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“Drive to the North” Though South Africa An Dear Birdos4Eric, You might recall that I last left you as I was completing my “drive to the north” though South Africa and into the heart of Namibia with my wife Susan and friends Bob and Hanno Lewis in a Toyota Fortuner that turned out to have two-wheel drive rather than the four-wheel we had thought it had (since much of the drive was on dirt roads, we had been counting on that 4X4). My GGAS trip with Birding Ecotours began in Walvis Bay, located aBout halfway up Namibia’s coast (it’s south of one of Namibia’s most famous geographic regions, the Skeleton Coast, named for all of the ships that wrecked upon that coast over the centuries.) Alas, Susan would be leaving us here, but we were being joined by three people on the tour—Cynthia, Dave, and Peter (Peter being Bob and Hanno’s friend, a superb photographer). The others had all come in a day early, so we were able to begin birding early, led by our guide, Dominic Rollinson from Birding Ecotours, who was driving a very comfortable Mercedes minibus. The trip started at Walvis Bay because of the huge concentrations of water birds in the bay itself and the nearly lagoons. The morning’s excursion was to the salt pans south of town to look for shorebirds. But first up were the flamingos. If you’ve ever visited the San Diego Zoo, you’ll know its famous flamingo exhibit—two or three dozen American Flamingos. You can see them up close, and because of the beta-carotene in the shrimp they eat, their color is just gorgeous. But what looks like a large number in Southern California turns out to be a tiny flock in Namibia. Not only does Namibia have two species of flamingo—Greater and Lesser—but it also has each in large numbers. Bob estimated we saw 4,000 Greaters and 2,000 Lessers. That’s a LOT of flamingos! Guide Dominic Rollinson and our van Lesser Flamingo Greater Flamingo Photo by Bob Lewis Photo by Bob Lewis The shorebirds were also pretty impressive that morning. Many familiar ones—stilts, avocets, godwits, turnstones, sandpipers, and stints—but also a couple of new plovers, a White-fronted (a year bird) and a Chestnut-banded (a life bird.) There was also a Grey-hooded Gull (another year bird) and Arctic Terns (another life bird.) We saw 30 species that morning, and on the drive back, I got a good look at what makes the salt pans so special—a mountain of salt created by the salt works that harvests this local natural resource. 1 Kittlitz’s Plover Chestnut-banded Plover Mountain of Salt Photo by Bob Lewis In the afternoon we left the coast and headed towards the dry interior to see dunes reminiscent of the ones we had seen further south in Namibia at Sossusvlei. This was one reason I had looked forward to the GGAS trip: we were going to see diverse (and different colored) ecosystems in Namibia, starting at the blue Atlantic Coast, moving inland to the red dunes, continuing on to the brown rocky interior mountains, next to the vast arid yellow expanses of Etosha National Park, and finally to the green Okavango riparian system. This current venture to the dunes was to look for the REAL Dune Lark. A few days earlier near Sossusvlei, our guide Markus had pointed out a Dune Lark. Bob snapped an excellent photo of the bird, but later, having a good look at it, he wasn’t happy. In his words, our bird “lacked the rich warm tones” of the bird depicted in the field guide. Since the Dune Lark is Namibia’s only endemic bird, it was important to get it right. (It turned out the bird he photographed earlier wasn’t even a lark—when Dom saw the picture, he was emphatic: “Chat Flycatcher.” After an hour’s drive, dunes loomed in the distance. Though not as tall as the ones at Sossusvlei, they were big suckers. Dom quickly assured us we wouldn’t have to climb them. We parked and headed out into the desert scrub. After about ten minutes of walking, Dom saw larks moving up ahead of us. These larks mostly scurried about on the ground but occasionally would undertake short flights. Dune Lark. We were more than close enough to see their rich warm tones. Beautiful. (Unlike those drab Chat-flycatchers!) The wannaBe Dune Lark (in reality, Chat-flycatcher) The real thing—Dune Lark, NamiBia’s only endemic Photos by Bob Lewis 2 On the next morning we were back in Walvis Bay, setting out on a boat trip. Our