26 Jun 23 - Angola - Another Murky Day At Kumbira Forest

When I think back to my early Birding trips to Kenya in 1987 & 1990, I remember a lot of Birding in mainly sunny conditions, with good light for photography. Not that my camera was any good. It was a cheap Olympus film camera with a 500mm tamron mirror lens. The quality of the photos were poor & generally they could only be described as record shots. In the future, when I look back on the Angolan trip, I will think of decent camera gear, but grey cloudy conditions and grim light, especially during the early mornings & evenings. Today was yet another day when I've had to work harder in the Lightroom package to try to improve the quality of the photos. I'm still feeling my way around Lightroom and I still have a long way to go before I master it.

Anyway, onto the Kumbira Forest or what's left of it. We headed off to be in one of the forest patches for soon after first light. Although we were only a few miles from the main road, it had taken around forty-five minutes of driving on the dirt tracks to get there. This included losing some time looking at another badly rutted area of track which was even more challenging to get through. An error here & Niall's 4WD could easily have slipped into the main rut, when the wheels on one side of the 4WD wouldn't have even touched the bottom of the rut. Fortunately, he worked out a way past it so we could get another two or three miles in towards the forest patch he wanted to reach.

The deeply rutted track: This wasn't the worst section. Niall chose to drive into the forest on the left hand side of the track. In hindsight, the way he came back out looked the better side

Finally, we reached the first forest patch & we could start Birding. One of the first species was this delightful Green Crombec. I really like their bizarre shape with virtually no tail.

Green Crombec: This is the tando subspecies which occurs from North West Angola to the Republic of the Congo & Southern Democratic Republic of the Congo

Often we ended up Birding where the forest had already gone

We had a good start to the day with a reasonable selection of species seen, albeit not photographed. This included my first Carmelite Sunbird, Gabela Akalat, Bates's Paradise Flycatcher, Yellow-throated Tinkerbird & Southern Hyliota. Later in the morning we reached a more open edge to the forest patch. Niall picked up a Honeyguide at the top of a tree. The lighting was still poor & the photos are not great. But they are good enough to confirm it was a Cassin's Honeyguide, which is on the most Southern end of its range: another Tick. I grabbed some quick photos before improving the camera settings, only to look back & find that the Cassin's Honeyguide had disappeared.

Cassin's Honeyguide: I don't find Honeyguides easy to identify, but the white outer tail feathers with the white extending the full length of the feathers indicates that Niall's identification of Cassin's Honeyguide was correct

Cassin's Honeyguide: This is the nominate insignis subspecies which occurs from South East Nigeria to Northern Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, Uganda & Central Kenya

This area proved productive with a few Birds of Prey & a Klaas's Cuckoo.

Long-crested Eagle: This is a widespread species in Sub-Saharan Africa

Lizard Buzzard: This is the meridionalis subspecies which occurs from South Kenya to Angola, North Namibia & Northern South Africa. A second subspecies occurs further North across Sub-Saharan Africa

Grey Kestrel: This is a widespread species in the savanna & woodlands of Sub-Saharan Africa

Klaas's Cuckoo: Female. This is another widespread species across Sub-Saharan Africa

Klaas's Cuckoo: Female. We saw a few on the trip, but this was the most photogenic individual

Widespread Forester: Thanks to my mate Steve Morrison who was able to identify a number of the Butterfly species from my published photos

Angolan Flower sp.

Throughout the day, we could hear some chainsaws working in the forest: The timber companies had already raped the forest of anything that was commercially viable, so this would probably have been for the local domestic market. However, we did see three motorbikes each with a Chinese passenger on the back & we were sure they were going in to look at other areas of forest to destroyed

We returned to Niall's 4WD for another field pack lunch washed down with coffee. We drove back out of the forest patches we had been in that morning & returned to the forest patches we had tried the previous evening.

The afternoon's forest patch

Eventually, we found an area with a larger patch of surviving forest & even better, I found a proper trail into the forest. Niall was looking for the stunning Yellow-bellied Wattle-eye & the trail looked hopeful. Unfortunately, we had no luck with locating a Yellow-bellied Wattle-eye on it: a pity, as this would have been a Tick for Phil & Richard and given it was my favourite Bird on my first trip to Kenya, then I would have liked to see another one.

