Arusha

So where did we go birding in the first week-end of September 2008?
Burchells Zebra: photo Anabel Harries

Well, we went to our local park - Arusha National Park where, on average, we go twice a month.

It costs $80 (US) in TANAPA entrance fees for two adult 'foreigners', in a local car with a local driver, for a day visit; that's for twelve hours 0700 to 1900. Every visit is well worth the money; being completely different from the visit before. Every visit yields fabulous surprises. Each visit becomes a safari in itself. Sunday September 7, 2008 was no exception; even though it was my fortieth trip to Arusha National Park.

July in East Africa. It's mid-winter in Arusha National Park at three degrees south and more than a mile above our warming oceans. We're experiencing mornings that do feel chilly right enough. Such that both locals and residents would really appreciate a wind-proof fleece. This past week I've been busy in the cool; early birding with overseas visitors; and local bird-guide training. Spending the chilly early mornings in the misty evergreen forests of Arusha National Park on Meru mountain side. And the warmer afternoons out in dry and dusty Meru-Maasai country, across the northern plains that mantle the national park's perimeter.
Mt Meru: photo Martin Goodeye

Grey-headed Bush-shrike: photo Anabel HarriesThe Afrikaaners named it Spookvoël, and so it is. Seldom seen even by 'the African rustic' its three mournful, ventriloquial and tremulous whistles, each lasting almost a second: "hoawwww ... hoawwww ... hawwwwip", repeated every minute or so, have been the ornithological highlights, these past two weeks, in our 'wildness garden' on the western edge of little Arusha - the safari city.

This ghostly whistler arrives, at more or less the same time each day, mid-morning. First it calls out to us its version of "trick or treat" from somewhere above the big red gate at the southeast corner of the driveway. Then the spook enters and proceeds to haunt the garden for about an hour moving, virtually unseen, from one Silver Oak to another. Each tree is festooned with wild creepers, a variety of yellow-flowering african cucumbers for the most part, which have sneaked-up this past wet season into the very topmost branches. The sorrowful whistling follows a fairly fixed circuit of the property each day, so an ambush is possible.

near Arusha (M. Goodey)

Horus Swift in Arusha National Park, 22 January 2006. Photo Martin Goodey.

Photo:Anabel Harries Dusky Flycatcher:

Muscicapa adusta

Rather plump and short-tailed; some races are greyer above; the breast is smudgy contrasting with the pale throat.

M. adusta has marked intrapopulation (i.e. within the races) and clinal variability (i.e. across the range).

Pick up at hotel in Arusha at 0600 hrs.

Drive to southern gate Arusha NP to arrive by 0715.

Drive fairly slowly through forested central area of Arusha national park to Momella gate to arrive at 0800 where collect a ranger and drive to Kilimanjaro viewpoint (2200 m) on Mount Meru birding from the vehicle en route.

A leisurely walk in the higher altitude lichen-festooned forest around the viewpoint on Mount Meru (from 0900 for about one hour) should be very productive. Spectacular Crowned Eagles display overhead with attendant Mountain Buzzards, Mottled and Nyanza Swift rush past. Dusky Turtle Dove and Lemon Dove come down to the path for grit; Bar-tailed Trogon and Black-capped Mountain Greenbul remain in the treetops. In the undergrowth and middlestorey are magical White-starred Robins, Mountain Thrush, Dusky and White-eyed Slaty Flycatchers, Cinnamon Bracken Warbler, Brown Woodland Warbler and noisy duetting Hunter’s Cisticolas. The flame flowering 'red-hot poker like' Kniphofias growing around the viewpoint attract gangs of excitable Eastern Double-collared, Taccaze and Golden-winged Sunbirds. Whilst in the herbaceous tangles are far more secretive Abyssinian Crimsonwings best located by their thin high-pitched call.

September 12th.

Some 40 km west of Arusha.

A rear guard look-out Patas Monkey, probably a ‘black-nosed’ male, acts as a sentry for the withdrawing troupe of eight or nine individuals.

Picture from Anabel Harries