The Southern Banded Snake Eagle’s loud calls kak kak kak-kak-kak-kao, and the Black Sparrowhawk’s persistent rapid chip chip-chip, attracted my attention. The two Palm-nut Vultures were silent.
~~oo0oo~~
A male Southern Mocker Swallowtail fluttered in but wouldn’t sit still.
A Citrus Swallowtail too
On another day, an Olive Sunbird kicked up a huge fuss and I searched, hoping to spot a snake or an owl or whatever was causing such rude language. Nothing. The Sunbird then went quiet and hopped onto this strelitzia flower for a drink.
After two years and nine months of sad stoeplessness, order has at last been restored. I have a stoep, a LaZboy, my coffee and my binoculars in place again as they should be.
Aaah
~~oo0oo~~
stoep – porch, patio, deck, veranda
And: My coffee got an upgrade – and a Narina Trogon is hooting as I sip n scribble.
And now a Bronze Caco is going creep and a Bush Squeaker is going sweep. Paradise.
And now even guest beds! OK, now it’s getting a bit worrying ..
Nearly three weeks on my stoep and here’s the birdlist:
Bev said Hop In! so Janet and I hopped into her Prado automatic and glided off smoothly NE to Khwai village, on the border of Botswana’s Moremi Game Reserve. A much smoother ride than my old bakkie, was Bev’s Prado. We were working – we were going to check out a bridge on the river Kwai – I mean a lodge on the river Khwai called The Termite Mound Guest House. “We” meaning Bev – Janet and I were just backup crew. Happy nogschleppers.
We loved the cleverly designed lodge. Two big metal ship containers form the lower outer walls. One is the kitchen and pantry, one is an en-suite bedroom. Impressive Zanzibari doors lead into the lovely open space between them; ideal for dining and lounging al fresco. All the other walls are canvas; the roof is tin with skylights, raised up high on impressive gumpoles. Above the containers, two en-suite bedrooms with their own verandas and wonderful views. Solar power heats the water and powers the batteries that run lights and fridge. Comfortably ‘off the grid.’
Bev is an experienced and accomplished guide who knows the area well, so we drove all along the Khwai and into the fringes of Chobe Game Reserve with her telling us about the various places to stay and camp. The waters of the Okavango spilling into the Kalahari bring life abundant and I remarked in awe as we sat at one lagoon, ‘It’s like an aviary!’ Here’s a partial list I recorded: Great white Egret; Rufous-bellied Heron; Little Egret; Reed Cormorant; Darter; Black Crake; Striated Heron; Black-crowned Night Heron; White-faced Duck; Egyptian Goose; Lilac-breasted Roller; African Fish eagle; African Jacana; and some Lechwe antelope were hanging about.
When we left for home we headed into Moremi Game Reserve, crossing a bridge on the river Khwai:
Good rain had fallen, making some roads tricky, but Bev waded through with panache. We had lunch overlooking a pan. On the way out I said. ‘I’d love to see an Arnot’s Chat again,’ and Bev said ‘There’s one!’ I got a pic – will add it when I find it (done below). Meantime, talking of lunch, here’s a leopard eating an impala, crocs eating a hippo and lions chilling, probly after dinner:
Some pictures and a slightly embarrassing confession at the end.
At Marakele, there was no room in the inn. For camping. But they did have a safari tent free. I was forced into Luxury! In Tlope tented camp. A big tent on a raised wooden deck, en-suite bathroom, overlooking the water, mountains as a backdrop. Sometimes you just gotta grin n bear things. Flycatchers – Tit ( fantailed), Pallid Green Woodhoopoe Brown-crowned Tchagra Chats – Buffstreak, Mocking, Familiar, Sickle-wing; Buntings – Cape bunting, Golden-breasted, Lark-like;
– beautiful drive right to the top of the Waterberg –
Slight Blush Called For?
I wrote I’d never heard of Marakele National Park! Then I read my own 2003 blog post: ‘Spent three nights in the Marakele National Park while we waited for our binoculars to be courier’d to Thabazimbi . . ‘
I remembered then a lovely pic we had taken of Jess (5) and Tom (20 months) taking themselves to the ablution block.
. . so I went looking for that ablution block and found it:
Lovely three nights solo in Mantuma Camp at Mkhuze game reserve in Zululand. Nothing much happened, animals were not plentiful, the grasslands are still sadly bush-encroached, but the birds, insects and plants more than made up for that.
Driving in, I see Malibali hide is CLOSED!! Aaargh! One of the MAIN reasons I came to Mkhuze! Grrr!
So as not to moan about Homo sapiens urbanensis polluting the lovely Masinga hide with farting, phone calls, smoking and loud shutter clicks of cameras with more computing power than their owners, I have politely refrained from commenting, and instead played some games with the pictures I took with my phone and my lovely pocket Canon SX620hs. Enjoy!
I dunno what he saw in there, but he was making an awful racket for a long time – snake maybe?
