rap! After breakfast one morning we went outside where a huge round auntie and a huger rounder uncle filled a couple of deckchairs. As we gazed over the hills we heard them: She: Are you hungry? He: Not really; maybe peckish; She: Yeah, let’s get breakfast; and they heaved their huge bodies out of the deckchairs and waddled in. Hey, the breakfast was good! Full cooked brekker chased with muffins, scones, jam, toast and loads of good coffee.
~~oo0oo~~
Nick has replied at last: They’re not snakes at all! They are Giant Legless Skinks, Acontias plumbeus – family Scincidae. So we had a SkinkyDay, not a snaky day. Up to 450mm long, they eat worms, crickets and sometimes frogs. They bear live young and can have up to fourteen at a time. Skinks, of course are completely harmless to humans. The lighter one looks like it did the lizard trick of dropping its tail and regrowing a new one.
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Big creatures we saw elephant, buffalo, five white rhino, one croc, one lion, and kept looking for more as the kids were keen. Suited me, as there are always birds to see.
We also saw about eight slender mongoose, one little band of banded mongoose, two leguaans (water monitor lizards), a number of mice at the sides of the road (after grass seed?), samango and vervet monkeys, red duiker, bushbuck, nyala, impala, kudu, zebra, including one that had lots of brown who would have been wanted by the Quagga Project.


My best bird sighting was a falcon skimming low in front of us heading towards a line of trees along a stream, then shooting up and over some bushes to ambush a dove. It pursued it helter-skelter but then another falcon seemed to interfere and the dove managed to get away. Just then Jess piped up: “Gee! You certainly get excited about birds!” I hadn’t realised I’d been shouting. Hmph! I said, That was better than any attempted lion kill!
~~oo0oo~~
Here’s Nick Evans‘ pic of a Bibron’s Blind Snake – quite different:

I wrote about Aitch’s eye for and taste in art here when she spotted a Willie Bester in Cape Town in 1993 and bought it over my “are you sure?” ignorance.
Around about the same time we met Ingrid Weiersbye on Barry & Lyn Porter’s game farm at Hella Hella and Aitch loved her work and quietly bought two of her paintings, later presenting them to me for my birthday. Ingrid is married to Barry’s brother Roger, ecologist with KZN Wildlife.
Well, sure as anything, Ingrid just got more and more famous and I’m sure whatever Aitch paid, the paintings are worth way more now. This one above is on offer for over R20 000. And I think ours are better!
Old ‘Natal Robin’ – Ingrid WeiersbyeAfrican Wood Owl – Ingrid Weiersbye
~~~oo0oo~~~
More about Ingrid Weiersbye:
Born in England, raised in Zimbabwe, Weiersbye has held eight solo exhibitions. Beside these she has printed five limited edition print releases, has participated in numerous art and environmental projects and her work has been published in several books. She has been well supported by corporate and private collectors, particularly in the UK, Germany and South Africa.
Furthermore: • She has exhibited work for seven consecutive years at the Society of Wildlife Artists’ annual exhibition in London. • She has exhibited at the British Birdwatching Show for three years at which she won the ‘best stand’ award in 1995 in the art category for her bird paintings. • She was invited by the Tron and Swann Gallery in London to participate in several major art exhibition from 1992 to 1996 including ‘Parrots of the World’, ‘Wildfowl and Waterfowl’ as well as the British Game Fair.
Additionally she exhibits on most major South African wildlife exhibitions of international wildlife art held regularly at the Everard Reade Gallery in Johannesburg.
PUBLICATIONS
Robert’s 7th edition. Handbook of Birds of Southern Africa. 2005…main contributing artist
Roberts Bird Guide – Kruger National Park. 2006…main contributing artist
Roberts Bird Field-guide. 2007
..
..