The trail went through this better patch of forest: It was less than a half mile long and we didn't go as far as we could, as we could hear it led to a village

It was still a good track as Niall heard a Forest Scrubrobin singing. For the first twenty minutes, it proved to be very elusive, but eventually it popped up onto a hanging liana. This was clearly one of its favourite song perches & it sang for the next ten minutes from there. Finally, the others left in search of a Yellow-bellied Wattle-eye, which allowed me the opportunity to carefully walk a bit closer. It was one of my best Birds of the trip.

Forest Scrubrobin: Finally, it popped up on this liana

Forest Scrubrobin: It had the look of a skulky Asian Thrush when it turned around

Forest Scrubrobin: After the others had left, I was able to walk into the forest to within fifteen metres of the Forest Scrubrobin without disturbing it

Forest Scrubrobin: This is the reichenowi subspecies which is endemic to the Huila Escarpment in Angola. It must be one of the more threatened Angolan species as it will be a specialist forest species that won't survive in the degraded forest. There are other subspecies in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, Central African Republic, North East Democratic Republic of Congo & Uganda

Forest Scrubrobin: It has a great haunting song; have a listen on Xeno-Canto

Forest Scrubrobin: A final view of the mantle & rump

Rufous Ant-thrush: I got to know this species by this name when I saw it on Mount Kupe, Cameroon back in 1997. Clements now uses Rufous Flycatcher-Thrush & IOC have adopted Fraser's Rufous Thrush: maybe they are worried I will get it confused with one of the New World Antthrushes. This is the rubicundus subspecies which occurs from South East Nigeria to the Central African Republic and South to Angola & North West Zambia. There is another subspecies in the South West of South Sudan, Uganda & North East Democratic Republic of the Congo

We were having a good day, but finally it turned to a very frustrating end to the day. We moved on & tried another area which Niall had as a site for a Gabela Bushshrike. We heard it in the area, and Phil & Richard managed to get poor flight views at one point. I was standing in a slightly different position & wasn't even aware they had seen it until we got back onto the main track. Rather than try a bit further along the track in the direction it had flown, we tried looking in another area & then left, in the hope of finding another one closer to the town. Quickly we were out of half-reasonable habitat. We gave up at that point, despite having a reasonable amount of light left when we could have left.

Crowned Hornbill: This in a monotypic species that occurs in the savanna of South & East Africa, as well as, Zanzibar & Pemba Islands

Trumpeter Hornbill: This in a monotypic species that occurs in the forests of South-central & South East Africa

I like the juxtaposition of this photo: A typical local mud-brick house, but with a satellite dish. We saw quite a few villages with satellite dishes, but with no obvious signs of solar panels or power cables in those villages

21 Jun 23 - Angola - On The Road Again

The plan to depart the Pousada Calandula Lodge overlooking the Calandula Falls at dawn failed. While we were ready to leave at dawn, it took about twenty minutes to find anybody in the hotel so Niall could sort out our checkout. Hotel payments always were complicated by Angola only accepting a limited number of credit cards in the country. Sometimes hotels wouldn't take credit cards or their machines wouldn't take Niall's South African credit cards. He always had the ultimate option of paying in cash. But that meant finding a larger town afterwards, with a working ATM machine where he could withdraw Angolan currency to top up his cash reserves. On at least one occasion, Phil had to use his credit cards to help Niall, when none of Niall's credit cards would work in an ATM. On a positive, diesel worked out about £1.10 a gallon: it was several years when I last paid that price for just one litre in the UK.

It was a good job we had seen the Calandula Falls on the first evening: The morning mists spoilt the view

Calandula Falls from the Lodge: This is what they looked like on the first afternoon (19 Jun 23)

Giant Kingfisher: The Giant Kingfisher was again sitting well away from the bridge over the River Lucala. This is the nominate maxima subspecies which occurs from the rainforests of Liberia to West Tanzania & North Angola. Another subspecies occurs from Senegal to Ethiopia & down to South Africa

After a short stop at the bridge over the River Lucala, we returned to the Kinjila Forest. Very quickly one of the previous days guides and a different guide came to join us. We spent a frustrating couple of hours in the forest. We managed to get decent views of Cabanis's Greenbuls in the forest, which we hadn't seen properly on the previous day: albeit it wasn't a Tick for me. After a bit of searching, Niall managed to find our first Brown-headed Apalis: which was one of our target species for the Kinjila Forest. We heard a White-spotted Flufftail, but it was in an area where it wasn't going to be possible to get close enough to have a chance of seeing it.