In camp I went looking for cicadas. A big old Albizia tree was humming with the critters, must be hundreds, I thought. I bekruip’d and approached and searched. Suddenly the nearest one stut-tut-tuttered to a halt. And there was silence! All that eardrum-vibrating noise was ONE cicada! Amazing. I tried another tree, same thing. Could that be? I searched every trunk branch and twig around where he was calling. Couldn’t spot him.
For sundowner, off to Nsumo pan, a glass of chilled white wine on the banks. Lovely Woodland Kingfisher giving his loud kip-terrr. Heard a black-bellied bustard in the grass close by – aark like a frog, then or-wip! – but couldn’t spot him.
this tiny little spider on my rearview mirror elongated himself to look like a mini octopus when I got too close – iNaturalist id’d him as a Humped Tree Crab Spider Tmarus cameliformis
At last an ele in Mkhuze! I was beginning in the last few years to think there weren’t any left. There must be very few, anyway. He’s in the camp area, so one of the staff sent him running. I don’t think there’s a good story of Mkhuze and eles, somehow.
– now he has spotted me, he’s shtum –
At Kumahlala hide, after an hour of being alone and quiet, the Foam Nest Frogs Chiromantis xerampelina started up a chorus, probly thinking “the coast is clear, boys!” It took a while, but I found one up on a twig just outside the hide and got a pic of him. I wish I had thought to tape their call – a lovely loud chorus – I’d guess about four of them doing a fine barbershop quartet! I was so busy searching and then clicking, I didn’t think of recording them! Here’s a shy soloist:
A family came in with a young kid carrying the big fancy camera. I was able to show him the frog. He took 45 pics with loud clicks and showed me his results. None of them as good as my pic with my little Canon!
After they had left, I heard a new sound, Hey! That’s new. What’s that?
I found a new frog! I went through my frog calls: A Rhythmic Caco – Cacosternum rythmum. I must look for a picture of one. I would not be able to see him in the flooded grass in the waterhole, confined as I am to the hide; also, he’s little over a centimetre long. Another name for Cacos is Dainty Frogs. I think we miss a lot by being noisy and impatient. If I’d left the hide after 45mins – way longer than we usually can sit still – I’d have missed these fine choristers.
Sunset at Masinga Waterhole: The sun sets behind the big old Boerbean tree that was probably already there when I first visited ‘Mkuzi’ in 1965. The hide wasn’t here then. The famous Bube hide was the ‘in place’ then, just a few hundred metres away (north, I think).
– very little water – full of green algae –
Driving out of the park to go home, a savannah scene in one of the few remaining open areas: Stripes and horns and a few egrets hanging around, hoping for some disturbance to happen. I ‘shopped’ the lily (Crinum stuhlmanii?) into the foreground, as it was lonely in its own picture with nothing around it. And it was nearby . .
~~oo0oo~~
Domestic notes:
As a family we usually took one of the lovely big chalets in Mantuma main camp, but I don’t need that this time, so I choose a small squaredawel Number 1. About R540 a night pensioner price. The two ladies in reception are very friendly, helpful and welcoming.
For supper I braai a picanha, potato and garlic bread. Delish. A lovely sunset and an electric storm that moved north as I braai’d. Thunderbolt and lightning, Not at all frightening, Mama Mia. A few drops of rain for a few minutes.
(Back at home, Tommy got vaccinated YAY! and AT LAST!)
Breakfast picanha and garlic bread and coffee.
Windy, so I stayed in camp in pm. Lots of Violet-backed starlings all over. One performing at a hole in a tree trunk.
Supper the leftover picanha with bubble n squeak.
Back in camp breakfast of fried egg, bacon, bread and coffee.
Last night: Too lazy to go to the communal kitchen to cook, so tonic water and fresh lemon juice, potato salad and a dark choc KitKat.
~~oo0oo~~
Seen at Masinga hide: Rhino, giraffe, zebra, wildebeast, kudu, impala, nyala, warthog, terrapins. and lots of birds too. A namaqua dove female was good; melba finch, firefinch redbilled and African; Egyptian geese with 4 babies; lots and LOTS of doves (Emerald spot, Cape, Red-eyed, Laughing), was hoping for a raptor swoop. Heard 6 cuckoos, only saw the red-chested (also Jacobin, Klaas, Diderik, Emerald, Black). Heard 3 Bush Shrike, saw none (Grey-headed, Gorgeous, Orange-breasted). Peckers, one wood, lots of ox. Wahlberg’s eagle. Purple Turaco, Three-banded Plover, Paradise Flycatcher, and Whydah (longtailed), pintailed Whydah too. Quelea, and a Lark-like Bunting.
Birds at Kumahlala hide: White-browed Scrub robin, Crowned eagle, Crowned hornbill, Trumpeter Hornbill, one knob-billed duck male flying.
(A re-post with added pictures, as I throw out paper photo albums after copying and uploading. Major un-cluttering happening as I prepare my home for the past sixteen years for sale. Next chapter about to begin!)
Another trip to the Delta!