Roberts Geographic Variation of Southern African Birds. 2012…co-author and sole illustrator
Birds of Botswana Field-guide, Princeton University Press. 2016…co-author and sole illustrator
Roberts Comprehensive Field-guide to Southern African Birds. 2016…co-author and main illustrator
Long-time friends of Trish’s from Cape Town days, Val & Pete Excell came out from the UK to visit in 2009. Trish was finished her chemo and was ‘in remission’. She had been with Val when their little Claire – now about 30 – was born. Val had bought two new Nikon P90 cameras, one for her and one for Trish, so they were excited about the four million pictures they were about to take.
We stayed in a beautiful bush camp – Nhlonhlela has solitude and its own cook and guide – sheer luxury! Patrick the Shembe was great and taught us plenty about his ‘home patch’. He showed us a green, a bronze and a black dung beetle and two yellow and black beetles, and taught us how to tickle a scorpion.
The kids were in a lovely pre-teen space and just reveled in the experience.
Twelve year-old Jess: Help me Dad, I can do this with you; Eight year-old Tom: LEAVE the wheel Dad, I can do it on my own.
Lots of slow walking in the lush green countryside.
When we had to drink for medicinal purposes, the kids manned the kombi-pub, pouring the champagne and opening the beers and savannahs.
Jess & Tom run the bar in the brand new SWB kombi (on loan while ours was being repaired – much delayed!)
Thank you pic sent to my insurance brokers for organising NEW kombi !!
Barry Porter and Aitch got on famously and spent many a happy hour ‘botanising’ on Game Valley Estates (GVE), Barry and Lyn’s game farm in the Umkomaas river valley. GVE encompassed a lovely tract of land on both banks of the river valley below the Hella Hella kop, and a beautiful, special, rare patch of highland grasslands above.
Barry loved having an interested and knowledgeable companion who didn’t think him weird when he spoke Latin! Aitch was fascinated by plants and her tuition by Ian Whitton the cardio-thoracic surgeon botanist; Geoff Nichols, indigenous plant guru; Enver Buchus at Silverton Nursery; and her part-time work at Geoff Caruth’s Geoff’s Jungle indigenous nursery (“Bring elephants back into your garden, plant a marula”), all paid off on her trips to Hella Hella. She drank in all the new stuff she learnt from Barry on his very special natural heritage site in the valley and on the high grasslands on top of the Hella Hella mountain.
Just as she’d do with me and birds, Aitch was always an investigative reporter-type of learner: “Are you sure? How do you know? What are the points that make it that? What else could it be?” Jeeesh! Of course every now and then her questioning would wake you to the fact that, actually, you had it wrong, and then together you’d come up with the correct identification. Oh boy, and she loved that: “See!? Better watch it, boy!” she’d say triumphantly. To me or Barry.
Lots of bum-in-the-air photography (frogs in this case):
Barry Porter and Aitch got on famously and spent many a happy hour ‘botanising’ on Game Valley Estates (GVE), Barry and Lyn’s game farm in the Umkomaas river valley. GVE encompassed a lovely tract of land on both banks of the river valley below the Hella Hella kop, and a beautiful, special, rare patch of highland grasslands above.
Barry loved having an interested and knowledgeable companion who didn’t think him weird when he spoke Latin! Aitch was fascinated by plants and her tuition by Ian Whitton the cardio-thoracic surgeon botanist; Geoff Nichols, indigenous plant guru; Enver Buchus at Silverton Nursery; and her part-time work at Geoff Caruth’s Geoff’s Jungle indigenous nursery (“Bring elephants back into your garden, plant a marula”), all paid off on her trips to Hella Hella. She drank in all the new stuff she learnt from Barry on his very special natural heritage site in the valley and on the high grasslands on top of the Hella Hella mountain.
Just as she’d do with me and birds, Aitch was always an investigative reporter-type of learner: “Are you sure? How do you know? What are the points that make it that? What else could it be?” Jeeesh! Of course every now and then her questioning would wake you to the fact that, actually, you had it wrong, and then together you’d come up with the correct identification. Oh boy, and she loved that: “See!? Better watch it, boy!” she’d say triumphantly. To me or Barry.
