Visit to south western Africa

Having been evacuated from Libya, I treated myself to a birding holiday in Botswana and Namibia at the end of March and the beginning of April.


My streak of bad luck continued as I was mugged in Windhoek and relieved of my camera two days before the end of my holiday. This was not good news for my birding records, this blog or the Namibian tourist board!


I had intended to produce six blogs or so, complete with wonderful pictures of habitat and birds. Now I am condensing all I saw into one blog for the record. Shame!


Armed with a new camera, the next blogs will be on Bulgarian birds in my neighbourhood. There will be plenty of pictures I promise you.




Birding philosophy
Despite my misfortune I really enjoyed my trip and I saw over 60 "lifers" (marked * in the table below). I could have added many more species to my list if I had employed a different strategy but my approach is usually to stay in one area for days rather than gad around chasing numbers. My philosophy is to treat an area as if it was my local patch. My belief is that I am more likely to remember the new birds I see by birding this way. By-the-by its also a cheaper way of birding!


Travel and accommodation tips
Nevertheless you can't go to south west Africa for a cheap birding holiday. The travel costs from Europe are going to be of the order of 1500 euro whatever happens. 


My birding was in the Okavango delta near Maun, Botswana, near Windhoek, Namibia and on the road to Swakopmund, Namibia.


I flew to Maun via Frankfurt and Windhoek while most people fly via Johannesburg. My experience of Jo'burg airport in the past has been very bad. Its the only airport in the world where I have lost my baggage. This was along with all passengers (going to Dar e salam) in a baggage handlers scam. I avoid the place at all costs!


Birding in Botswana like all tourism in the country is for the rich or at least that's what the government want. They don't want mass tourism and they make it difficult for middle income people (like me) to bird there. I understand the desire to maintain the environment by limiting tourist numbers. However it is possible for people like me to go there if you are clever!  Accommodation within the national parks in side the buffalo fence is incredibly expensive. People typically pay 300 euro a night for a lodge and 40 euro a night for a tent pitch. It's because the government charges a fortune for a concession and the hotels have to pass the charge on.


My trick was to stay in a place which was just outside the national park area but which was still in the Okavango. I stayed at Backpacker's, Old Bridge, Maun. The accommodation is the same quality as the national park lodges but it costs less than ONE TENTH of the price! The habitat is very similar to the national park area too and I believe the birding is just as good.

hippo pool from Backpackers, Maun

Furthermore, many local people use the hotel bar so it has a real community feel rather than a tourist place like the lodges.  The web address is http://www.maun-backpackers.com/  

a typical tent at Backpackers' Maun

My accommodation in Namibia was not so brilliant but was adequate - mostly at the Protea hotel in Winghoek.


Birding in the Okavango
I birded a small patch from the old bridge over the Boro river. I intensively visited the river valley up to 3 kilometres south and 3 kilomtres north on foot and up to 20 kilometres north by boat (up to the buffalo fence). I have no regrets about this.


You didn't need  to leave the grounds of the hostel itself to see plenty of birds. The hippo pool was full of pied kingfisher and african jacana. There were three types of dove in the yard - cape turtle dove, african mourning dove and laughing dove.The most common bird there was arguably burchell's starling. The most interesting was probably a pair of swamp boubou regularly up in the trees near the bar. There was a very relaxed family of arrow marked babbler resident in the hotel gardens too.


Very near-by you could here and see a variety of herons and their relatives- grey heron, purple heron ,black crowned night heron, african openbill, hamerkop and cattle egret.


The small birds included different types of waxbill and finch as well as their nest parasites. Examples included blue waxbill (southern cordonbeau) a cousin of the red cheeked cordonbleu I saw in Senegal.


It made me feel at home to see several western palearctic migrants - European bee-eater,  spotted flycatcher, red backed shrike and a lone wood sandpiper which frequented everyday a pool very close to the hostel.


Two birds particularly interested me for totally different reasons. The first one was african fish eagle which gave me a prolonged show from the top of the tallest tree in the area.The second was a pair of rosy faced love bird.


After showing the pictures at the hostel to guides and locals there was a big debate. They knew it is not a local bird. Its range is charted to come no closer than the Namibian border 200 kilometres away. One hotel worker had seen 3 the week before for the first time in his life. Others had never seen them near Maun. Rosy faced love bird is a popular cage bird and my observation will suffer the same fate as that of all attractive birds found outside of their known range. It will go down as an "escape". However I would love to know if anyone else has seen them between Maun and the Namibian border. Its ironic really because I didn't see any in Namibia.


Birding in Windhoek
In Namibia I spent much of my time in a rural area which intrudes very close to the centre of Windhoek. It was here I was eventually mugged. Apparently the spot it happened is a favourite vantage point for people to photograph the city and muggings of cameras are not uncommon - particularly on Sunday mornings when the city (except for the townships) is largely deserted. 


I liked this location alot before the incident. It is dense savanna on hillsides. There were new species every time I visited.  There were plenty of waxbills and finches including violet eared waxbill. There were also very large numbers of white browed sparrow weaver. See the table below. 