Aitch and I flew from Maun to Xudum in August 2001 when Janet & Duncan were helping Landela Safaris run their show. We landed on the nearby bush strip. We had been before, in January 2000. This post has pictures from both trips.
– Maun airport heading for Xudum –– . . . in the Xudum area, east of the Sandveldt Tongue –– Xudum landing strip in high water – a 2020 picture –
After a few days in camp they had business in Maun and we accompanied them on the drive out of the Delta to Maun in the Land Cruiser. Rickety bridges, deep water crossings with water washing over the bonnet onto the windscreen.
On the drive back to camp after the day in the big smoke of the metropolis of Maun we entered a Tamboti grove and saw two leopard cubs in the road. They split and ran off to left and right, then ran alongside of us on either side for a minute calling to each other before we moved off and let them be.
We enjoyed mekoro trips, game drives & walks and afternoon boat trips stretching into evenings watching the sunset from the boat while fishing for silver catfish or silvertooth barbel – I forget what they called them. Later, wading in thigh-deep water sorting out the pumps, earning my keep as a guest of the lodge managers. Only afterwards did I think hmm, crocs.
Visited Rann’s camp for lunch where Keith and Angie Rowles were our hosts. That’s where we first heard the now-common salute before starting a meal: “Born Up a Tree.”
Janet moved us from camp to camp as guests arrive, filling in where there were gaps in other camps. We transferred by boat, mekoro or 4X4 vehicle. One night we stayed in a tree house in Little Xudum camp.
Lazy days in camp drinking G&T’s
Here’s Trish’s paper album – photographed and discarded:
~~~oo0oo~~~
Later Xudum was taken over by super-luxury company ‘&Beyond.’ OTT luxury, and R15 000 per person per night! Very different to the lovely rustic – but still luxurious – tented camp it was when we were there. Should ‘conservationists’ really be using miles of glass and wooden decking and flooring in the bush!? Methinks rich spoilt children are doing the designing for Daddy’s company and perspective has flown out the canvas-zip window and crashed into the plate glass floor-length picture window.
In May 2019 it burnt down. Had it been rustic there’d have been less pollution from the fire and the rebuild, methinks.
tiny groundcovermaybe Carissa spinarum?moth eggs -> caterpillars– Suncana ID’d the tiny moth eggs (ca.1mm width) and caterpillars as Saturnidae, probly Wahlberg’s Emperors –
And another of our naturalists, Suncana, was busy as ever, spotting new and fascinating things:
– Suncana Bradley’s latest –
While Roger and Rory shot more birds:
– Roger Hogg caught a Crowned Hornbill catching a Common Wolf Snake –– Roger Hogg and Rory O’Connor here in the Palmiet valley – Athol Marchant in the Drakensberg –
~~~oo0oo~~~
This “emperor moth” from Cowies Hill wasn’t. Turns out iNaturalist says it’s a Giant Silkworm Moth. Genus Lobobunaea. Beauty, but does it belong in our valley?!
Palmiet Nature Reserve is ready for Spring! We’ve had a cold winter, some early rain, wind storms and today a hot ‘Berg wind.’ Nature lovers in the Palmiet Rangers group have been spotting all sorts of interesting life in our valley.
– Me Hadeda Ibis, Helen Woolly-necked Stork, Roger Hogg Purple-crested Turaco, Roger Hogg Hadeda Ibis –– Louis Lodder dead Red-backed Mannikin, Roger Hogg Black-bellied Starling, Rory O’Connor Crowned Eagle, me, Hadeda Ibis –– Roger Hogg’s Klaas’ Cuckoo and Green Wood-hoopoe –– Dave James Wahlberg’s Emperor moth, Warren Friedman Tricalysia lanceolata, Gail Robinson caterpillar on Deinbollia, Lellos ?Grey-headed Sparrow, Taylors ?Leptopelis tree frog in arum lily –
Then some Palmetians went to Roosfontein and shot a Nightjar!
– Fiery-Necked Nightjar Caprimulgus pectoralis – on the nest –
Meantime, Pigeon Valley in Glenwood has also been busy, with ‘Friends of PV’ honcho Crispin Hemson keeping us all up-to-date about his patch as always:
– Crispin Hemson Little Bee-eaters, Pin-tailed Whydah, Clivia flowers; Steve Woodhall Spotted Eagle Owl –
~~~oo0oo~~~
Oh, and babies! I forgot about the babies. When Spring springs, babies pop out . . Warren Friedman is the host daddy to these two broods. And the videographer.
– ConJunct- tivitis Dove – ConJunct- tivitis Dove –– carpenter bee –– which butterfly blue? –– big thunderhead to the north of us –– why we’re here –
~~~oo0oo~~~
Then it rained and I remembered a bit late about my duvet! I had put it out to dry in the sun! So I brought it inside – wet – and stayed inside. Mistake! I shouldn’t have! ALL the neighbours showed me what I missed – a rainbow in a sunset!