Lots of bum-in-the-air photography (frogs in this case):
A few of Barry’s pics of Hella Hella flora
~~~oo0oo~~~
Barry Porter and Aitch got on famously and spent many a happy hour ‘botanising’ on Game Valley Estates (GVE), Barry and Lyn’s game farm in the Umkomaas river valley. GVE encompassed a lovely tract of land on both banks of the river valley below the Hella Hella kop, and a beautiful, special, rare patch of highland grasslands above.
Barry loved having an interested and knowledgeable companion who didn’t think him weird when he spoke Latin! Aitch was fascinated by plants and her tuition by Ian Whitton the cardio-thoracic surgeon botanist; Geoff Nichols, indigenous plant guru; Enver Buchus at Silverton Nursery; and her part-time work at Geoff Caruth’s Geoff’s Jungle indigenous nursery (“Bring elephants back into your garden, plant a marula”), all paid off on her trips to Hella Hella. She drank in all the new stuff she learnt from Barry on his very special natural heritage site in the valley and on the high grasslands on top of the Hella Hella mountain.
Just as she’d do with me and birds, Aitch was always an investigative reporter-type of learner: “Are you sure? How do you know? What are the points that make it that? What else could it be?” Jeeesh! Of course every now and then her questioning would wake you to the fact that, actually, you had it wrong, and then together you’d come up with the correct identification. Oh boy, and she loved that: “See!? Better watch it, boy!” she’d say triumphantly. To me or Barry.
Lots of bum-in-the-air photography (frogs in this case):
Years later Barry gave her a CD and penned this little note with it.
Dear Trish, In memory of past pleasant hours spent botanising on Game Valley; and in appreciation of your enthusiastic company and assistance on numerous trips up to Highover. I hope you enjoy the CD ROM. It’s unfortunate that my scanner can’t scan 35mm slides, I have a far larger collection of slides and many are of better quality than the photos used in this presentation. Just enjoy! Some of the identifications may be a little off the mark but don’t let that worry you. Love, Barry
– Highover grassland with Brunsvigia grandiflora; Our kombi halfway up the Hella Hella –
We’d see Blue Swallows, Grass Owls and Broad-tailed Warblers (now Fan-tailed Grassbird) in that Highover grassland! The rare blue swallows nest in aardvark holes and Barry monitored them every year.
Also oribi, beautiful little antelope.
– internet pics –
And Red-necked Spurfowl:
On the farm we met Barry’s brother Roger Porter, an ecologist with Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, and his wife Ingrid Weiersbye, an amazing bird artist. On the quiet and as a (big) surprise, Aitch bought me two of her paintings: A Natal Robin (now Red-capped Robin-Chat) and a Wood Owl. Stunning.
With all due respect to Moremi, Chobe and Makgadikgadi, the birds you can see in and around Maun give them a good go for their m$ney. In fact, pound-for-pound or especially dollar-per-bird, Maun wins hands-down. Especially when you’re staying in your little sis’ house, eating her food and driving her car!
So here’s a good recipe for Best Botswana Birding: Don’t just land in Maun and buzz off elsewhere! Rather stay in this lovely home:
Drive this superb 4X4. With 400 000km of all-Botswana roads experience on the clock, it didn’t even need much steering:
and bird the immediate vicinity:
– Janet’s lovely home on the Tamalakhane in the Tsanakona suburb of Maun –
Here are some of the birds seen in and around Janet’s home and along the Tamalakhane where she walks her dogs. Forty one shown, but there were more.
Added bonus: Visit the spots like The French Connection, Miguel’s Place, Tshilli Cafe, Island Safari Lodge along the river – and Ann’s CinemaMultiPlex for breakfast. Wonderful food and they all serve alcohol! What more could you want?
