Signs of Life in Estabrook Park

Namibia is for the birds, but in a good way…

We drove from Swakopmund to Omaruru today, in the Erongo Region of central Namibia. It was real foggy in the morning when we left, so we didn’t get a chance to take one more look for wildlife at the Swakop River. The good news, however, is just as we were heading home last evening this little darling hovered right over us long enough that even I could get a nice picture. It’s a rock kestrel (Falco rupicolus), and it’s only found in Africa south of the equator.

On the way to Omaruru today, Anne wanted to stop at the Ameib Guesthouse, which is situated in the Erongo Mountain Nature Sanctuary. We saw a nice group of giraffes along the road as we drove in, and a huge troupe of baboons traveled past on the way to a watering hole, but in my opinion, the birds really stole the show today.

This first gorgeous creature is a rosy-faced lovebird (Agapornis roseicollis). Although they can be found in Phoenix, Arizona and on Maui in Hawaii, they are native to southwestern Africa.

We also met this cutie on the drive in, as it was foraging right on the edge of the road. It’s a double-banded sandgrouse (Pterocles bicinctus) and the first sandgrouse I’ve ever seen, let alone even heard of.

This masterpiece is a swallow-tailed bee-eater (Merops hirundineus) and only the third bee-eater we’ve seen, after the Madagascar bee-eater in Comoros and the blue-cheeked bee-eater in Jordan.

Finally, Deb found us our first woodpecker of the trip. This beauty is a bearded woodpecker (Chloropicus namaquus), and it “is one of the largest woodpeckers in Africa growing to a length of about 25 cm (10 in),” so I guess that made it easier for Deb to find, right?

Tomorrow we’ll look around here, which is right beside the Omaruru River, and then drive back to Windhoek to stay at the Trans Kalahari Inn for one more night. If we find anything pretty or interesting, I’ll be sure to let you know.

A Namibian sampler…

It was another stellar day here in Namibia, and my sister joined me this morning on my search for wildlife near the mouth of the Swakop River, as Anne enjoyed herself a little down time.

This first bird looks sort of like the young great blue herons we often see in Estabrook Park and the grey herons I used to show you in South Holland, but its color scheme is more rufous than blue or grey. Well, that’s because this is the very first purple heron (Ardea purpurea) I’ve ever laid eyes on, and believe me when I say that’s not for lack of trying. Ever since I learned that I could see one in South Holland, I’ve been searching for them, but always came up empty, until today. The whipped cream on top is that I got a few pictures that are not bad, despite it doing its best to stay between me and the sun. The cherry on top is that it is considered “rare” for this location and date. Ha!

As Deb and I strolled back to our lodging in town, I noticed something flitting around a flower on the grounds of some other hotel. If this little cutie looks familiar, that’s because it’s another white-eye, like the one we just saw in Joburg, but this one has “peach-colored underparts”, instead of “gray or green underparts”, and so is an Orange River white-eye (Zosterops pallidus). Sweet!

Now for a little more catching up on the wildlife we got to see in Etosha National Park. This little darling is a yellow mongoose (Cynictis penicillata) that we saw on our first day there.

Here it is again getting a good look around.

Finally, our big activity for today was hiking up Dune 7, which is supposed to be the highest Dune in Namibia and one of the top 10 highest dunes in the world. In any case, the view from the top was fantastic, and it included this little rascal, a shovel-snouted lizard (Meroles anchietae) “also known commonly as Anchieta’s desert lizard, Anchieta’s dune lizard and the Namib sand-diver.” Here it is holding its tail and tootsie toes off the hot sand for a moment.

Lastly, we start our journey back towards Joburg tomorrow, but it’s gonna take us a couple of days, so we expect the amazing new sights to continue for a while.

More Etosha and some Walvis Bay…

It was another fine day in Namibia, and the only driving on the schedule today was just 30 minutes on a paved road down the coast from Swakopmund to Walvis Bay to see its famous lagoon and surrounding wetlands, which “are one of the most important coastal wetlands of southern Africa.”