An old post from my pre-marriage blog vrystaatconfessions.com
~~~oo0oo~~~
My first recollections are of life on the plot outside Harrismith, playing with Enoch and Casaia, childhood companions, kids of Lena Mazibuko, who looked after us as Mom and Dad worked in town. I remember Lena as kind and loving – and strict!
The plot was was in the shadow of Platberg, and was called Birdhaven, as Dad kept big aviaries filled with racing pigeons, then later with fancy pigeons.
I was there from when I was carried home from the maternity home to when I was about five years old, when we moved into the bright lights and traffic of the 1955 Harrismith metropolis.
– those pigeon aviaries – and me – Mom Mary must have been feeling the cold –
I remember suddenly “knowing” it was lunchtime and looking up at the dirt road above the farmyard that led to town. Sure enough, right about then a cloud of dust would appear and Mom and Dad would arrive for their lunch – meat and veg – and a siesta, having locked up the Platberg bottle store at 1 o’clock sharp. I could see them coming along the road and then sweeping down the long driveway to park near the rondavel at the back near the kitchen door. They would eat lunch, have a short lie-down and leave in time to re-open at 2 o’clock sharp. I now know the trip was exactly three kilometres door-to-door, thanks to google maps.
Every day I “just knew” they were coming. I wonder if I actually heard their approach and then “knew”? Or was it an inner clock? Here’s an old 8mm movie of the old green and black Ford Prefect on the Birdhaven circular driveway with big sister Barbara waving out the window – four seconds of action:
1. Birdhaven and ruins of our house; 2. Glen Khyber, Dougie Wright, Gould & Ruth Dominy’s place; 3. Jack Levick’s house; 4. The meandering Kak Spruit.
None of those houses on the left were there back then.
Back then the folks would buzz around in Mom’s Ford Prefect or Dad’s beige Morris Isis.
Our nearest neighbour was Jack Levick and he had a pet crow that mimic’d a few words. We had a white Sulphur-crested Cockatoo Jacko that didn’t, and an African Grey parrot Cocky who could mimic a bit more. A tame-ish Spotted Eagle Owl would visit at night. Our next neighbours, nearer to the mountain, were Ruth and Gould Dominy and Ruth’s son Dougie Wright on Glen Khyber. They were about 500m further down the road towards the mountain, across the Kak Spruit over a little bridge. Doug’s cottage was on the left next to the spruit that came down from Khyber Pass and flowed into the bigger spruit; The big house with its sunny glassed-in west-facing stoep was a bit further on the right. Ruth and a flock of small dogs would serve Gould his tea in a teacup the size of a big deep soup bowl.
– me with Jacko the sulphur-crested cockatoo outside the rondawel –
Judas Thabete lived on the property and looked after the garden. I remember him as old, small and bearded. He lived in a hovel of a hut across a donga and a small ploughed field to the west of our house. He had some sort of cart – animal-drawn? self-drawn? Self-drawn, I think.
– Me and Sheila on the front lawn – 1956 –
Other things I remember are driving out and seeing white storks in the dead bluegum trees outside the gate – those and the eagle owl being the first wild birds I ‘spotted’ in my still-now-ongoing birding life; I remember the snake outside the kitchen door;
– Scene of the rinkhals leap – this taken thirty years later, in 1990 –
I don’t remember but have been told, that my mate Donald Coleman, two years older, would walk the kilometre from his home on the edge of town to Birdhaven to visit me. Apparently his Mom Jean would phone my Mom Mary on the party line and ask “Do you have a little person out there?” if she couldn’t find him. He was a discoverer and a wanderer and a thinker, my mate Donald.
– 1990 – Mom & Dad sit on the stoep –– fun on the lawn – and Bruno the Little Switzerland doberman –
Bruno the doberman came from Little Switzerland on Oliviershoek pass down the Drakensberg into Natal. Leo and Heather Hilkovitz owned and ran it – “very well” according to Dad. Leo came into town once with a few pups in the back of his bakkie. Dobermans. Dad said I Want One! and gave him a pocket of potatoes in exchange for our Bruno. He lived to good age and died at 95 Stuart Street after we’d moved to town.
~~~oo0oo~~~
rondawel – pr. ‘ron-dah-vill’; circular building with a conical roof, often thatched;
spruit – stream; kak spruit: shit stream; maybe it was used as a sewer downstream in town in earlier days? Probably
stoep – veranda
donga – dry, eroded watercourse; gulch, arroyo; scene of much play in our youth;
In 1297 the Gordon family arrived at Lochinvar from Berwickshire. They established a castle on an island in the lake – or loch, as this was in Scotland. Lochinvar.
In 1908 another Scot, Mr Horne, a cattle farmer from Botswana, arrived on the banks of the Kafue river in Northern Rhodesia long before it became Zambia. The local chief, Hamusonde, gave? sold? him some land – or did Horne simply claim it? – or did the colonial government give it to him? He registered it on behalf of the British South Africa Company.
Known locally as ‘the Major,’ Horne built a big old red brick farmhouse. He called it Lochinvar and it is now known as the old Lochinvar Ranch homestead.
