Hideaway Lodge, Darwendale Dam

On Friday (29 June) Julia and I visited Hideaway Lodge, situated on the north shore of Darwendale Dam. It is about 40km from Harare, and at least half of this distance is on dirt roads.
The road passes through some farmland on the way, where we saw birds such as Rufous-naped and Red-capped Larks, and Capped Wheatear.

Rufous-naped Lark

Once at Hideaway, we quickly noticed a fruiting fig tree, in which dozens of birds were gorging themselves. There were several Speckled Mousebirds and dozens of Southern Masked-weaver, but no sign of the Lesser Masked-weaver, which I have seen here before. There were even a few Wattled Starlings feeding on the figs. A stunning male Marico Sunbird was feeding nearby.

Marico Sunbird

The main action was happening at the water's edge. As we stood at the boat launch site, we watched flocks of waterbirds flying past, mostly to a spot about 1km east of Hideaway. There were also a lot of birds already on the floating vegetation along the shoreline. There were White-breasted and Reed Cormorants, but no African Darter. Darters are now very rare on Chivero and Darwendale. Grey, Purple, Goliath, Squacco and Black Herons were around, plus Cattle and Yellow-billed Egrets. Few Glossy Ibis were seen, along with African Sacred Ibis and African Openbill.

Ducks and Geese were well represented with over 100 each of White-faced Duck and Red-billed Teal, 20 Egyptian Goose, 8 Spur-winged Goose, 10 Hottentot Teal, 30 Southern Pochard, 60 Fulvous Duck and, the star of the show, over 200 Comb (Knob-billed) Duck!

African Jacana were everywhere, and Red-knobbed Coot, Black Crake, Common Moorhen and African Purple Swamphen were all common.

Waders were mostly Blacksmith Lapwings, plus a small number of African Wattled and Crowned Lapwings, and a few Three-banded and Kittlitz's Plovers. About 50 Collared Pratincoles were flying around in a couple of groups. Grey-headed Gulls were easily seen, but not particularly numerous. Only two Whiskered Terns were seen.

One of the larger flocks of Comb Ducks

Beautiful African Purple Swamphen

Collared Pratincole

African Fish-eagle was the only raptor seen during the morning. Other birds seen include Senegal Coucal, Pied, Giant and Malachite Kingfishers, Lilac-breasted Roller, African Grey Hornbill, African Pied Wagtail, African Pipit (over 20), Yellow-throated and Rosy-throated Longclaws and House Sparrow. Swallows were fairly well represented with five species, but not as well as in summer, when I have seen up to 10 species. We saw Wire-tailed, Lesser Striped, Pearl-breasted and Grey-rumped Swallows, plus a Brown-throated Martin.

Rosy-throated Longclaw

Pearl-breasted (top right) and Wire-tailed Swallows

A few weeks previous to our visit, a Birdlife Zimbabwe member showed me a photograph of a ringed Blacksmith Plover. One of my goals on this visit was to get the ring number - no easy task! I did manage to clearly photograph the first four digits, and the last two are a bit vague but I think I got them right. Now we just have to find out who ringed it...

Darwendale Dam is an excellent birding destination, well worth a visit. Even a small section of shoreline such as we covered (we walked about 1km of shoreline) can be very productive.

A large group of various waterbirds; mostly Comb Duck

Ringing near Wild Geese Lodge

The area we ringed in is not strictly part of the Wild Geese Lodge Game Park, so we didn't access the ringing spot through there. With our hands full of poles, nets and other ringing equipment, we left the car on the side of the road and walked about 500m (it seemed much further in the dark!) to a grassy area scattered with acacia trees. We set up nets along a couple of the paths, by which time the sun had decided to make an appearance. 

Shortly afterwards, we saw a raptor flying around, shrieking as it did so. Upon closer inspection it turned out to be a Bat Hawk! It showed very well and then landed in a stand of eucalyptus trees, where I later photographed it.

Bat Hawk flying around.

...And in a tree later in the day.

Ringing was not particularly successful, although some nice birds were caught such as Rattling and Red-faced Cisticolas and White-browed Scrub-robins.