Before we get to that, however, let me show you a couple more sights from Etosha National Park before I forget about them. This first one came pretty early on Saturday as we were driving ourselves through the park. I was just driving along and trying to stay out of the ruts when suddenly both Anne and Deb shouted at the same time, “Stop, Stop, Stop!” I slammed on the brakes, and once the car had skidded to a stop, I slowly backed it up to find this magnificent creature right at eye-level and just 20 feet off the road. It looks quite similar to the great horned owls, of which we’ve seen a lot in Estabrook Park, but this is our very first spotted eagle-owl (Bubo africanus).

We saw several secretarybirds (Sagittarius serpentarius), but they tended to be out in the field a bit, and the air wiggling over the ground heated by the midday sun really made clear pictures hard, if not impossible, to get. This one, thankfully, found something closer to the road so that I was finally able to get a presentable picture.

This next beauty really needs no introduction, but here are the specifics, just in case. She is a female lion (Panthera leo), and we were lucky enough to be just the second vehicle to come across her resting in the shade maybe 50 feet from the road. As you might imagine, word soon spread that a lion was visible not far from the road, and we were glad to be gone before the crowds showed up. I will give Etosha credit, however, for very strictly enforcing both the “no driving off the roads” and “no getting out of cars” rules.

This stunner, a cape starling (Lamprotornis nitens), was right on the lawn outside the headquarters to grab a drink of water from the leaky irrigation system. Clever bird! I normally don’t crop out parts of birds, as you may have observed, but I was standing so close to this one, that my lens only captured the front half of it. I could have used one of the several other pictures I took, but this one was the crispest, by far, so here we are.

On to Walvis Bay, where the lagoon and wetlands did not disappoint. One of the highlights has to be the huge number of greater flamingos (Phoenicopterus roseus) feeding in the shallow water, but I thought it might be easier to get a sense of the numbers in this shot of them flying by. The image has plenty of resolution in reserve, so if you wanted to click on it so you could zoom in on flickr, it would be worth your while.

Finally, back in Swakopmund, we hiked to the south end of town to see where the Swakop River would empty into the Atlantic, if there was enough water in it. We saw a few nice sights yesterday, including Cape teals, and a three-banded plover, but the highlight of this afternoon was this handsome pair of South African shelducks (Tadorna cana). They are huge ducks, and when we first glimpsed them, I figured that he was an Egyptian goose, which we had seen up at Etosha, and my best guess for her, with that white head, was a hybrid with some white, domestic waterfowl. Thus, you can imagine my joy at discovering that both of my guesses were wrong and they were fine specimens of their very own species instead. Woo hoo!

Tomorrow, we’re scheduled to go check out “Dune 7”, which gets ranked among the top 10 highest sand dunes in the world, so that could be interesting.

Swakopmund to the rescue!

As I hope you have already surmised, the internet was out again yesterday, at the otherwise wonderful Mondjila Safari Camp. The good news is that we had two great days in the Etosha National Park, and then we drove southwest today to Swakopmund, on the Atlantic coast and the second largest city in Namibia, and the internet appears to be working just fine here.

The driving has been fascinating. We’ve been on gravel roads a lot, we got a flat in Etosha, just as we were hustling to get out of the park before they locked the gates at sunset, and we got a nice chip in the windshield as an oncoming truck barreled passed us on a gravel road today. We should definitely have sprung for the extra windshield and tire insurance they offered. Oh well.

Anyway, the wildlife continues to be amazing, and here’s a darling pririt batis, pririt puff-back flycatcher, or just pririt puffback (Batis pririt) that was just outside our cabin in Windhoek before we drove up to Etosha. I saw one there, too, but this picture is definitely the best of the bunch.

When we first arrived at the Mondjila Safari Camp, we were warned that driving could be tough in the park, and so we accepted the offered guided safari ride on fancy seats in the back of a pickup truck. We saw rhinos, giraffes, elephants, zebras, and wildebeests, of which I’m sure you’ve already seen plenty of pictures, but a favorite of mine was this black-backed jackal (Lupulella mesomelas) that Deb spotted as the guide drove right by.