Local adaptability in carrying large objects

The next frustrating species was the nominate subspecies of Four-coloured Bushshrike, known locally as Perrin's Bushshrike. Niall said there were some plumage differences between the Angolan Perrin's individuals and further East in their range, despite all being classified as the nominate subspecies. After a fair bit of searching, Richard and I managed to get views of this individual, but unfortunately, Phil was in the wrong place on both occasions. He had seen the Eastern population of the nominate subspecies, but he never managed to see one in Angola. I was pleased to see a showy African Broadbill again as the Broadbills are always one of my favourite families: albeit the family has now been split into two families.

African Broadbill: This is the albigularis subspecies which occurs from Angola to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, North Zambia, West Tanzania & North Malawi

Narina Trogon: This is the nominate narina subspecies which occurs from the highlands of Ethiopia to Angola & South Africa. Other subspecies occur across much of Sub-Saharan Africa

We decided to head out into the Miombo area on the approach track about a mile or so beyond the village with the guides. We were looking for a Miombo Scrub-robin, but couldn't locate any. Fortunately, we did see one later in the trip. But we got jammy when a Dusky Long-tailed Cuckoo flew across the grassland: a bonus Tick for me. Soon after Niall decided to pay the guides and knock the Birding on the head.

Birding in the Miombo woodland

Crowned Hornbill: This monotypic species occurs on the savannas of East & South Africa

We drove back to the main road for the 2.5 hour drive West to the town of N'dalatando. It was an uneventful journey apart from a short stop at a bridge over a river where we saw a few Little Swifts, Angolan Swallows & Lesser Striped Swallows.

Little Swift: This is the aerobates subspecies which occurs from South West Mauritania to Ethiopia, Somalia, Central Angola & South Africa

Little Swift

Angola Swallow: This monotypic species occurs from Angola, Gabon, to Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda & West Kenya

We quickly found the Hotel Terminus in the middle of N'dalatando which was to be our base for the next couple of nights. The hotel knew about Niall's booking & the check in went smoothly.

The remains of the forested valley near N'dalatando

After checking in, we headed out again for the remains of a wooded valley about a forty minute drive beyond N'dalatando. This would have been a great Birding place at some point. But as usual for Angola, the commercial trees were long gone and what remained were a few big trees with little commercial value. A few of the old Portuguese buildings had been occupied by villagers, with others living in the more traditional mudbrick houses. The valley now had areas of cultivation including fruit trees, which confirmed this was a more lush area with a higher rainfall than a number of the dry arid sites we visited. There was a reasonable selection of new species for the trip: none of which I had seen for at least twenty five years. So, I was focusing on enjoying the Birding, rather than photography. The highlight was seeing my first male Ludwig's Double-collared Sunbird. We probably saw a number of others, but they were females or immature males and we hadn't got our eye in on how to separate them from the similar looking Olive-bellied Sunbirds that were also there.

Nothing to see here: Just a Goat on a high wall

Crossing a clearing to the morning's forest patch

We returned to the Hotel Terminus at dusk. It all looked quite posh in the hotel & the rooms, like a modern 2 or 3 star UK hotel. But the appearance lulled us into a false sense of security: as the food service was typically Angolan. On the first evening, I asked that we ordered the food just after the restaurant opened at 19:00. The restaurant started filling up with other guests around 20:00 & their food arrived well within an hour of their arrival. Our food started to appear about 22:00 and then it came in dribs & drabs. Very frustrating given how early we had ordered. Not the ideal scenario when we were planning to be up for about five the following morning. It was better on the second evening, as we only had an hour & a half wait before the first plates arrived. Albeit they still appeared in dribs & drabs again.