Rattling Cisticola

All the action, however, was happening about 20 meters off the ground; Some sort of creeper (I don't know the name) that grows high up in other trees was flowering, and dozens of sunbirds were feasting upon the nectar. Western Violet-backed Sunbird was there, as well as Miombo Double-collared, Variable, White-bellied, Scarlet-chested, Amethyst and a probable Purple-banded Sunbird. Other birds were feeding here too - Weavers, White-eyes, Barbets and Bulbuls just to name a few. I heard a Burnt-necked Eremomela in the acacia trees. I personally saw or heard 55 species that morning, which is not bad for a morning concentrated on ringing.

Nyanga Ringing June 2012

Maybe winter is not the best time of year to visit one of Zim's coldest places... There were not all that many birds around!

We (the usual group of four ringers, plus a couple of others) stayed in a lovely cottage just around the corner from Troutbeck Hotel in Nyanga. We arrived on Saturday afternoon (16th June) and had nets up for half a day on both Saturday and Monday, plus the whole of Sunday. On the property was a fair bit of forest and two rivers which flowed into a small dam at the bottom of the garden.

The view from the cottage

We left up the poles during the nights, only packing up the nets, in order to hasten the setting up of nets the next morning. Well, I am certainly glad I took gloves with me, as early in the morning the lawn, trees and poles were covered in a thin layer of ice! Perhaps that was why there were so few birds around - they were all frozen...

We did, however, catch some lovely birds. A Mountain Wagtail was caught, and a different one was seen with a ring (Julia had ringed some birds at this spot earlier in the year).  A Yellow-throated Woodland Warbler was also caught, as well as two stunning White-starred Robins. Olive Sunbird, Cape Robin-chat and Cape Batis were among the other species caught.

The White-starred Robins were particularly interesting because according to Irwin's Birds of Zimbabwe these birds vacate the highlands during winter and move to lower elevations - perhaps to escape the cold. Why are these two still in Nyanga in the middle of winter? There must be more still in the area; if not for having caught them we wouldn't have even known they were around.

African Olive-pigeons and White-necked Ravens flew past every day, plus an African Goshawk on one morning. Quite a few eastern highlands 'specials' were seen in the garden including Cape Canary, Stripe-cheeked Greenbul, a few groups of Roberts' Warbler, White-tailed Crested Flycatcher and Livingstone's Turaco. A pair of African Black Duck, which live on a dam further downstream, flew past often.

Male Olive Sunbird. Note the bright yellow pectoral tufts, which the females don't have.

Yellow-throated Woodland Warbler. The smallest bird caught on the trip at 8.5 grams!

Definitely the prettiest bird caught; White-starred Robin

During the moments when we were waiting for an unsuspecting bird to get itself caught, I decided to do something useful; I went looking for other creatures to photograph. I found a few Swynnerton's Reed Frogs, a few lizards and a couple of dead shrews, which may have been victims of the cold conditions.

These lizards were all over the rockery in front of the cottage. Not yet sure what species they are.

A beautiful adult Swynnerton's Reed Frog.

Another frog, which I suspect is the same species as above, but a juvenile, explaining the lack of stripes.

A short walk from the cottage was a waterfall, upon which I decided to practice some long exposure photography. Stupidly, I forgot to take my tripod with, but I managed to make a plan. I sacrificed my gloves to use as a beanbag, of sorts, for the camera! With a shutter speed of 10 seconds, here is the result...

Ewanrigg and Mukuvisi 2 + 3 June 2012

Ringing at Ewanrigg Botanical Gardens was very slow on Saturday, with few birds caught. Some of the birds caught were unusual, almost making up for the lack of numbers...
Grey-backed Camaroptera was the first bird caught. Later a Southern Black Flycatcher was trapped, with a few birds in between. Feeling quite frustrated we eventually went to pack up the last of the nets, and in them we found the day's best birds! A Green Wood-hoopoe and a Brown-crowned Tchagra.
We only had one net up in the aloes (which were mostly finished flowering), so not many sunbirds were caught.

Southern Black Flycatcher

Brown-crowned Tchagra

One of the sunbirds on dry aloe flower - which species??

White-bellied Sunbird male.

Immature male Scarlet-chested Sunbird.

The monthly walk at Mukuvisi was quite windy and cold - I spent almost as much time looking for patches of sunlight as I spent looking for birds.