One of the most common birds in the park, besides little brown birds pecking at seeds and gravel on the roads, were these gorgeous black-winged kites (Elanus caeruleus), of which we saw at least a dozen.

Back at the camp, as I tried for a repeat of the owlet encounter, I came across this tiny Anchieta’s agama or western rock agama (Agama anchietae), instead. I’d say its body was about the size of my middle finger, and it seemed sleepy. I had to time my shots for the moments when it opened its eye.

Finally, the most colorful sight in Etosha has to be the lilac-breasted roller (Coracias caudatus). I’ve had the good luck to show you one before, from Malawi, but it was pretty far away and backlit, so it’s hard to see all the colors, but the beauty below was posing right next to the road and in good light, so you can get a better sense of how amazing they are.

Lastly, I have a ton more to show you, but we had a long drive today, and I’ve gotta hit the sack. We’ll be here for a couple of nights, so I should be able to start chipping away at the backlog.

Kshhh Namibia shhh wifi bzzz…

We had a nice drive yesterday from Windhoek north to the fabulous Mondjila Safari Camp, which is just 30km south of Etosha National Park. Unfortunately, the wifi was out. Today, we had a great visit to the park, and now the wifi is back on, but it is slow and unsteady. Thus, I only get to show you one picture from the past two days, and this is it.

I was walking from the dining area to our cabin yesterday afternoon, and thank goodness I thought to bring my camera with me, just in case. As I strolled along the little path, I saw something streaky flit up into a tree right in front of me, and I thought I could see where it landed. I didn’t have my binoculars with me, so I tried to use my camera to find it, and when I looked through the viewfinder, I could hardly believe my eyes. In fact, I looked around my camera with my bare eyes again, because I couldn’t imagine how this amazing scene could be in that tree. If Anne and Deb had taped a picture onto the front of my camera to play a trick on me, that would be more believable.

Anyway, here it is, my very first pearl-spotted owlet (Glaucidium perlatum), and I don’t think it is much bigger than an American robin.

We get to go back to Etosha tomorrow and drive ourselves around, so I’m sure we’ll see more amazing sights, and I sure hope the wifi is working when we get back. Keep your fingers crossed.

Greetings from Namibia!

We flew from Johannesburg, South Africa to Windhoek, Namibia today, and when we got to our lodging at the Trans Kalahari Inn, there was still plenty of daylight, so we strolled around the grounds to see who else might be here.

Things were quiet at first, but eventually this character popped up to sing us a pretty little tune. If you’re thinking “bulbul“, you’re exactly right, and we’ve seen them plenty of times before. That red ring around its eye, however, makes it a black-fronted bulbul (Pycnonotus nigricans), aka red-eyed bulbul, which is only found here, in the southwestern corner of Africa. That pays for the trip right there, don’t you think?

As the sun got closer to the horizon, other birds started making noise, and the raucous “GWAAAAY” of this handsome devil makes him the onomatopoeically-named gray go-away-bird (Crinifer concolor). We saw a few in South Africa, but it was pretty rainy there during our stay, and the tufts on their heads weren’t quite as puffed up as this one.

We had a little time before we had to leave for the airport in Joburg this morning, so we strolled around the hotel grounds, as I do, and things got exciting when a flight of three African sacred ibises (Threskiornis aethiopicus) landed right on the hotel roof to preen. They’re a little spooky-looking, aren’t they?

Finally, here’s one more picture from Pilanesberg National Park. There’s a little lake in the middle, and someone spotted a turtle on a log pretty far out on the water. Thank goodness they didn’t have canoes for us to paddle out for a closer look, because THAT’S NOT A LOG! If you look closely, you can see that the left end of the “log” has the eyes and ears of a common hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius), the deadliest mammal in Africa. Oh, and the turtle is some type of terrapin, possibly a serrated hinged terrapin (Pelusios sinuatus).

Tomorrow, we drive north to Etosha National Park, which is famous for being just about the only source of water for wildlife in the area, so we should get to see some critters, if our luck holds.

Pilanesberg National Park!