It was a very good place to see sunbirds. More accurately one particular flower (don't know the name) was like a magnet for them. I identified three species - amethyst sunbird, scarlet chested sunbird and marico sunbird. Possibly my biggest regret on losing my camera was losing their pictures along with those of a mystery sunbird. This one was dark and which gave occasional flashes of orange. I dint get a chance to take it back to compare with the book but it looked very like an orange tufted sunbird. The only problem with this ID is that Windhoek is 300 kilometres south of its charted range. However in all honesty nothing else comes close to matching what I saw. 


Prize for the most striking bird went to crimson breasted shrike (gonolek)


Road to Swakopmund
I had one day out to Swakopmund.  This involved driving west out of Windhoek to the coast. The habitat becomes drier and drier. The terrain slowly changes from Savanna through Sahel to desert (Kalahari). However it has rained exceptionally hard in Namibia this year - perhaps a record - so a great deal of the desert had been converted into grassland. En route I saw a small number of new species including my first namaqua dove near a river bed and a distant brown snake eagle on a tree top. In the semi desert and grassland I came acorss large numbers of pink billed lark


In Swakopmund itself I came to realise that sparrow identification is more difficult down there. There are more species to choose from! As well as house sparrow I saw my first great sparrow and cape sparrow. The three species were often in mixed flocks too.


Along the coast there were plenty of sunbathers who may have dissuaded many birds from using the shore. However I did see several ruddy turnstone in breeding plumage (I have only seen them in winter plumage in Libya and Morocco before). Two cape cormorant were resting and I saw a lone great white pelican flying north. Cape gull were all around.  


See the table for my full list. Following my visit to Senagal last August, I believe I am just beginning to get a reasonable feel for Afrotropical birds. I have an ambition to understand two world regions - western palearctic and Afrotropics. I rally can't believe there are people in the world that can have a good knowledge of more than two? Am I right or just jealous?


The next blog will be on local birds in my Bulgarian village  - complete with pictures!  Lets see how the birds have changed since my last blog on them around Christmas.

Bird	Boro river valley, Maun	Windhoek near Anderson Road	Swakopmund
Cape cormorant *			x
African darter *	x
Reed cormorant	x
Hamerkop *	x
Purple heron	x
Grey heron	x
Cattle egret	x
Black crowned night heron	x
Great white pelican			x
African openbill*	x
Fulvous duck	x
White faced duck *	x
African fish eagle *	x
Brown snake eagle *			x
Helmeted guinea fowl	x	x
Red billed spurfowl *	x
Black crake	x
Common moorhen	x
African jacana	x
Water thick-knee *	x
Blacksmith lapwing *	x
Black winged stilt	x
Whimbrel	x
Wood sandpiper	x
Ruddy turnstone			x
Cape gull *			x
African mourning dove *	x
Cape turtle dove *	x
Laughing dove	x	x	x
Emerald spotted wood dove *	x
Namaqua dove *			x
Rosy faced lovebird *	x
Grey go-away bird *	x	x
Levaillant’s cuckoo *	x
Senegal coucal	x
African palm swift *		x
Little swift		x
White backed mousebird *		x	x
Red faced mousebird *	x	x	x
Woodland kingfisher	x
Pied kingfisher	x
Southern carmine bee-eater *	x
Swallow tailed bee-eater *		x
Little bee-eater	x
European bee-eater	x
Southern red-billed hornbill *	x
Acacia pied barbet *	x	x
Pink billed lark *			x
Barn swallow	x
Cape wagtail *		x (in city centre)	x
Fork tailed drongo *	x	x
Carp’s tit *		x
Black faced babbler*	x
Arrow marked babbler *	x
Southern pied babbler *	x
Dark capped bulbul *	x
African red eyed bulbul *		x
Kurrichane thrush *	x
White browed scrub robin *		x
Zitting cisticola		x
Marico flycatcher *	x	x	x
Spotted flycatcher	x
African paradise flycatcher *	x
Pririt Batis *		x
Chinspot batis *	x
Red backed shrike	x
Common fiscal *	x	x
Swamp boubou *	x
Crimson breasted shrike *		x
Greater blue eared starling	x
Burchell’s starling *	x
Cape glossy starling *		x
Amethyst sunbird *		x
Scarlet chested sunbird*	x	x
Marico sunbird*		x
Orange tufted sunbird?		x
House sparrow		x	x
Great sparrow*			x
Cape sparrow*			x
Red headed finch*	x
Scaly feathered finch*	x
White browed sparrow weaver*		x	x
Sociable weaver*			x
Southern masked weaver*		x
Red billed quelea			x
Red billed fire finch	x
Blue waxbill*	x	x
Violet eared waxbill*		x
Black faced waxbill*	x	x
Village indigo bird	x
Eastern paradise whydah*	x
Yellow canary*	x	x
Black throated canary*		x
Cinnamon breasted rock bunting*		x