But the best and best-value meals are found here: Janet’s cottage in the salubrious Tsanakona suburb and Bev’s cottage in the salubrious, upmarket and fashionable Disaneng suburb. Neither had vegetarian-only or no-alcohol policies. Um, actually quite the contrary!
On a drive out towards the Boro River Janet and I stopped at a flooded grassland and watched a bird party frolicking on three little acacia trees, constantly dropping down to the ground then flying back into these small thorn trees. We wondered what the attraction was. Here’s the spot: Most of the action was in that small acacia dead-centre, behind the foxglove (help me here) stem.
Twenty three species within half an hour! It got quite “Shu’ Up! Another One?” Here are fourteen of them (Lee Ouzman pics mostly).
These two black birds were mingling with the unsuspecting colourful hosts that they parasitise! Like, your spouse’s lover has come to supper . .
The Indigobird was a LIFER for me! Long time since I nailed a lifer.
– turquoise marks the spot –
When we were about to leave we strolled over to the spot to see what the huge attraction was for such a variety of birds. It was crystal clear water in some deepish tyre tracks. That’s it!
Here’s some other stuff as we searched for the Boro – and there’s the lily to prove that we found it. How’s the height of that termitarium? Janet is not tall, but that’s still some structure!
– little things – and a termitarium –
Yet another advantage to having a little sis who’s a nineteen-year Maun veteran is she can sweet-talk curmudgeons into showing you their patch. So we ended up one morning walking the Tamalakhane flood plains in Disaneng guided by an old bullet with a long lens after drinking free coffee here:
– Ouzman hideaway – rich in biodiversity . . and some rooms –
Imagine if he got a wife how she’d make him smarten up that stoep, nê!? Despite the low-key decor, the coffee’s top-notch.
We saw three of these birds plus a bat hawk flying. These are his pics, but from his website. His lovebirds he shot in Namibia, but we saw a few in his garden that morning! Escapees? Or had they followed him home?
Read about the history of Maun here where Lee Ouzman has more old photos like the one on top of Maun ca.1985 when I first visited this Kalahari metropolis, and he arrived – to stay.
From Maun we ventured North-east to Mogotlho and back to Maun; then south-west to Khumaga and back to Maun. Both trips in that fine Toyota skorokoro 4X4.
~~oo0oo~~
While I was there I was covered by these good people, thanks to Janet! For a very reasonable fee you can buy air rescue cover for a whole year.
The Tamalakhane River runs south-west out of Maun and when it turns east it’s called the Boteti. After a while it runs southward forming the western boundary of the huge Makgadikgadi-Nxai Pans National Park.
At Kumagha village there’s a gate into the park. When the river has water in it a ferryman carries you across, one vehicle at a time.
– our ferryman is Tiaan, Kalahari character –
We were guests at Tiaan’s Camp as Tiaan is looking for someone to help him start a new admin system and Janet’s just the person to do that. I got lucky as they decided she needed to visit him to check out the camp and discuss how Janet’s consultancy could run the project for him. Tiaan is a character. He was once a diplomat although you would never guess that in a game of Twenty Questions. Nor in game of One Hundred and Twenty Questions.
Tiaan has run mobile safaris in Zambia, Botswana and Zululand among many other places. He has been involved in lodges on the Delta panhandle and has now settled in Khumaga village in a camp he built himself with comfy chalets, lovely campsites, a crystal-clear swimming pool and a huge central building housing an open dining area, an open raised deck overlooking the Boteti where 22 elephants came to bathe the afternoon we arrived.
AND he operates a cool bar run on the honour system. You know, gooi and skryf.
– gin n tonic n eles –
He has a delightful accent, a mischievous laugh, speaks three languages well, and has an amazing store of tales from brain surgery to government service to building in Botswana and Jakobsbaai on the Cape West Coast; to safaris, interesting guests, religion, Land Rovers (he’s afflicted with six of them), philosophy and fascinating animal stories. Maybe he does have a diplomatic side, but he keeps it well-camouflaged.
