23 Jun 23 - Angola - Miombo At Muxima

We left the Hotel Terminus in N'dalatando for the long drive to Muxima at dawn. There was no need for a pre-dawn departure, given it was going to be a long journey & it would be well into the heat of the day whatever time we left. Google Maps shows it as a three & a half hour journey to complete the 140 miles, but this was optimistic given the potholes on the road. But we did stop along the way for a roadside coffee & breakfast break. There was also a Birding stop to check another bridge over a river.

Lesser Striped Swallow: The more extensive & paler orange in the face confirms the identification from Greater Striped Swallow. This is the unitatis subspecies which occurs from Gabon to Southern South Sudan, Kenya & South Somalia and, as far South as, Central Angola, East Zambia, Zimbabwe, East Botswana, Mozambique & East South Africa

Lizard Buzzard: This was seen at a roadside stop just before Muxima. This is the meridionalis subspecies of this widespread & delightful small Raptor. It occurs from South Kenya to Angola, North Namibia & the North of South Africa. A second subspecies occurs in the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa

After a few roadside stops, it was close to midday before we arrived in Muxima. The first stop was the river bank in town. Unfortunately, the river was high & a good scan failed to reveal any of the Egyptian Plovers that get seen later in the year by the tour companies. Potentially this was a problem of visiting in June, as Egyptian Plovers do migrate along the river systems dependent on water levels. On my trip to Gambia in 1994, we reached the classic spot at Basse at the start of March: only to find they had already disappeared. After a couple of days of unsuccessful searching, we took a taxi over the border to a river crossing further upriver in Senegal & found a pair. Ironically, we returned to Basse via a different route, which avoided the Senegal customs post who had demanded a bribe from the taxi driver to allow us to cross, and found a second pair of Egyptian Plovers upriver of Basse and in the Gambia.

The river at Muxima

The Fortress of Muxima dominates the river: The Fortress was built in 1599 to help the Portuguese advancement into interior Angola and as a defensive position. It helped the Portuguese build up trading relationships especially in the ivory & slave trades. Another European colonial power that contributed to these two evil trades and which like the British, won't have paid reparations for their actions to help Elephant numbers recover or to the descendants of the slaves

We drove onto a set of dirt tracks East of Muxima to explore the Miombo woodland, parking the 4WD at various points to allow us to explore the area on foot. The Avian highlight was our first Angola Batis: which was my only Tick of the day. The track was fairly quiet, but it was the heat of the day. Still we had a full day planned for the area on the following day.

Birding the tracks near Muxima: Apart from a few locals on motorbikes, we had the tracks to ourselves

Birding the tracks near Muxima: These grassy verges had plenty of Butterflies in them. Such a change from the UK, where verges like this would be cut back regularly by farmers or poisoned by the pesticides they spray on them

Bohm's Spinetail: Every now & then, a party of Bohm's Spinetails appeared over the track

Bohm's Spinetail: They have such a stunning shape for a Swift

Bohm's Spinetail: They are a small Swift with the pinched inner secondaries and short, broad wings

Bohm's Spinetail: Zooming into the last photo to show the spines

Mottled Spinetail: They are not as extreme a shape as Bohm's Spinetail and they have a proper tail with spines

Mottled Spinetail: This is the benguellensis subspecies which occurs from West Angola to Mozambique. Other subspecies occur from Senegal to Kenya & Tanzania

Mottled Spinetail: The pinched inner secondaries are one of the identification features

Mottled Spinetail: Zooming into the last photo to show the spines on the tail

Angola Batis: Male. Males are hard to tell from the very similar Chinspot Batis. They can be separated by their short white supercilium, rather than long, white supercilium that a male Chinspot Batis shows. If they have a female with them, the identification is easier as a female Angola Batis does not have the orange chin spot that gives the Chinspot Batis their name. Finally, they can be picked out on their song, which is how Niall first identified this individual. This monotypic species occurs from Forests of West Angola, to the adjacent Democratic Republic of the Congo & South East Gabon

Southern Red Tip: This was a common Butterfly along the edges of the track

Delta emarginatum: A superb abdomen shape. This is a female Delta emarginatum, collecting mud for its nest pot. It's one of the Potter Wasps & it is common throughout much of Africa. Thanks to my mate Steve Morrison who was able to identify this Potter Wasp from my published photos

Later in the afternoon, we explored some of the tracks in the Kissama National Park. The name is a misnomer as there appeared to be no attempt to protect the area & in an hour of driving along tracks, we found two villages with their associated cultivations & fires being lit in the grassland. Overall, it was as productive a set of tracks as we had found closer to Muxima. We left before dark, as we still had over an hour to our accommodation for the evening. we arrived at dusk at the Carpe Diem Resort Tropical. This was a nice low key & spread out hotel complex located on the beach to the South of Muxima. The only drawback with the location was it was going to be a long hour & a half drive back to Muxima in the morning.

22 Jun 23 - Angola - The Remains Of The N'dalatando Forests

It was another 05:00 alarm call. We were a few minutes late leaving the hotel, due to Richard knocking on our door with an urgent request to make some coffee using our hotel room kettle. He had filled their kettle, only to find the water pouring out of a hole in the bottom. Another example of a posh-looking hotel not keeping to appearances. Still half of the hotels we stayed in didn't provide kettles at all.