targets here were actually mammals: Cape Fur Seals and the Heaviside’s Dolphin, a cetacean restricted to Africa’s southwest coast. The seals showed up even before we left the harbor. There’s a small community of them that were orphaned when young, rescued, and now make their home at the dock. One of them hopped up onto to the boat (not a small feat for a creature weighing up to 650 pounds!) where he was promptly given a fish for his trouble, then encouraged to hop back off as we pushed off. It seems like the orphans make a good living from the Walvis Bay tour boats. We were only minutes away from the wharf when a Great White Pelican showed up and landed on the railing at the front end of the boat. (These pelicans are aptly named—they are certainly white, but more impressive is the “great” part—they are a little bit larger than our own American White Pelicans. But I don’t usually see our own pelicans this close.) The bird, too, had come for a fish—and he was rewarded with several. Great White Pelican Pelican Snack Pelican Close-up (mayBe too close?) After going out on a pelagic trip to the Farallon Islands with Alvaro Jaramillo at the beginning of August, I found the birds on this boat ride a bit of a come-down. We did get looks at a Wilson’s Storm-Petrel flying away from us and four Cape Gannets on a flyover. But the area’s specialty bird, the Damara Tern, didn’t turn up (or tern up). Wilson’s Storm-Petrel Cape Gannet Photos by Bob Lewis But, boy, do they have a lot of Atlantic Fur Seals in Namibia—the boat guides like to tell you that there are more seals in Namibia that people (Namibia’s population is 2.5 million). We saw 3 thousands of fur seals, probably even tens of thousands, and at one point it seemed like you could smell all 2.5+ million of them. But the celebrity cetacean, the Heaviside’s Dolphin, like the tern, was a no-show. Fur Seal on boat Fur Seals where they belong The next morning we left the coast and headed inland, once again to the Namib Desert. After a couple of hours driving, we could see our first destination in the distance, Spitzkoppe. In Afrikaans the word means “pointed head.” Given its unflattering literal meaning, it’s no wonder that the tallest of these granite peaks that rise dramatically from the flat Namib desert has been nicknamed the “Matterhorn of Namibia.” The formation is dramatic, and we hoped to find some special birds in the area. The Spitzkoppen Range—Can you pick out the Matterhorn of NamiBia? In particular, we were looking for the Herero Chat and the White-tailed Shrike, both birds with fairly restricted ranges. We quickly found several old friends at Spitzkoppe, including the Mountain Wheatear and the Southern Ant-eater Chat. The day proved to be a study in black and white since many of the birds we saw were either all black or pied. Within minutes, Dom was excited. He had a pair of White-tailed Shrikes on the cliff face in front of us. Soon all of us were on the target bird. Next up were the chats. Bob, Hanno, and I had seen the Southern Ant-eater Chat earlier on the trip at Bushmanskloof, but it was new for the others. And then Dom spotted the Herero Chat (brown and white rather than black and white); this bird is a near-endemic in Namibia, occurring also in only a very small range in Angola. 4 White-tailed Shrike Mountain Wheatear Common ScimitarBill Black-chested Snake-Eagle Photo by Bob Lewis Photo by Bob Lewis Photo by Bob Lewis Photo by Peter Hawrylyshyn That night and the next we stayed at Erongo Bird Lodge. Located in the Erongo Mountains, it’s a beautifully situated camp amidst huge boulders. It doesn’t have large numbers of species, but it’s got some good ones, chief amongst them being the Rockrunner. Since Dom has taken me to see a Rockjumper in Cape Town, I was eager to get the Rockrunner, and we quickly picked up this bird the next morning. It was very cooperative, and Bob and Peter had a contest to see who could get the best photo. (This competition was so intense that I couldn’t choose between them, so you get to look at my picture of the Rockrunner below. Sorry!) The Camp at Erongo Rockrunner In the afternoon we went looking for Rüppell’s Parrot, a bird I’d been hoping to see since my first trip to Africa. We took along Deon, the lodge’s birding guide. He warned us that he hadn’t seen it in three months.
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