He took us on a game drive in one of his Land Rovers – and we didn’t even break down – so he could show us his knowledge of and love for his patch, the very southern end of the great Okavango Delta, just before the waters from Angola sink into the Kalahari sand for the very last time at Lake Xau.
The next day Janet and I took her old Toyota – now well over 400 000km on the clock – into the park along the green Boteti river valley. The water was dropping so the ferryman had me move the Toyota forward a couple metres, then back a couple metres on the ferry to rock it across the shallows. We found plenty of interesting little things to photograph, and only got stuck in the deep sand once.
In between all this there were the gin n tonics, whiskies, beers and Tiaan’s home-made absinthe, generously dispensed – the absinthe gratis on the wonderful Tiaan system of “Have another and listen to this . . . !”
Interesting birds included Double-banded Sandgrouse, Acacia Pied Barbet, Hoopoe, Crimson-breasted Boubou, a young Verreaux’s Eagle-Owl, Pin-tailed and Shaft-tailed Whydahs, Red-faced Mousebird, Bateleur, Pale Chanting Goshawk, Blue-cheeked, European and Little Bee-eaters, Meyers Parrot, Goliath Heron and a Grey-backed Camaroptera who clacked at me fourteen times!* Here in KwaZulu Natal they usually clack five to seven times. Here are some Lee Ouzman pics from his website:
– Lee Ouzman pics –
Before this leg of the trip we had been to Mogotlhong.
~~~oo0oo~~~
gooi and skryf – honour system in a bar: pour your dop and write it down, you’ll be billed later
dop – grog
*record broken now. A camaroptera clicked at me 29 times in Mtwalume, KZN!
Ten days in a verdant green Botswana in the ‘off-season’ – or ‘out-of-season’. What bliss. Here’s my lil sis Janet doing our pre-trip inspection of her trusty 1989 Toyota Hilux which clicked over to 400 000km on our way to the community trust area we visited in the Khwai river area near where Moremi and Chobe game reserves share a boundary.
We thought of “getting out and pushing it a mile” ala John Denver “back in 1958, we drove an old V8” but we thought, nah, let’s just sing about it!
It was this green:
In places it was muddy:
Knee-high grass and lots of water meant the animals were sparsely scattered all over. Even the Mababe Depression was wet. The first time I saw it was 1985 and it was bone-dry. That was also the last time I had been there overland. In-between I have visited Maun and the Delta often, and flown to Kasane, Savuti, Chobe river and Hwange.
Janet organised it all along with outback trader, photographer and established curmudgeon Lee Ouzman; also with keen wildlife enthusiasts and expert 4X4 drivers Bev and Ash Norton, all hard-drinking Maun locals. I had to smack back the gin to keep up. I’ll add a random few photos taken from Lee’s website (not taken on this trip). His website is worth a visit! Do go and check it out.
What a wonderful trip. Peaceful and fun with lovely laidback folk and cold beers and gin n tonics! We had all of my kind of good weather: showers, sunshine and massive thunderheads, and especially: no wind; lots of animals; plenty of good birding. My specials included Allen’s Gallinule, Lesser Moorhen, African Marsh Harrier, Rufous-bellied Heron, Kori Bustard.
Night sounds included Pearl-spotted Owlet, White-faced Owl, Verreaux’s Eagle-Owl, African Scops Owl, hyenas, lions and elephants. We also saw three lions, lots of eles, hippo, croc, kudu, waterbuck, impala, zebra, buffalo, slender mongoose, dwarf mongoose, tree squirrels, baboons, a hover fly and one ear-fly.
The red represents swear-words
We were here: (click to enlarge)
in the yellow circle
Back to the metropolis of Maun, and then on to Khumaga after a few days.
We stopped in at the Hluhluwe Spar to buy provisions on our way further north to camp in Mkhuze. Busy, crowded, more bulk items than city Spars. We gather our stuff and pay at the till.