Previously little of this land had been used for farming because of the wild game here, including lion and leopard. To convert the land into a cattle ranch, ‘Major’ Horne set about exterminating the local wildlife in a ruthless program of annihilation. Populations of sable, roan, eland, warthog and wildebeest were wiped out, as well as all the predators he could find. The last lion that ventured into the area is thought to have been killed around 1947.
In 1966 the Zambian government claimed the land back and declared it a nature reserve.
In 2003 our little Swanie family drove past a sign that said Lochinvar National Park. As we’d never heard of it, we decided to go and explore this place. What say, Aitch? I asked. Go for it, she said, as she almost always did. Around 40km of rough road later we arrived at the gate as darkness fell.
– Lochinvar? Never heard of it – a sign on the twisty way to the park –– a more recent pic of the gate –
‘Sorry, but you can’t go in,’ said the friendly soldier with a gun. ‘Sorry, but we have to,’ said I. ‘You see, I can’t let these little kids sleep out here and nor can you, so please hop onto your radio and explain that to your main man.’ Back he came – ‘Sorry, but the main man says the gate is closed.’ ‘You just didn’t explain it to him nicely enough,’ I said – ‘Please tell him I can’t, you can’t and he can’t leave a 22 month old sleeping rough next to a village.’ Off he went and back he came: ‘The main man will meet you at the camp inside,’ he said.
‘You’re a marvel, well done, thank you!’ we shouted and drove in on a 4km free night drive in Lochinvar. No animals, but some nightjars in the headlights.
– Aitch and Jessie’s scrapbook –– the huge old H-shaped ranch house was used as a lovely lodge for a while – now it’s dilapidated –– our more lovely mobile lodge –– the ablutions were out of order, so we rigged up our luxury shower –– Aitch always had stuff to keep the kids happy – here, chalk and a rubber blackboard – – better pic of the lechwe – we saw them with binocs, but our little camera lens had them as distant specks! –
~~~oo0oo~~~
Lochinvar National Park
Later, we found out more about the park: In 1966 Lochinvar Ranch, as it was then called, was bought by the Zambian government with the help of a grant from the World Wildlife Fund, and converted into a Game Managed Area; The extra protection afforded to the wildlife by this designation was not enough to prevent its numbers from diminishing further, and so in 1972 Lochinvar was upgraded to a National Park. Subsequently the park has been designated by the WWF as a ‘Wetland of International Importance’, and a WWF team has been working with the local people on a project to manage the park on a sustainable basis for the benefit of both the people and the wildlife. There are a lot of settlements around Lochinvar, and local people still come into the park – as they have done for centuries. Many were unhappy with the Lochinvar Ranch ‘agreement’ – and have always felt that this is their land. They still come to gather wild foods and catch fish, and drive their cattle from one side to the other; so although major conservation efforts are being made in Lochinvar, building up the diversity and number of game species here is not an easy task.
We approached Lochinvar from Monze, on the Livingstone–Lusaka Road – about 287km from Livingstone and 186km from Lusaka. Directions: The road that heads northwest from Monze, signposted for Namwala, is just north of the grain silos on the Lusaka side of town. It passes Chongo village and forks about 8km afterwards. Ask local advice to find this junction if necessary. Take the right fork, or you will end up in Kafue. Follow this road for about 10km and then turn left at another sign. It is then about 14km to the park gate. This last section of the track twists and turns, but all the tracks that split off eventually rejoin each other and lead to the park. There are also a few more signs so, if you become unsure, ask a local person and they’ll show you the way. The gate to Lochinvar is about 48km from Monze. Most of the camps depicted on the old maps are now disused, and ‘some of the roads now seem as if they were figments of a cartographer’s imagination.’ (This from 2003 – it’ll change)
The original state-run, red-brick Lochinvar Lodge, built in the colonial style of 1912, lies abandoned. There are always ‘plans to renovate’ this dilapidated, crumbling old building, but it would take a lot of work and money. Until enough people come to Lochinvar to make a second lodge economically viable, it’s likely to remain an evocative old ruin. As the state of the park gradually deteriorated, the lodge was put up for tender to private safari operators in 1996. Star of Africa agreed to take the lodge, as part of a ‘package’ of old government properties around the country. They first planned to build a floating lodge, but settled on a luxury tented camp which they called Lechwe Plains.
Camping rough in 2003, the campsite handpump had water, but the long-drop toilet and cold shower were out of action. We were happy to be inside the park, though and were equipped to be fully self-supporting.
Although the large herds of Kafue lechwe can be spectacular, the birds are the main attraction at Lochinvar – 428 species have been recorded there! The best birding is generally close to the water, on the floodplain. We drove everywhere in our kombi, but we since read: ‘It’s probably best to walk. It’s vital to avoid driving anywhere that’s even vaguely damp on the floodplain as your vehicle will just slip through the crust and into the black cotton soil – which will probably spoil and extend your stay in equal measure.’ Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
“To a person uninstructed in natural history, his countryside or seaside stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall” – THOMAS HUXLEY – English biologist
“Bird-watchers are tense, competitive, selfish, shifty, dishonest, distrusting and – above all else – envious. I know many who are generous, witty and delightful company – but they’re no fun!” – BILL ODDIE;
“I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment…and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn” – HENRY DAVID THOREAU, author, poet & philosopher – I once had a pigeon shit on my shoulder while collecting money for charity – shaking a tin – outside the Jeppe Street Post Office In Johannesburg; does that count?
