28 Jun 23 - Angola - If We Go Down To The Woods Today

We had another pre-dawn departure from the hotel and well over an hour of driving to get to some remnant Miombo forest around Londuimbali. A quick roadside stop as we got close to the forest patch, produced a couple of Salvadori's Eremomelas.

Salvadori's Eremomela: This is a monotypic species which occurs from the East of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to South East Gabon, the central plateau of Angola & West Zambia

The forest was an interesting area with remnant forest on one side of the road, but largely degraded cleared fields on the other side. We were initially distracted as we got out of the 4WD as Niall could hear a Miombo Scrubrobin singing from some remnant vegetation in the cleared fields. We didn't manage to find it, but did find the only Boehm's Flycatcher we saw. Had we realised that it was to be the only one, then we should have tried to get a bit closer: hindsight is a great thing.

Boehm's Flycatcher: This is a monotypic species which occurs from Angola to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, South West Tanzania & North Mozambique

The area was cleared to the left, but with reasonable patches of low dry forest on the right

The forest had all gone on the left hand side of the road

There were quite a few Birds in this forest, but most species moved through fast

The bush has managed to recover around the remains of this old building

We found a small forest path into reasonable looking Miombo forest and explored for about the best part of a mile into the forest. We eventually gave up and headed back to the road when we encountered a number of cleared fallow fields in the forest. There must have been a village further on and we were starting to reach the edge of their fields.

Swallow-tailed Bee-eater: This is the hirundineus subspecies which occurs from Angola & Namibia to Zimbabwe & Northern South Africa

Anchieta's Barbet: This is the rex subspecies which occurs in West central Angola

Anchieta's Barbet: Two other subspecies occur in other parts of Angola, Southern Democratic Republic of the Congo & Zambia

African Golden Oriole: This is the notatus subspecies which occurs from Angola to Tanzania, Mozambique & North East South Africa

Black-necked Eremomela: This is the atricollis subspecies which occurs in Brachystegia woodlands of Angola to South East Democratic Republic of the Congo & Zambia

Black-necked Eremomela: They clearly have an interesting display

Pale Flycatcher: This is the murinus subspecies which occurs from Gabon, Republic of the Congo, & Angola to the South East of South Sudan, West & South Kenya, and South to North East Namibia, North Botswana, West & South Zambia & Zimbabwe

Woodland Pipit: This is the schoutedeni subspecies which occurs from South East Gabon & South Republic of the Congo to the South of the Democratic Republic of the Congo & South Angola. I was pleased to see this Woodland Pipit as it was a species we missed in my 1990 trip to Southern Africa

The Woodland Pipit had taken up territory around this fallow field

It's a sad reality for many Angolans that they have long walks to their fields: We saw many African ladies carrying loads on their head, but this lady won the best load when she walked past us with a spade and other objects balanced on her head

By late morning, we were back at the dirt main road and decided to have another look for the Miombo Scrubrobin that we had heard singing when we arrived. After a bit of searching, we finally located it singing in a dense area of bushes. It remained on the same perch, but a perch that was always partially obscured by vegetation.

Miombo Scrubrobin: This is a monotypic species which occurs from Angola to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, Zambia, South West Tanzania & North Mozambique

Richard posing at the early lunch break: Niall had a large fridge in the boot of the 4WD, along with large flasks of hot water, coffee presses and a reasonable selection of spreads that could go on local bread. There were no teddy bears invited to our picnics

One of the distant large rocky hills

The plan for the rest of the day was to try a nearby area of wet fields. I will cover this in the next Blog Post.

27 Jun 23 - Angola - More Roadside Stops

We had enjoyed a good start to the day, with a pre-dawn departure to Kumbira Forest and finally good views of a Gabela Bushshrike. The downside was we ended up getting on the road to Huambo over two hours later than planned. It wasn't long before we stopped at some productive light Miombo woodland on a side track near Dombi, where we saw at least one Western Miombo Sunbird, a single Anchieta's Sunbird, two African Spotted Creepers, a Miombo Tit and two Southern Hyliolas.

At this point, we still had most of the two hundred mile journey to drive. A couple of hours later, we had a short roadside stop before Cassongue, where we quickly saw our first Bocage's Sunbird.

Bocage's Sunbird: This monotypic species occurs in the highlands of central Angola & South West Democratic Republic of the Congo

Bocage's Sunbird

African Stonechat: Male. This is the stonei subspecies which occurs from South Democratic Republic of the Congo & West Tanzania to South & East Angola, North East Namibia, Zambia, central Zimbabwe, North & East Botswana & Northern South Africa. While I've seen many African Stonechats that look fairly similar to the Angolan population, some have been striking black & white individuals with barely any orange colouration. I find it hard to believe there isn't at least one cryptic species waiting to be described

Yellow Bishop: This is the angolensis subspecies that occurs in the North & central highlands of Angola. Part of the rationale for the June visit was the Bishops should be in breeding plumage, but many were unaware they should be

We carried on for the final stop at a bridge over the river near Cassongue. Here we had a good look for Brazza's Martin, but we were unsuccessful. We couldn't find any Brazza's Martin eBird records for June: is this a sign that they aren't around at this time of year or just a lack of Birders visiting in June. But we did see our first Black-and-rufous Swallow and Brown Firefinches, so it was still a productive stop.

