The House Crow

One of the first things you notice in Dar es Salaam is the House Crow.  This introduced species from India has almost taken over the city.  Apart from House Sparrows and Feral Pigeons it is virtually the only bird species seen in urban areas.  Only on the coast and in leafy suburbs like Msasani with large houses and gardens do you start to find a few other species.  The House Crows compete with all other animals for food and nest sites.  They also directly predate nests of native birds.  I don't know the how, when or where of the introduction but my field guide, getting on for 10 years old now - shows House Crows only along the coastal strip from Mombasa in Kenya to about Dar es Salaam and not far inland.  They have certainly reached Morogoro, some 180 km inland, where they are competing with Pied Crows and White-naped Ravens.

A murder of House Crows, Dar es Salaam

Over the last few days while staying in a hotel near VSO in Msasani we have been woken before dawn by the combination of roosters crowing and House Crows cawing. Our walk to VSO each morning and to dinner each evening has taken us along busy Kimweri Avenue.  Here there are no footpaths and we are constantly dodging puddles, little rubbish fires, potholes, cooking stoves, street vendors, parked cars and the crazy traffic of cars, trucks, daladalas, tuktuks, pikipikis and bicycles.  The only birds to be seen are the feral three plus chickens.

Yesterday I was looking at Google Maps and saw that there is a parallel road we could take so today we did - just for a change of scenery.  Uganda Avenue is a bit higher, unsealed and further inland than our normal route.  It is also almost devoid of traffic and the other hazards.  It passes the large hospital grounds and many large properties with grand houses and gardens.  Suddenly there were native birds.  We saw Kingfishers, Rollers, Mousebirds, Cordonbleu, Swallows, Sunbirds, Weavers, Indigobirds and others not identified.  Two of the three Kingfishers were new to me - the Mangrove and Grey-headed.  The third species - Striped Kingfisher - we had seen several times near VSO but today we saw four together in a Baobab tree making a great deal of noise and doing this weird display at each other.  Each bird would lean back and open its wings to flash the underwing pattern to a rival.  Quite funny to see but no doubt very serious business to them.

I've heard that there is a large project about to begin to cull the House Crows from Dar.  No doubt complete elimination will be impossible but the work in Canberra with Indian Mynahs suggests that a sustained effort will have great benefits to the native birds which will quickly come back.

All the more reason why House Crows that turn up from time to time in Australia should be culled.

Thursday 29 July, Dar es Salaam

Birding with a Norwegian, a tragedy and a wedding

A message I posted on the Tanzanian birding email list resulted in an invitation from a young Norwegian chap - Ole Tobias.  Ole has spent much of his life in east Africa - notably Ethipoia and Uganda.  He is in Tanzania working on banana pest insects and some conservation projects.

Ole picked me up on his motorbike and we headed off to Mindu Dam to the north(?) of town.  This is the water supply for Morogoro but is also surrounded by villages with people using the water for a range of outer purposes. The shore is covered with extensive high reed beds and adjacent dense woodland.  We spent a couple of hours here late in the afternoon and saw some good birds.

While waiting for Ole I also managed a couple of nice birds in the Botanical Gardens adjacent to the Agricultural University.  One was the quite stunning little Variable Sunbird with a rich, yellow belly and a green/blue/purple, iridescent head and back.  The females were more brightly coloured than most sunbirds as well.  The other species here were Cut-throat Finch and White-browed Scrub-robin.  The finches were two adults feeding two fledged young.

At the lake Ole and I notched up Purple and Black-headed Herons, Little Egret, African Jacana, Long-tailed Cormorant, Black and "Yellow-billed" Kites, an unseasonal Osprey, Pied, Malachite and Brown-hooded Kingfishers and Golden Weavers.  We then moved into the forest and after a quiet period the birds became more active and we started getting a few nice bush birds.  No new ones for me but nice to see Arrow-marked Babbler, Yellow-breasted Apalis, African Paradise Flycatcher (female), Black Cuckooshrike (male) and Emerald-spotted Wood-Dove.  The wood doves had been frustrating us as they were calling all around us but wouldn't show.  Eventually we found several feeding in a fall vegetable garden patch and had good views of several adults and immature birds.

Brown-hooded Kingfisher

We headed back into town with 22 species seen.  Not a huge haul but it was great to be out in the field doing proper birding for the first time since arriving in Tanzania.