“God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages” – JACQUES DEVAL , French playwright
“If you bird, you will see stuff” – THE ORACLE, birder
“A weird screechy howl, which rises in a nerve-shattering crescendo, to peter out like a cry of a lost soul falling into a bottomless pit” – AUSTIN ROBERTS, original author, Roberts’ Birds of Southern Africa – talking about the Manx Shearwater? or me when dipping out yet again on an African Broadbill?
“I don’t GO birding. I AM birding!”– FAANSIE PEACOCK, birder – (always! I agree with Faansie, an amazing birder with the best possible name for one!)
“Use what talents you possess: The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best” – HENRY VAN DYKE, American author – who hereby gives me permission to sing in the shower and while driving . .
Getting into Botswana’s Okavango Delta can be awfully expensive.
A cheaper way is to fly in to Oddballs Palm Island Luxury Lodge, get on a mokoro and disappear off into the wild with a guide who – unlike you – knows where he’s going and what he’s doing. In 1993 Aitch and I did just that, spending a night at Oddballs, where you are given a little dome tent to pitch on the hard-baked earth under the palm trees.
You get visitors:
Aitch watches our visitor rearrange the furniture – near our bedroom
The name is ironic, see (“contrary to what is expected, and typically causing wry amusement because of this” – I made a quick check; don’t want to get ‘ironic’ wrong). While in camp you stock up on the meagre supplies available in their shop, like potatoes and onions; a tent, a braai grid; add it to the 10kg you’re allowed to bring in on the high-wing Cessna 206’s and you’re away! 10kg doesn’t go far when you’re a books, binocs and spotting scope junkie!
The next morning we pushed off in our gentles S-shaped tree trunk mokoro to enjoy six nights out on the water in the care of a wonderful man named Thaba Kamanakao. He rigged up the seats so they were really comfy, the backrests enabling you to fall asleep at times!
Thaba said we could choose where we wanted to camp – anywhere. Soon after lunch we saw a magnificent Jackalberry tree on an island and said ‘there!’ – my guess is he knew that! We set up camp – our tent and two deckchairs and a ready-made campfire spot which he’d likely used many times before. The rest of the day was given to lurking, loafing, listening, lazing. Thaba set his gill nets, gathered firewood, pitched his smaller tent and set his chair at the fire. We were all quiet most of the time, listening and loving as night fell. After we’d eaten we sat talking and listening some more. Then Thaba played his mbira – his ‘thumb harp’ – and sang to us; I’ll never forget his introduction as we switched on our tape recorder: ‘My name is Thaba; Thaba Kamanakao; Kamanakao is surname;‘
– shady jackalberry camp – Thaba and Aitch organise –
We chose not to move camp each day, electing to sleep three nights under a Jackalberry and three nights under an African Mangosteen, both giving welcome shade and birdlife. We had little food, but Thaba provided us with the fish he caught in his gill net each night.
I ate the barbel and he and Aitch the bream. Lucky me, it was delicious! He also loved barbel, but his lifestyle advisor – a sangoma? a shaman? a nutritionist? – had told him he wasn’t allowed it! So a myth robbed a man of a tasty and useful source of protein. The first night we were joined by newly-qualified Pommy doctors Louise and Richard and their guide “BT.”
When we moved camp from the camp Aitch named Jackalberry Camp, to her new chosen Mangosteen or Squirrel Camp, we decided we needed a bath on the way, so Thaba took us to a stunning clear lagoon, carefully checked for big things that could bite and then stood guard on the mokoro while we swam and rinsed – no soap, please! Anyone going to this beautiful inland delta: Pack some small swimming goggles and an underwater camera if you can. The clarity of that water is awesome.
David Doubilet pic
Beautiful underwater pic by David Doubilet – to show the clarity.
Squirrel Camp nights were again spent cooking and sitting around the fire; talking and listening to Thaba playing his mbira and singing;
Days were spent birding the camp, hiking the island and an daily foray in the mokoro. Once we we were ‘moved off’ by an impatient ele, Aitch getting mildly reprimanded for turning round to get a fuzzy picture as we retreated. Another time Thaba – scouting ahead – spooked a herd of buffalo, who thundered in a tight mass towards us. We climbed the nearby termite mound – Thaba had told us to stay next to or on it – and they thundered all around us;
– our ‘buffalo hide’ termite mound –
We would sally out daily on short mokoro trips,
– colourful dragonflies, lilies and reed frogs at eye level –
Back before the sun got too high so we could loaf in our shady camp, where the squirrels and birds kept us entertained for hours. Six lazy, wonderful, awesome days.
