We had started the day Birding on a trail through some dry forest near Londuimbali. This had been productive for regional endemics, albeit there weren't any Angolan endemics. After a late morning break for some food, we headed off to a local area where there were wet fields around a small river.
Brown-throated Sand Martin: This is also known as Plain Martin. This is the nominate paludicola subspecies which occurs from Angola to Zambia, South Tanzania & South Africa
Lucia Widow: This is one of the best looking & most bizarre Dragonflies that I've seen. Thanks to my mate Steve Morrison who was able to correct the identify of this species from the incorrect Portia Widow
The local rivers were used for washing clothes: The amount of detergent etc in the rivers can't help biodiversity. But the rivers can't be in worse condition than many UK rivers, thanks to the tories allowing the water companies to dump sewerage in many of our rivers
The local grasses make for perfect drying spots
We returned to the forest patch at Londuimbali and drove down a different forest track. This wasn't as productive: a Dusky Indigobird and two White-winged Black Tits were the only highlights.
White-winged Black Tit: This is the insignis subspecies which occurs from Gabon to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Zambia, Malawi & North Mozambique
Dusky Indigobird: Male. This species is also known as Variable Indigobird and I first got to know the species as African Firefinch Indigobird: which reflected its preferred host species in Kenya. This is the nigerrima subspecies which occurs from Kenya to Mozambique, Angola & Zimbabwe
After giving up on the drivable track, we returned to the original trail into the forest that we had tried in the morning. This wasn't as good as it had been in the early morning: however, early afternoon isn't the best time of time of day for tropical Birding. A party of White-crested Helmetshrikes and a couple of distant Schalow's Turacos were the highlights.
White-crested Helmetshrike: I was pleased to see another family party of White-crested Helmetshrikes
White-crested Helmetshrike: This is the poliocephalus subspecies which occurs from Central Kenya to South Uganda, South East Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, Namibia & South Africa
We had seen a number of good species during the day, so we decided to start heading back to Huambo and try a Blue Quail site in some wet agricultural fields on the way back to the hotel. Unfortunately, we were not successful on this occasion, but Blue Quail are not an easy species to see. We were successful on the following day in some adjacent fields.
Coppery-tailed Coucal: This monotypic species occurs from Angola to the South of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania & Malawi
Red-faced Cisticola: This is the lepe subspecies and it is endemic to Angola
Stout Cisticola: This is the angolensis subspecies which occurs in Angola, South Democratic Republic of the Congo& North West Zambia
Pin-tailed Whydah: This monotypic species is very widespread in Sub-Saharan Africa from South Mauritania to Eritrea and it occurs as far South as South Africa
After walking through all the nearby fields, we decided to head back to the hotel in Huambo and do the first half of the drive in the failing light.
There was a ready supply of mud bricks for housing: After that, the houses just needed some corrugated iron for the roof and wood for door and the window shutters
Many of the local houses hold the roofs in place with large stones