As we hit the busy outskirts of Morogoro the traffic suddenly came to a stop and we saw lots of people lining both sides of the road ahead.  We had arrived just after a pedestrian had chanced his luck against the traffic and lost his life.  Very grisly and I hope not to see anything like this again in Africa or elsewhere.

As I write it is Sunday evening and we are back in Dar for a week.  There were several stuff-ups with our hotel rooms and we are in a new hotel close to VSO tonight.  Not sure where we will be tomorrow.  This is not as nice as the Econolodge where we were before.  At the moment we are two stories up on a balcony overlooking the courtyard function room and a wedding reception is about to start.  The music is pumping out (really heave duff-duff).  How long do muslim wedding receptions go on?  I guess we will find out.  I just hope they don't do the shooting into the air thing.

Jenny has her motorbike training this week.  I will try to arrange to get half our luggage sent by bus because we won't be able to take it all on the planes on Saturday.  Otherwise I don't know what to do with my week.  Maybe I'll try to hook up with a local birder.  I'll let you know what happens in any case.

One last thing - I bought a book today - "Kiongozi cha ndege wa Tanzania".  It's a colour photo book with 291 Tanzanian bird species covered.  It's all in Swahili so I reckon it will be great for my vocal and grammar skills.

Sunday 25 July, Dar es Salaam

Addendum

The wedding reception thumped on deafeningly until 12:45 am followed by a couple of hours of noisy clearing up.  I'm feeling a bit fragile this morning.

Monday 26 July, Dar es Salaam

Safari to Mikuni National Park

Today we all went to Mikumi NP for an african wildlife experience.  The park straddles the highway about 90 minutes drive west of Morogoro.  It is not large by some standards but is contiguous with the huge Selous Game Reserve to the south.

Up early because the daladala was arriving at 5am.  We got to the park gate about 7am and had until about 1:30pm.  At the entrance we paid our $20US to get in and drove around in our daladala with a park guide.As I said yesterday - only Jenny and I and one other volunteer had experienced african wildlife before so very soon everyone was going crazy with sightings of giraffes, zebras, buffalo, wildebeest, impala, warthog, baboon.  Lots of jumping from one side of the bus to the other with cameras and binoculars.

The highlights were two separate sightings of lions.  At the first there were two lions resting after consuming most of a large mammal.  The remains attracted a few vultures, then a few more and then dozens - three different species and a Marabou Stork.

One the way home we drove through lots of small rural villages and it was fascinating to see all the various activities going on.  Everyone had a great time and we were all exhausted when we got back to our rooms. 

Jenny and I managed to get some good photos.  Mine are on flickr - www.flickr.com/photos/bukoba_steve/  Check out Jenny's on her blog as well.

Birds were plentiful and I saw some new ones.  I also missed a few that were impossible to identify from the moving bus.  Highlights were Black-chested Snake-Eagle, Bateleur, Buff-crested Bustard, Namaqua Dove, Lilac-breasted Roller, Southern Ground-Hornbill, Long-tailed Fiscal, Magpie Shrike, Superb Starling, White-browed Sparrow-Weaver and Orange-winged Pytilia.

Another week of class coming up, then back to Dar for Jenny's motorbike training (not sure what I will do during that time).  Then, finally we will head for Bukoba.  Not sure if I've mentioned this but we apparently have a nice 2 bedroom house on he hill to the south of town overlooking Lake Victoria.

Week 1 language training, market, cooking … and some birds

Saturday night now.  We've had a very busy week with our language training.  So far we have learned lots of expressions, verbs, nouns, tenses, negatives etc.  I'm really struggling to retain the words in memory .  Jenny and a few of the others are brilliant.  The logic of the sentence construction is fine and I can do the exercises but can't pull the right words out on demand.  I suspect I never will but will settle for getting by with the correct, polite greetings and having enough command to get the shopping done.

Benjamin and Pepe are excellent teachers and bring in lots of the culture of the country.  It's interesting how different they say Tanzanian culture is from Kenyan!  Yesterday we wound up the week with a session on food (fruit and vegetables, spices, meat, cooking utensils, traditional charcoal stoves and methods of cooking some typical meals such as pilau with chicken, ugali (stiff maize porridge), coconut rice and the local spinach (greens).  Then we were all given a task to carry out in swahili at the market.