One night a herd of eles moved in and we lay listening to their tummy rumbles. We kept dead quiet and just peered at them in the moonlight through the tent flap, as they had a little baby with them and we didn’t want to upset mama.
– still life with Sausage Tree flowers & leaves – Aitch saw the beauty at her feet –
Then we headed back reluctantly for a last night at Oddballs. Warm showers under the open sky; cold beer & gin’n’tonics on the deck, ice tinkling in the glass; watching spotted-necked otters in the lagoon, lounging in comfy chairs. Topped off that evening by a big hearty hot meal prepared for us and plonked onto a table on the deck. We ate watching the sunset turn the water red.
palm tree showers – warm water– jackalberry tree pub –
And suddenly it dawned on us that, even though we did have to pitch our own tent again, Oddballs really IS a Luxury Lodge!
– chandeliers of sausage tree flowers hang over the lagoon –
mokoro – dugout canoe; one mokoro, two mekoro, three mekoro, FOUR
sangoma – shaman? traditional healer? medicine man? says he communes with the ancestors; gives advice
mbira – thumb piano or thumb harp musical instrument
~~~oo0oo~~~
postscript 2018: This post was found by Thaba’s son, who informed me in the comments below that Thaba the legend had passed away. Damn!
R.I.P Thaba Kamanakao; You made our trip unforgettable.
~~oo0oo~~
Read an account of another 1993 trip to the Okavango Delta – Delta Camp right next to Oddballs) by Bill Keller, a US journalist for the NY Times based in Joburg.
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(Here’s Trish’s 1993 photo album. I have copied, posted it here and discarded the album in my downsizing while selling our home in 2021)
I joined Jenny & Tabs Fyvie for a lovely week in the bush at their luxury lodge in Botswana. Right on the banks of the Limpopo river – a wonderful setting. Their friends Johan and Elsa from their days in Hoedspruit in the lowveld were there, plus other friends and fellow shareholders from the Eston / Thala Valley KZN district where they farm now.
Wonderful wildlife, including two leopards; Great birding including a lifer: a White-backed Night Heron hiding out in daytime. The bird pics are all off the internet cos I’m a binocular birder, not photographic.
Weather changeable, hot and dry or warm and wet. Cool nights. October 2013.
special bread for TabsJenny on LimpopoTabs, Johan, Elsa, Me -. Brekker as the leopard watched . .Me, Bruce, Pete, Tabs
We had a wonderful time, with only one major catastrophe: Tabbo’s bread was not completely square; it was slightly buckled and squashed from being thrown in the back of my bakkie under my suitcase and boxes. Tabbo survived that distress thanks to Jenny’s laughter. When he gaans aan too much Jen pulls him up with a stern ‘Oswald!’ and then he knows OK, maybe I need to change tack here.
Ever the chef, Tabs cooked us a slap-up breakfast at the foot of the ____ hills on the huge property. Memorable days.
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I sent these images – pinched off the ‘net – to interested friends after I got back. Some of the birds that fluttered down to drink at iMbuzi waterhole in Limpopo-Lipadi reserve in the two hours we sat there. What a feast for the eyes!
Plus, some of the nyonis seen in and around camp:
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I drove back from Botswana in just under 12 hours. It’s been a long time since I did that. Pressure from the kids to get home, so I resolved to keep moving, but overnight with Pierre in Harrismith, or with my folks in Pietermaritzburg if I got sleepy. But I didn’t. I just kept trucking, stopping regularly for a walk and a bite and hot black coffee.
Got a huge welcome when I got in! “Daddy we MISSED you!” No cellphone comms in the bush!
~~oo0oo~~
I wrote to Dave Hill: I haven't told you yet that we had a long discussion about you (rolling cars, Hartebeespoort dam, etc)
He replied: Hi spekkies. I knew it would be dangerous letting you loose with those rubbishes. I bet they were full of heinous lies about me. You of course were mum. . Me again: No! I had nothing but praise. Which they laughed at. Trevor, Pete, Butch and Bruce. Pete and Butch dishing the dirt on you about rolling cars and choking Linda Lovelace. Funny how some things stick in your throat memory. ~~oo0oo~~ .. photographersdirect.com (this site has since disappeared) shutterstock.com (royalty-free thumbnail pics) https://limpopo-lipadi.org/
Aitch learnt the joy of indigenous plants on the Bluff in 1985 when doing her cardio-vascular perfusion-ing at Wentworth hospital. Ian Whitton, friend and cardio-thoracic surgeon, indigenous gardener and nurseryman extraordinaire, piglet-producer, protea grower, pigeon-fancier, erythrina expert and all-round good friend took her under his wing taeching her about Natal trees and birds. She needed it as a Capie new to KwaZulu Natal. She phoned me breathless one day to describe a new bird she had in her binocs: ‘Koos! Its beautiful! It has a yellow beak, its purply-brown with a black head and it has a bright yellow face. (see bottom of post)
– Aitch with TC & Bella; She sure loved her hounds (especially Bella, hey TC!) –
She also learnt from Kenyan, indigenous guru, horticultural landscaper, author, visionary and gardener Geoff Nichols; She collected seeds and swopped them for plants for and from horticulturalist Enver Buckus at Silverglen nursery; She worked for noted colonist, author, canoeist, British apologist, acrylic painter and Last Outpost historian Geoffrey Caruth Esq Duke of Bhivane at his Geoff’s Jungle Indigenous Nursery enthusiastically selling shade plants; She joined BotSoc (now the Biodiversity Society) and got very involved, especially in the annual big plant sale, working with Sandra, Wally Menne, Jean Senogles, Dave Henry, Diane Higginson, etc; She spent fifteen years ‘botanising’ (as they called it) with Barry Porter on his and Lyn’s Hella Hella game farm. We went there at every opportunity. It became our second home. They would roam the farm spotting and photographing plants and flowers with their posteriors pointing at the heavens, occasionally digging up one for culture with Porter’s Powerful Patented Plant Pincher**, a handy device Barry had welded together to make extracting small plants easy and less destructive. Barry taught us to use Eugene Moll’s tree-ID book using leaves to ID the trees of Natal.
