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.
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| 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
You should have joined the party!
ReplyDeleteIt was a dry wedding!
ReplyDeleteI really love the kingfisher. They are one of my favourite birds and this is a particularly lovely shot. I'll have to get a print made. Sorry about the accident but you should have been happy with sharing the love of the wedding!
ReplyDelete