The market is a crazy bustling place with heaps of small fruit and veg stalls etc.  Lots of touts selling everything from plastic carry bags to rat poison.  My task was to buy maize flour for making ugali and to check the price of potatoes at several stalls.  Jenny had to buy five bananas and ask where they were grown.  We managed our tasks with minimal drama but it all takes so much longer than just grabbing stuff at Safeway.  The people are all patient and nice and have enough English so we can muddle through.  I suspect I was ripped off with the flour but I wasn't confident enough with my haggling words.  For those interested: 1 kg of potatoes cost 500 shillings - about A$0.40.  Jenny's five bananas cost about 8c each.  I paid 80 cents for my 1/2 kg of maize flour - probably double the going rate.

This morning we had great fun cooking all our ingredients into several different dishes.  Lots of strange utensils to use instead of the modern conveniences we have at home.  I plucked my first chicken.  The chooks here are delicious but there's not much meat on them.  We ate our food for lunch and it mostly looked and tasted like the food the nuns have been serving up.  So far no-one is crook.  Apparently previous groups have had some issues.

Birds are not plentiful or particularly diverse here.  I've also had few opportunities for birding.  Recently I've added Northern Grey-headed Sparrow, Black Crake, African Yellow Weaver, Thick-billed Weaver, Spectacled Weaver, Black-headed Heron and Swallow-tailed Bee-eater.

On Sunday we are all getting up at 0500 for a 2 hour drive to Mikumi National Park.  We'll have about 6 hours in the park and have been promised elephants, zebras, giraffes, hippos, lions etc.  I hope to dramatically increase my bird list then as well.  Only three of us have seen African wildlife before so it will be fun.  I'll post a special report on the trip next week.

Morogoro language training course

Bus trip to Morogoro

Saturday afternoon we caught the bus to Morogoro.  We were all, I think, keen to get out of chaotic Dar.  Most of us ventured further afield from the hotel for breakfast looking for something more interesting than the fruit, toast and coffee we'd been served every day.  Jenny and I found a place that did juice and eggs.  Yum!

The road to the bus station was a continuous array of small businesses

Internet and a bit of last minute shopping killed the time until 1pm when a minibus arrived to take us to the main Dar bus station.  I think we must have just missed a bus because we had to wait in the sun for an hour or so until ours came along.  The bus station was busy and bustling but seemed well organised.  Our tickets were for particular seats and all the volunteers were up the front - all the better to see the oncoming traffic.  The highway out to the edge of Dar was very busy and slow but we enjoyed the often unusual sights out the window as we passed through continuous markets.  Eventually we reached open country and for the next couple of hours made good speed to Morogoro.  There were lots of very slow (probably greatly overloaded) trucks and slow old cars that needed to be passed.  Our driver was quite good and took no risks that I wouldn't have taken but we saw some amazing driving from other vehicles.

The main Dar bus station was chaos to our eyes but everything seemed to work

We reached Morogoro about 7:30 pm.  A three hour bus trip (as we were told) took about twice that.  It was well dark when we arrived and it was impossible to see exactly what our environment was.  The accommodation is in a convent mostly converted into a conference centre.  The staff are nuns and others.  A bit odd but we will get used to it quickly I suspect.  We had the first of many excellent meals and headed for bed as soon as we could. 

I was up at dawn Sunday to explore and look for birds.  As the sun came up I became aware we were on the edge of town surrounded by small communities of houses, shops and vegetable gardens.  Looming over the back garden of the convent are the Uluguru Mountains with cleared patches and bananas way up on the slopes.

The view of the Uluguru Mountains behind the convent

The birding was initially frustrating because they all seemed to be outside the high wall around the convent grounds.  Inside is a bit spartan but outside is wild and there are a couple of good vantage points for birding.  So far I've not seen many species but have seen some interesting ones:  African Pied Wagtail, Blue Waxbill, Red-winged Starling, Yellow-fronted Canary, Hamerkop, Speckled Mousebird, Spotted Morning-thrush, Bronze Mannikin, White-necked Raven, Black Cuckooshrike, Collared Palm-thrush, Black-and-white Mannikin and Black-winged Red Bishop.

Interestingly the Bishops are coloured up, the Wagtails and Mousebirds have dependent young and the B-W Mannikins are nest building.  It's the dry season here now and the wet season is still a couple of months away.