Our first property was 7 River Drive Westville, already mostly indigenous thanks to Mike and Yvonne Lello. On the banks of the Mkombaan River, it was paradise unfenced. We rooted out invasives and aliens and planted the right stuff as directed by Geoff Nichols. On his first visit he told me sternly, pointing ‘over there’, to ‘Get rid of that inkberry.’ You know how Geoff is. Right! Sir! A month later on his next site inspection he said ‘You haven’t got rid of that inkberry!’ Oops! True. So I undertook to do it that week.
A few days later I set to with my bow saw, sawing off all the branches and then cutting down the 100mm trunk just above the ground, Then I garlon’d that and composted the bits n pieces. Phew! Done! Finally!
A month later Geoff was back. ‘Who the hell cut down the tassleberry?!’ he bellowed. ‘And you STILL haven’t got rid of the inkberry!’ I never lived that one down. We planted five tassleberries to make up for it. They have male and female trees, so that was best anyway. I am pleased – relieved – to report they did well over the next fifteen years!
Aitch didn’t mind a bit of attention, so when our garden was chosen to be on display for Durban Open Gardens she blossom’d n preened and was in her element! She LOVED showing people around the garden and re-assuring them that it was quite safe* even if it did look a bit wild. In fact she would keep the entrance and pathway to the front door and pool very tame, civilised and trimmed so as not to scare people and put them off wild gardening. The hidden parts of the garden could go wild and host the 112 species of birds we recorded in the garden over the fifteen years we lived there. For 32 of those species we saw nests or fledglings.
– 7 River Drive garages from Burnside (Heather & Gordon Taylor’s place) – the exotics are mostly not ours –
We put in a bird bath outside our bedroom window and plumbed it to a high tap I could reach from my bedroom window to fine-choon as water pressure fluctuated; and left it running with a fine little spray of water for fifteen years. The birds loved it. Me too. The tap is visible against the far wall on the left; the birdbath is hidden behind Jess.
– there’s the high birdbath tap outside my bedroom window –– the bank above the Mkombaan river – me Tom and Neil Humphrey, Aitch’s Dad, kind grandpa to Tom –
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*In fifteen years we saw one Natal Black Snake, two Brown Water Snakes, a few Herald Snakes, a resident House Snake, regular Spotted Bush Snakes, tiny Thread Snakes, a couple of Night Adders, and that was all. None of them really dangerous.
One year we decided to make a large pond by damming a little stream that flowed though our garden into the Mkombaan. It came to be called (by Aitch) ‘Koos’ Folly.’ In my defence, Nichols was involved in the planning. We built a substantial dam wall next to the Voacanga on the bank, covered in bidim felt and strong and long-lasting, creating a deep pond about 8m X 4m in size.
– briefly a pond –
Which the very first flood filled it up to the brim with silt. One shot. Pond now a shallow little mudflat with most of the flow passing under it underground. I learnt: Don’t mess with watercourses.
– should be easy – right? – nope! silted up –
Some murdering had to happen. There was a mango tree in the grasslands and a fiddlewood behind the house. I bow-saw’d and de-barked and felled. Then I garlon’d. That would sort them out. Well, only years later did I finally get rid of the last shoots that kept sprouting. I developed a genuine respect for their kanniedood properties! A massive syringa on the banks of the Mkombaan I just ring-barked and garlon’d. No cutting. Two years later it crashed down across the river, bank-to-bank, forming a bridge you could walk across.
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**Barry also made us a bird feeder, which he called Barry’s Bizarre Balancing Bird Bistro.More about Barry and Lyn here.
– Kiza spoils Jessie – Barry Porter’s Bizarre Balancing Bird Bistro in the background –
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kanniedood – hard to kill; later we planted a kanniedood Commiphora harveyi down where we buried the dogs