We drove for about an hour to the Tombingo Forest. Another poor name given the forest had been heavily logged and we were Birding along a very wide dirt track, which was easily wide enough to create a UK dual carriageway with safety bars. The result was we were not close to any habitat and what habitat there was, had thick secondary cover which made it impossible to get off the dirt road. It proved to be a frustrating site to visit as the Birds we did see weren't close to the road. To add to the frustration, it was another morning with overcast conditions and poor light for photography. The Avian highlight for the day was seeing my first Grey Tit-flycatcher: a species I had missed on my South African trip back in 1990 & the only Tick of the day for me.

Niall, Phil & Richard on the dirt road

The very wide dirt road showing how trashed the habitat was

There were still a few large trees left, but not many

Great Blue Turaco: They occur in the lowland rainforests of West & Central Africa from Guinea to West Kenya & as far South as North Angola

Great Blue Turaco: It is always a good day when I see this two & a half foot long Turaco. I can still clearly remember the excitement when we saw our first ones in the Kenya's Kakamega Forest back in 1987

Bohm's Spinetail: We saw the first of a number of sightings of the bizarre Bohm's Spinetails. They have virtually no tail, just a few short fine spines and a very erratic Bat-like flight. They are one of my favourite Swifts

Bohm's Spinetail: This is the nominate boehmi subspecies which occurs from Angola to South Democratic Republic of the Congo, North Zambia & West Tanzania. Another subspecies occurs from South East Kenya to the North East of South Africa

Woodland Kingfisher: This is the cyanoleuca subspecies which occurs from Angola, Botswana & Natal to North West Tanzania. Two other subspecies occur across the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa

Yellow-crested Woodpecker: Another far too-silhouetted photo. This monotypic species occurs from South East Nigeria & Cameroon to the extreme South of South Sudan, Uganda, West Kenya, Central Democratic Republic of the Congo & North West Angola

Orange-veined Dropwing: This Dragonfly makes the Red-veined Darters that turn up & sometimes breed in Dorset, look very dull. Thanks to my mate Steve Morrison who was able to identify a number of the Dragonfly species from my published photos

We could heard several Gabon Coucals, but no matter how hard we looked, they remained hidden in the dense secondary cover. We also tried for two calling White-spotted Flufftails. Like the ones near Uige, they came close but they wouldn't show themselves. After about three hours we decided to give up on this site as the forest was just too far away. As we were leaving the area, we saw this Ayres's Hawk-eagle, that was sitting in a distant tree.

Ayres's Hawk-eagle: This is a widespread species that occurs in woodlands & savanna of Sub-Saharan Africa. Generally, they have streaking on the breast, but they can show clean breasts like this individual. It looks like it has caught some prey which it is holding in its right foot

Our next stop was a bridge over a river which we were visiting in the hope of seeing a White-throated Blue Swallow. We spent a fair bit of time looking, but we had not luck. Part of the problem with looking for some of the species in Angola is most Birders seem to visit between September and November, so there is no certainty that some of the species are present in June.

We drove past this this town on the way to the bridge

One of the Catholic churches in the centre of the town

Cassava: It was a fairly common sight to see these patches of Cassava drying on the roadside

This was a bad section of road for potholes: However, we encountered potholes this bad on quite a few other occasions. Angola is meant to be a rich country with its oil, gas & metals deposits, but the government just doesn't believe in using this money to provide roads, education, hospitals etc for the people

The bridge passed over a sizeable river with Angola Swallows and Wire-tailed Swallows present, but we couldn't find any White-throated Blue Swallows. We met the only Birder we saw in Angola here. He was a South African Birder who was carrying out survey work for a potential dam the government was thinking of building. He confirmed he hadn't seen any White-throated Blue Swallows in the area during his surveys.

The river

Wire-tailed Swallow: The Sub-Saharan African subspecies is the nominate smithii subspecies

Bronze Mannikin: This is a female or immature of the scutata subspecies which occurs from Ethiopia & adjacent South East Sudan and Eastern South Sudan to Angola, North & East Botswana & East South Africa

Next to where we parked, I saw a sign saying there was a large patch of land for sale along the river bank. Then a few minutes later, I saw some other signs for a Testing Area and for Metal Collection. Then I noticed Vanessa, a mine clearance vehicle close to where we had parked. Perhaps this land wasn't a great place to buy if it had been mined during the civil war. It was the only time we saw clear evidence of the problems & the continuing risks of mines in Angola. One advantage of the large numbers of people we were seeing where we were Birding, was plenty of others had probably already walked on the same ground we were visiting & therefore, it was unlikely there were no mines in those areas. However, this site was a location where keeping on the road was the safer option.

The sign for the Testing Area

The sign for the Metal Collection area

Vanessa

I still find it amazing how the Angolan ladies were able to balance large objects on their heads and walk without any need to hold onto the object

Eventually, we gave up on the search for a White-throated Blue Swallow & headed back to the same valley we had visited the previous evening. We drove further into the valley in the hope of better forest, but we couldn't find any.

Yellow-crested Woodpecker: This Yellow-crested Woodpecker showed a lot better than the one in the morning

Yellow-crested Woodpecker

Collared Sunbird: This widespread small brightly-coloured Sunbird was one of my favourites in Angola

Trichonephila fenestrata: There were some impressive Spiders in the valley. Thanks to my mate Steve Morrison who was able to identify this species from my published photos

Trichonephila turneri: This female Spider was even better looking & she had lots of tiny Spiders in the web. Thanks to my mate Steve Morrison who was able to identify this species from my published photos

Finally, the light started to go & we returned to the hotel in N'dalatando. It had been another long day in the field. Sadly, it hadn't been very rewarding on this occasion.