As we cross the road to the bakkie, Tom looks up at me, lugging his Spar plastic bags: “You realise you were the only peach in there, Dad?” he asks. “People were thinking ‘What’s that umLungu doing in here?’ he says.
Actually, I think they were wondering why that umLungu takes so much cheek from that umfana.
~~~oo0oo~~~
umLungu – dignified older person
umfana – precocious, insolent, shorter, younger person
Here’s that stunning hawk moth on my coffee flask again: StopPress! I now know its a Sundowner Moth, likely Sphingomorpha chlorea, thanks to Christeen Grant’s lovely blog.
Saw twelve animal species (specials were banded mongooses and painted dogs) and 65 birds, but very few pics of those as I had scarecrows with me! Instead we have a TomTom selfie! – or rather ‘ussie’ . .
I looked for our last Tembe trip and found I hadn’t written about it, so here goes, a Tembe retrospective.
We hared off to the elephant park on the Mocambican border with Jon and Dizzi Taylor. December 2010, so the kids had just turned 13 and 9.
Aitch wasn’t well, but game as ever, she got fascinated by the close-up views we had of ele feet and ele bums and used the camera’s rapid-fire setting liberally. I made .gifs of her series of pics:
Our guide Vusi kept driving right up one ele’s bum and eventually it got agitated and turned round, to the kids’ consternation. It just shook its ears at him, but to this day – full knowing that I’ll insist ‘No it didn’t!’ – they’ll say “Remember when that elephant tried to kill us?”
Another kids’ meme that has survived the years is Jonathan leaning inwards as we passed thorny branches intruding onto the track. To this day whenever we drive past a branch Jessie will lean inwards against my shoulder and laugh, even though we’re in an enclosed vehicle!
Jessie, ever the champion spotter, pointed out this beautiful Vine or Twig Snake Thelotornis capensis on the path in camp.
On one drive we were able to compare a rare black rhino footprint with an unusual white wino foot:
My kids
Our last game drive was one too much for Aitch. She asked to be taken back to the Lodge and we finished the drive without her. Back pain from her cancer that had spread to her bones meant she reluctantly skipped a drive – something she would never normally do, so we knew it was sore! She had been a champ all along, full of good cheer, but this did turn out to be her last game drive.
footnotes – what we learnt in 2018:
Vusi is now camp manager. He gave a lo-o-ong speech before supper *yawn!*
The painted dogs we saw in the boma were released but the project was not a success. They caught them and shipped them elsewhere. Then one bitch who had wandered off returned and gave birth to 15 pups! So Tembe has painted dogs in the boma again!
Flying ants! An alate emergence as we toffs call it. Whattapleasure.
The birds and frogs went crazy. A golden mole must have got carried away too as we found him swimming in the pool this morning, poor fella. Jessie scooped him out and he was soon burrowing his way under the grass.
Hottentot golden moles eat worms, insect larvae, crickets, snails, slugs, and spiders. The moist environment and dew provide them with the amount of water that is needed. They’re cute, without the huge teeth of mole rats:
Top pic shows how a few of the new infrequent fliers found their way in to Jessie’s bath water!
I was moaning how Cape Wagtail numbers seem to have diminished and wondering if lawn poison did it.
Well, to be fair we also have to mention the apparent increased influx of a new (ish) city and suburban bird: The Familiar Chat. Years ago I used to look for them around old cattle kraals and other rural places, and occasionally big suburban gardens on the edges of towns.
Lately I have seen them in my garden in Westville, in my ole man’s garden in Lincoln Mead, Pietermaritzburg – where they’re nesting under the eaves – and now also on the roof of my shopping centre in Montclair – where I was bemoaning the missing wagtails.
Welcome, chaps!
.
pic: wikipedia ( I see it was taken by Frenchman Bernard DuPont in Camdeboo national park – love the pinpoint focus – detail you would easily miss – thank you Bernie!)
![Golden_mole[1]](https://i0.wp.com/bewilderbeast.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/golden_mole1.jpg?resize=620%2C827&ssl=1)
