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

24 Jun 23 - Angola - A Lucky Morning At Muxima

We had spent a few hours along the dirt tracks at Muxima in the heat of the previous day, with little success. We had a second chance with a day at Muxima and there were a number of key Angolan species we were hoping to see: specifically, Grey-striped Francolin (endemic), Angola Helmetshrike (endemic), Monteiro's Bushshrike (near endemic), Falkenstein's Greenbul & Golden-backed Bishop (endemic).

We left the Carpe Diem Resort well before dawn as we had a ninety minute drive back to Muxima & we wanted to arrive for dawn. The drive was good for Mammals with an African Wild Cat, Large-spotted Genet & brief views of an unidentified Mongoose on the road. Given we had spent a week in Angola up to that point & only seen a single shy Malbrouck Monkey, a brief view of an Antelope sp., a couple of Squirrel species and a few unidentified Bats, then it was clearly a good day for Mammals. It was even better when we went on to see good views of three more Monkeys: Blue Monkeys, Malbrouck Monkey & Angolan Talapoins late in the day.

We arrived at Muxima just after dawn & tried the river again in the hope of an Egyptian Plover. But we weren't hopeful given our lack of success the previous day and the high water levels: we weren't surprised at the lack of an Egyptian Plover. We carried onto the dirt tracks to the East of Muxima to explore the Miombo woodland. We tried a narrow side track, but quickly retreated after kicking up a lot of Mosquitoes out of the long grass. The current advice is to be wary of Mosquitoes throughout Angola and we were all taking malarial tablets. While Malaria is a problem spread by night flying Mosquitoes, there is always a risk of being bitten by one disturbed during the day. Secondly, day flying Mosquitoes can transmit Dengue Fever which is a nasty & unpleasant illness which can put people in hospital for a few days and which there are no preventative tablets available. Finally, none of us wanted a lot of bites. We returned to Birding along the main track, which was wide enough& sufficiently open to not be a problem with Mosquitoes. We were greeted by a party of four White-crested Helmetshrikes as we rejoined the main track. They are one of my favourite African species and I was pleased to see them again.

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

There were some stunning big Baobabs along the dirt tracks

A number of the Baobabs have footholds cut or nailed into them: This allowed the locals to climb them to get to the fruits

We drove a bit further along the track and stopped the 4WD as Niall had heard a calling Grey-striped Francolin. Fairly quickly we saw one run across the track then reappear again. Unfortunately, it was the wrong side of the track for me to easily get a photo from the 4WD. But at least we had all had good views. We got out and tried to get some more views. There were a couple of pairs in the area and they appeared to be having a territorial dispute. I did get some more poor views in the trackside bushes, but still no photos. Just as we were getting ready to move on, an Angola Helmetshrike appeared: our second endemic of the day.

Angola Helmetshrike: This monotypic species is restricted to the Gabela escarpment in West Angola

Within minutes, a Monteiro's Bushshrike flew across the track. It was surprising how a large bulky and colourful Bushshrike can disappear into the vegetation. Angola has an endemic subspecies. There is a second subspecies that occurs on Mount Cameroon in Cameroon that was rediscovered in 1992: there are no eBird records of the Cameroon subspecies, so perhaps this is a rare subspecies.

Monteiro's Bushshrike: This is the nominate monteiri subspecies which is restricted to North West Angola

Monteiro's Bushshrike: I can just about make out the broad white eye patch

We carried on further along the track. There had been several calling Gabon Boubous during the morning, but as they were a species we had all seen well in the past, we weren't putting any effort into trying to see one. Finally, one popped out of a bush and showed itself for the camera. This was a good little area and we saw a female Golden-backed Bishop, two Little Bee-eaters and three Madagascar Bee-eaters. A skulking Greenbul started calling and turned out to be our first Falkenstein's Greenbul. There were a couple of pairs in the area, but none showed well for more than a short view over the next hour.

Little Bee-eater: This is the meridionalis subspecies that occurs from the Congo basin to East Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central Angola, Uganda & West Kenya South to the Eastern part of South Africa

Madagascar Bee-eater: This is the alternans subspecies which occurs in the Arid littoral of West Angola & North West Namibia. The other nominate subspecies occurs in Madagascar, the Comoro Islands & East Africa

Gabon Boubou: This is the guttatus subspecies which occurs in the Lower Congo River basin of West Democratic Republic of the Congo & West Angola

Gabon Boubou

Grey Tit-flycatcher: This is the catoleuca subspecies which occurs from South Democratic Republic of the Congo to the Angola Plateau, Namibia, Botswana, Malawi & Natal in South Africa

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

Holub's Golden Weaver: This monotypic species occurs from Gabon to Angola, Uganda, Kenya, Botswana & Mozambique

Blue Monkey: A wary individual

Blue Monkey: It quickly disappeared from the tree when it realised we had seen it: a clear sign of the hunting pressure from the locals

Niall, Richard & Phil hoping something else good was going to pop into view

It had been a great morning where we had seen the key Angolan species we were hoping to see in the Muxima area with the endemic Grey-striped Francolin & Angola Helmetshrike and endemic subspecies of Monteiro's Bushshrike all being seen in just over an hour. We had the afternoon free to look for Long-legged Pipit & some general coastal species: which I will cover in the next Blog Post.