Trip reports
Indoor Meeting - "From the Cape to The Falls"
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
This account of his journey, then, was lavishly illustrated with photographs of the highest quality of a large range of unfamiliar bird species, along with a few mammal species we all could recognise.
His trip started at the Cape of Good Hope where the meeting of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans can produce very stormy conditions. On a beach there an Ostrich was an unexpected sight but was apparently quite at home. Rather less welcome were thieving baboons partial to sandwiches. The Cape Gull is equivalent to our Great Black-backed Gull. Cape Buntings were quite common and fed on scraps from tables.
Up the coast, north of the cape, where the ocean currents are quite cool, he visited a colony of Jackass Penguins; a recording of their braying calls explained their name. Here, too, were African Black Oystercatchers.
Further north lies Namibia with very dry, dusty roads. It has vast open plains where it is possible to drive for hours without encountering a habitation or meeting another person. Trees are so scarce that they are something of a wonder - so much so that they are signposted. The wood of the quiver tree is used by Bushmen to make bows and arrows. Some mammals, including gemsbok and zebra, were encountered.
Further up the Skeleton Coast they saw a tree that held an aggregation of nests of weaver birds, the result of many years accumulation, the weight on one branch so great that it had to be propped up. These Sociable Weavers were so tame they would take food from the hand. The area is quite inhospitable and has the largest sand dunes in the world. At sunrise the lit faces are an extremely beautiful red colour which contrast with the areas black in shadow, the two colours separated by sharp edges of the dunes. In this region is a valley from which a river had long been diverted, leaving bare sand where ancient dead trees stand. This produced one of the memorable views shown, with the black skeletal trees on a base of pale white sand and backed by the smooth red surface of a high dune rising steeply behind.
On the coast at Walvis Bay, a huge platform had been built in the sea not far from the beach to provide a roost for birds. For two weeks each year its surface is scraped, providing guano which is sold to fertiliser companies, realising an annual return of about £80,000. Among the birds here were Greater Flamingos, Cattle Egrets, Brown Skuas and many White Pelicans. An island offshore was home to a large colony of cape fur seals and further up the coast black-backed jackals scavenged in another cape seal colony.
A diversion was made inland to visit, and admire, striking rock formations. Helmeted Guinea fowl were found here as well as hornbills of which they saw seven species on the trip.
A National Park was home to Cory Bustards the heaviest bird that is capable of flight. In a region with little water the party stayed at a camp situated near a water-hole. This gave an excellent opportunity to photograph mammals such as elephant, zebra, black rhinoceros and giraffe as they visited to drink.
The huge inland Okavanga delta produced a Bataleur eagle, the national bird of Botswana. The trip finished at the Victoria Falls with hippopotamus and crocodile in the Zambesi River.
We were delighted by the excellence of the slides that were witness to the Mark's photographic skills. It was remarkable that he had managed not only to see so many species but also capture photographs of such high quality when subject to the constraints that must have been imposed by being a member of essentially a sightseeing party.