White-breasted Cuckooshrike, Southern Hyliota, Groundscraper Thrush, Swallow-tailed Bee-eater, White-crested Helmet-shrike and Miombo Blue-eared Starling were seen, but no Spotted Creeper.

The best sightings were in fact both reptiles. A big Nile Monitor was sunning itself on the path in one spot, and at the picnic site a Schlegel's Blind Snake slithered past whilst we were doing the bird list! It was quite fast and was going through the leaf-litter, so the photo is unfortunately not great.

Schlegel's Blind Snake. This was a first for me.

Recent Ringing and Birding

I have been quite busy in the last couple of weeks, with a bunch of different birding trips thrown in the mix.

We have had three recent ringing trips - The first was a night-time attempt to catch Three-banded Plovers at Afdis (A success, with 9 TB Plovers caught, 3 of which were re-traps). Also caught was a Kurrichane Thrush, two Laughing Doves and a bat - which is still being identified.

The unidentified bat caught at Afdis. Photo by Erin Murphy

Next was Monavale Vlei, which was not particularly lucrative, and neither was the more recent trip to Mukuvisi Woodland, in attempt to catch some miombo woodland birds. The highlight of the Mukuvisi trip was in fact a Bronze-winged Courser on the dirt road at 5am! I also had a great sighting of a duiker later on in the day.

Mist nets billowing in the wind at Monavale Vlei.

Common Duiker at Mukuvisi.

Other recent birding has been at Haka Park, Domboshava and Borrowdale Brooke.
Haka Park was nice as usual, although we didn't see a great variety of birds. White-throated Robin-chat, Spotted Creeper, Miombo & Southern Black Tits, Swallow-tailed Bee-eater, Malachite Kingfisher and Klaas's Cuckoo were the highlights of the morning at Haka.

I went walking around Domboshava for an afternoon with my dad, where I saw Striped Pipit, Lazy Cisticola, Mocking Cliff-chat, Rock Martin and Cinnamon-breasted Bunting, among other species.

Cinnamon-breasted Bunting

Borrowdale Brooke has had a few unusual birds recently.
3 Three-banded Plovers have been hanging around the muddy edges of the dams recently. Sadly none of them are ringed! I have been making an effort to photograph the waterbirds; mainly coots, moorhens and jacanas and I am particularly pleased with my coot photograph.

Three-banded Plover

Red-knobbed Coot

My garden has seen a bit of action this week with Orange-breasted Bush-shrike and Green-backed Honeybird, both a first for the garden. A Spotted Eagle-owl has been standing on the lawn every night this week and a couple of Barn Owls have flown past.

Green-backed Honeybird

Haka Park, May 5th

We spent half the morning ringing birds in Haka park and decided to finish early, as we were not catching much. I did a quick drive through the woodlands to try photograph some birds. I hardly saw or heard a bird until I was about to give up, when I stumbled across a bird party containing Cardinal and Bennett's Woodpeckers, Black Cuckooshrike, Southern Hyliota, Stierling's Wren-warbler, Miombo and Southern Black Tits, Green-capped Eremomela, Yellow-throated Petronia and a lovely Spotted Creeper.

Cape and Yellow-throated Longclaws were on the main vlei near the bridge.

Male Bennett's Woodpecker

Miombo Tit

I was lucky to find this Spotted Creeper on a branch right in front of me!

Ringing at Afdis 28 April

One of the first catches of the morning was a Common Waxbill, which pretty much set the tone for the rest of the day. Blue and Common Waxbills, Bronze Mannikins and Jameson's Firefinches made up about half of the birds ringed during the day!
Some more exciting birds were caught, however. Two Black Crakes were caught in spring traps, along with two Bar-throated Apalises in the nets. There were still a few waders around - about 10 Three-banded Plovers (caught one), four Blacksmith Lapwings (caught one), 25 African Wattled Lapwings and 3 Wood Sandpipers (caught one).

Three-banded Plover

Blacksmith Lapwing

Bar-throated Apalis

The other good catch was a young Dark-capped Yellow Warbler with strange primary moult.

Starting from the outer primary, working inwards: 3 old feathers, 1 pin, 1 half-emerged and 4 feathers successfully moulted.
The inner primary, instead of being in the same state as the four on its right, is also half-emerged.
It would be interesting to have caught it a week later, to see the changes...