We spent our first day today with our language trainers - Benjamin and Pepe.  Pepe is a close match for the actor who played Mma Ramotswe's secretary in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency TV show.  As is usual with language learning we started off gently and rapidly got into the harder stuff.  Jenny is doing very well but most of us are struggling with the grammar.  Worse is that we found that some of the words we have learned are Kenyan Swahili and not used in Tanzania.  We've been saying 'tafadhali' to everyone.  Our training software told us this was the word for 'please'.  Only used in Kenya apparently.  There is no real equivalent in Tanzania because they ask for things so politely it is not considered necessary to say please.  Another is 'jambo' a general greeting similar to 'hello'.  'Jambo' is only use by and for tourists.  We must use 'hujambo' to get respect.

Benjamin took us for a walk into town yesterday to show us the way and where things are.  We will go back later in the week to buy food at the market to cook on Saturday.  The nuns are going to teach us traditional methods and we get to kill chickens.  How good will that be?

A few of the volunteers headed to a local bar last night to watch the world cup final.  I think Jenny and I were asleep before kick-off.  We are usually in bed by 9pm and awake at 5:30 am when we hear the call to prayer from the local mosque.

Hope folks are enjoying this.  Leave a comment and let me know how I'm doing.  Ask about stuff I haven't mentioned.  Don't forget to read Jenny's blog as well.  We aren't comparing notes so it will be interesting to see how much we agree on and what we think to mention.

A few photos

Here are a few photos from Dar Es Salaam to keep you interested.  Some views from our hotel room balcony and scenes from the ferry ride.  Also a few pics of brave volunteers doing it very hard.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bukoba_steve/sets/72157624330308243/

Thieves, prangs and Dalla Dallas,

A very interesting 24 hours.  A public holiday yesterday so we all went to a beach picnic area in the southern suburbs.  Walking from the ferry three through a crowded market area, three of us had our backpack pockets unzipped without losing anything.  The third person realised what was happening and sent the young chap on  his way with a very rude english word.  Apparently if she had grabbed him or called out "stop thief" there was a very good chance others would beat him to death.

After a very pleasant few hours on the beach we went home and witnessed a 4WD clean up a guy on a motorbike.  It all happened in terrible slow motion of course.  The poor chap was a bit battered but should be OK.  Fairly upsetting nonetheless and we all payed extra attention to the traffic this morning.

Then this morning we all had to catch Dalla Dallas to VSO.  These are mini-buses used by workers all over Africa to commute to their jobs.  At peak hour these are impossibly crowded - imagine a minibus with all seats occupied and lots of standing people.  Then add 20 more people.  It must be horrendous in the summer or when it is raining.

Otherwise all good!


A few birds:  Grey Heron, Palm Swifts, two Striped Kingfishers (my first new species), Red-eyed Dove, Emerald-spotted Wood-dove and Long-tailed Cormorant.

On Sat we escape to the relative serenity of Morogoro in the hills for two weeks.  Lots of birds there for me I hope.  Mostly we are there for language training but it will also be an opportunity to see how more rural people function. A highlight will be a day safari into Mikumi National Park.

No photos available yet.  Our computers are locked in the VSO safe and I haven't had time to get them off the camera onto the VSO PCs yet.  Maybe tomorrow.

Day 2

Jenny and I are well settled into life in bustling Dar Es Salaam after two sleeps.  Jet-lag was not an issue.  Our hotel is basic but fine.  There is a mosque nearby with call to prayer waking us up each morning at 0520.  VSO have promised us a soft landing with a good combination of info sessions and social activities.  We had a few Serengeti beers last night at Cocoa Beach.  A few more days here sorting out lots of logistical things (phones, money, health, safety) then off to Morogoro for two weeks of language, food, motorbike etc training.

There are about 12 new volunteers.  Apart from the five Australians we have people from Canada, England, Belgium and the Philipines.  Everybody here is delighted when we try to use our minimal Swahili.  It will really make a difference to how we are accepted.  Weather here is warm and dry - not uncomfortable to us but the locals call it cold.

Very few birds in town apart from introduced House Crows and Sparrows.  There were White-rumped Swifts at the airport and Palm Swifts over the VSO compound.  Otherwise I've seen African Bulbul, Cattle Egret and Sacred Ibis with unidentified Oriole and Sunbirds and Herons.

Internet acess might be less than we thought but I'll make it a priority to keep this blog ticking over.  Don't forget to look at Jenny's as well.  She will have a different perspective and between the two of us we should give you a good taste of Tanzania.

Steve