African Marsh Harrier: This monotypic species occurs in the marshes & grasslands of East & South Africa

African Marsh Harrier: This was the only African Marsh Harrier we saw on the trip

African Stonechat: Female

African Pipit: This is the bocagii subspecies which occurs from Angola to Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Mozambique & North Cape Province

African Pipit

Marsh Widowbird: This is the hartlaubi subspecies which occurs in Angola, Southern Democratic Republic of the Congo & Zambia. The small orange patch in the wing indicates that this isn't a Yellow Bishop

Finally, we arrived at the town of Huambo about an hour after it got dark and then had another delay in getting onto the right road to locate the prebooked hotel. It was a reasonable hotel, with a couple of restaurants within a few minutes' walk distance of the hotel. We tried both during our stay and both provided the now expected long delays for the arrival of food, despite there being only three or four other people in the restaurants. It would have been nice to be able to get some food quicker occasionally, so that we could have had an early night.

27 Jun 23 - Angola - Another Miombo Patch

The original plan was we were going to have a proper breakfast before heading off on the long drive to Huambo. It would be a driving day with a few roadside stops on the way. But we hadn't seen the endemic Gabela Bushshrike & this was our last chance of seeing one. This was even more frustrating for me as Niall left the site before it was dark the previous evening. After a discussion that evening, the plans were changed to a pre-dawn departure from the accommodation to return for another look for a Gabela Bushshrike at the site where Phil & Richard had managed to get poor untickable flight views & which I had missed completely from standing in a slightly different location. We had about ninety minutes that morning to try & see it, which felt tight. We did heard three start singing about thirty minutes after dawn, but again the first two were very skulky & refused to come out from deep cover. Finally, we tried to look for the third individual from the main track & were all very relieved when Richard said "I've got it": especially as there was only about fifteen minutes left before Niall wanted to leave. That was the last endemic that we needed to see at the Kumbira Forest. We had good views of it, but I failed to get any photographs before it too disappeared from view. Finally, we were happy to leave the forest. It was about an hour of driving to get back to the Fazenda Rio Uiri accommodation to collect our bags & enjoy a rare sit down proper breakfast.

On paper, we had a two hundred mile journey to get to Huambo which was to be our base for the following three nights & two days of Birding. Google Maps said it was about a five hour journey. But Google Maps doesn't allow the time for Birding stops.

The Dombi track crossed this small stream which was quite productive Birding

Phil & Richard (background) further along the track

Some of the Miombo woodland

That's more of the forest gone for firewood or charcoal

The road from Conda quickly left the remains of the Kumbira Forest and surrounding farmland and headed South East through grassland with very large rocks or kopjes. After a while, we turned onto a side track near Dombi which crossed a small river and continued through some light Miombo woodland. This was very productive and we saw at least one Western Miombo Sunbird, a single Anchieta's Sunbird, two African Spotted Creepers and a Miombo Tit, plus, we had better views of two Southern Hyliolas.

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. This monotypic species occurs from Forests of West Angola, to the adjacent Democratic Republic of the Congo & South East Gabon

Miombo Tit: This monotypic species occurs in Angola, Zambia, South East Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Zimbabwe & Mozambique

Miombo Tit

African Spotted Creeper: This was one of the species I was most keen to see, having failed to see it on my first trip to Kenya. Unfortunately, there was long grass in the foreground of this photo

African Spotted Creeper: This is the nominate salvadori subspecies which occurs in Angola, Zambia, Malawi to West Kenya, Tanzania & extreme East Uganda

Greencap Eremomela: This is the pulchra subspecies which occurs in Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, West Malawi, North East Namibia & North Botswana

Southern Hyliota: This is the inornata subspecies which occurs from Angola to South Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, Malawi & North Mozambique

Southern Hyliota: This is one of four species in the family of Hyliotas

Western Violet-backed Sunbird: This is the angolensis subspecies which occurs from Gabon, South Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola to West Tanzania & West Malawi

Western Violet-backed Sunbird

Yellow-throated Petronia: This is the rufitergum subspecies which occurs in South Democratic Republic of the Congo, South West Tanzania, North Malawi, Zambia, Angola & North West Botswana

Bronze Mannikin: Immature. This is the scutate subspecies which occurs from Ethiopia & adjacent South East Sudan and Eastern South Sudan to Angola, North & East Botswana & East South Africa

Broad-tailed Paradise Whydah: This monotypic species occurs from North Angola & Democratic Republic of the Congo to South West Uganda, Kenya & North East South Africa

Namib Rock Agama: Female. This Lizard quickly moved to the vertical side of the bridge. Information on Angolan Agamas & their taxonomy is limited. While this appears to be a too far North to be a Namib Rock Agama, it still appears to be the most likely species. Thanks to my mate Steve Morrison who has helped to identify a number of the Lizard species from my published photos

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

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

After a couple of hours, we had to leave. It was too short a time at this patch of Miombo woodland and we all wanted longer. But we had compromised our time for the day with the final attempt for the Gabela Bushshrike. We still had around two-thirds of the driving to do and some other sites we wanted to stop at. I will cover the rest of the day in the next Blog Post.

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