This is gonna have to be quick, because it’s been a long day, it’s already late, and I am beat. As I mentioned yesterday, Anne booked us a safari for today at the fabulous Pilanesberg National Park, and it’s gonna take me days to sort through all the pictures I took, so here’s a tiny sample to give you just a taste of the place.

We saw both red-billed and yellow-billed hornbills, and this southern red-billed hornbill (Tockus rufirostris) let me have the nicer picture.

Mammals were pretty well represented there, and here’s one of several impala (Aepyceros melampus) we saw.

With all those mammals, I would have been surprised if we didn’t see any oxpeckers, and here’s one of the red-billed variety (Buphagus erythroryncha).

And, in case you don’t recognize the pattern on that “ox”, here’s a look at her face.

Finally, there were a lot of landfowl, including guinea fowl, spurfowl, and a francolin, but the one that impressed me the most was this kori bustard (Ardeotis kori), “the largest flying bird native to Africa.” The average weight of 20 males sampled in Namibia was 25 lb. “Yikes!”

Tomorrow’s another travel day, already, but I have a hope of finally getting to check out the hotel grounds before we head out in the morning. If I even have a fraction of the luck I had today, I won’t need you to wish me any.

Greetings from South Africa!

After 27 hours of travel, including stops at JFK and Nairobi, we finally arrived at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, South Africa this afternoon. Woo hoo! Even better, the area between the terminal and the shuttlebus zone was quite nicely landscaped with trees, plants, and a bit of lawn, so there was plenty to see while we waited for our hotel shuttle to arrive.

We spotted this little cutie before we had even reached the shuttlebus zone, and long-time readers might recognize it right away as a wagtail, but which one? I was thrilled to discover that it is my very first Cape wagtail (Motacilla capensis). Yippee!

By the time we found a spot to park for the wait, and I got my gear out, there was another little bird flitting around, who looked a bit like a house sparrow, but upon closer inspection, there’s more black on the head, face, and neck, and none of it is mottled, the way it is on a house sparrow’s neck, and that’s because this is my very first Cape sparrow (Passer melanurus). Hurray!

I eventually made it to the patch of lawn, where I actually took the two pictures above, and there was yet a third surprise also foraging there. The beak says “finch”, but it appears that they don’t make a “Cape finch”, so this one is my first ever red-headed finch (Amadina erythrocephala). Holy smokes!

I started to hear a little, high-pitched chirp in the tree growing above the lawn, and a brief search turned up this striking little foliage-gleaner, which resumes the parade of birds with “Cape” in their names, with Cape white-eye (Zosterops virens), a fourth first for me. Ach du Lieber!

Finally, I did manage to spot a bird I’ve shown you before, this common bulbul, which I first saw in Malawi. Phew!

Well, I’ve gotta wrap this up because Anne’s got us scheduled to leave for a safari in a nearby national park at 5:30 am, and I could sure as heck use some beauty sleep after that flight.

Here we go again…

It’s gonna be a long day of planes, trains, and automobiles, not necessarily in that order, so I’m afraid I won’t have any new pictures for you today, either. Instead, here are a couple of birds I hope to see again when we finally reach our destination.

Hamerkop

Violet-backed starling

My sister is joining us for this leg of the trip, so I’ve got two great spotters with me, and I’m thinking my chances will be pretty good.

Just enough to be better than nothin’, or so I hope…

Well, the wet weather we’ve been enjoying in Wisconsin lately must have followed us to Connecticut, because it rained on-and-off all morning here. If I were home and had dry shoes I could switch into, I would have gone out in it, but I’m traveling light, so that wasn’t an option.

Instead, Anne, my siblings, and I hiked up Sleeping Giant this afternoon, and we did hear a few birds, but they must have been waiting for their feathers to dry out before they came out of hiding, because I don’t think I saw a one.

Thus, I’m reduced to recycling this old picture from when I was out here in 2024. It’s a tufted titmouse, which you may not recognize because I’ve only ever managed to show you pictures of them when I’m traveling. One of these days, one of these little stinkers will let me have a look at them in Estabrook Park, and that will be glorious, but until that day comes, we’ll just have to suffer through with this.