In October, 2009 I traveled to the East African country of Tanzania, famed for its rich wildlife. I hoped and expected to see a broad variety of the spectacular African species of birds, but of course the great beasts were at least an equal, if not greater, lure. Africa is also the birthplace of mankind but we shouldn’t hold that against it.
As preparation I purchased Stevenson and Fanshawe’s “Birds of East Africa,” which proved a perfect resource. Although slightly bulky, the illustrations are excellent and the text is thorough. With the wealth of species that frequent this area of Africa, I anticipated far greater problems of identification than I actually faced. Indeed, with the exception of the swifts, there was hardly a bird I saw decently that proved difficult to pin down with assurance as to species. I should note that I did not run into the confusing greenbuls or cisticolas.
As is my practice I will generally list a bird below only the first time I saw it, which avoids monotonous repeated references to common birds like Common bulbul and Black kite. Life birds, of which I had between 160 and 170, are named in all capitals. Scientific names are provided in parentheses following the first mention of a bird.
OCTOBER 4
Flying east to Amsterdam, our transgression against the sun forced a sunrise hours too early. I had slept little and watched too many movies from the long KLM menu. At the Amsterdam airport I walked dozing through the thin early-morning crowds, separated from them by an internal clock set on a newer world’s time. The light rose and a man sharing the airport window with me identified distant poles as a cluster of boats on a canal. It was a charming fantasy that my binoculars destroyed, showing instead the lightposts of a rental car lot. I didn’t tell him.
Small strips of grass among the bustle of airport activity had their own miniature stories playing out. Hares loped along a chainlink fence. A Common kestrel (Falco tinniculus) hung pinned against the backdrop of distant trees, only its wings moving. Several Common gulls passed to and fro. Eurasian starlings (Sturnus vulgaris), Jackdaws (Corvus monedula), a probable Lesser black-backed gull (Larus fuscus), and a Rock pigeon (Columbia livia) all contributed their familiar appearances to the mostly sterile scene. A large bird of prey, black and white, swept past - a Common buzzard? Rough-legged hawk? - briefly scattering the smaller birds. They soon returned to their activities, jaded by the constant presence of larger winged predators made of noise and steel and in-flight magazines.
Beyond the artificial limit of the airport, out there somewhere, was a legendary city, but I would not have my taste of it on this trip.
Another long flight to Kilimanjaro airport. More movies. A bit more sleep. It was night by the time we arrived, darkness come early to a land once known as the dark continent. I caught the shuttle to the Hotel Impala and they agreed to drop me off at my actual hotel, Le Jacaranda, only a block removed. On the way the driver spoke of the terrible dry season they had endured, and which was still grimly holding on, even into what should be the opening notes of the rainy season. The headlights welled out vague and dim into the gauzy night, but it was not mist, only dust; clouds of flakes burned from the land’s skin. That was my introduction to Africa - a fog of dust in straining headlights.
Le Jacaranda proved to be an assortment of buildings haphazardly arranged behind the main office, connected by sheltered walkways. I was too tired and uncertain of my location to explore beyond the hotel grounds so took dinner at the restaurant above reception. I had machalari, a beef concoction with cooked bananas. It was a good meal but the bananas had no more flavor remaining than potatoes. More mentally than physically tired, I hit the bed between 9 and 10 p.m. local time.
OCTOBER 5
I woke slightly before dawn to the sound of distant howling. Soon from the street rose a Muslim cry, presumably a regular incident of the morning. I thought of a hotel in Costa Rica where howler monkeys would raise a chorus at precisely 5 a.m. each day, and an alarm clock was superfluous. I rose to see what entertainment the hotel grounds might afford.
The first African bird I saw was an overhead Black kite (Milvus migrans), which would prove the most commonly seen - and approachable - of the birds of prey here. Next the gardens offered the first of a classic African tribe, an EASTERN VIOLET-BACKED SUNBIRD (Anthreptes orientalis). An AFRICAN BLACK-HEADED ORIOLE (Oriolus larvatus) showed up in a tree, and the first of many PIED CROWS (Corvus albus) flew over. A sedate RING-NECKED DOVE (Streptopelia capicola) sat atop a pole. Appropriately named, a COMMON BULBUL (Pycnonotus barbatus) gave me some difficulty in identification until I finally had a look at the yellow vent.
Hunger and the press of time forced me to cut short my investigations of the hotel grounds. I was scheduled to meet a representative of the tour company at 8 a.m., and after some confusion we recognized each other. The man was named Lazarus. His car bore the insignia of Hartebeest Safaris, which puzzled me, as I had made arrangements with Feathertrail Tours out of Nairobi. However, we loaded up my suitcase and duffel bag and headed in to downtown Arusha.
I did not realize until I reached the headquarters of Hartebeest that Lazarus was actually the manager of the outfit. We sat down across his cluttered desk and he informed me that the couple that was going to be on the safari with me had called to say they had to delay their vacation until the eighth. This was an unwelcome piece of news. I had him put me on the phone with the woman at Feathertrail Tours with whom I had made the arrangements. She told me the couple had called them nearly a week earlier. I said by waiting to tell me until now they had put me in a difficult situation. “I feel it,” she said. “I feel it.” They told me I could wait around Arusha for three days and do a shortened version of the safari, or I could do the full safari with a private car for more than half again what I had agreed to. I said they could give me the safari we agreed upon, at the price we agreed upon, or they could refund my money now and I would find another tour company. I hadn’t paid the greater portion of the safari price yet and the threat of going to another tour company swayed things in my favor. Around this time some guy poked his head in and said he was one of the people about to start a three-day safari, and he needed to talk to Lazarus. Lazarus was rattled and told him we would be a little while longer. When the door closed Lazarus’ eyes darted around. I asked him to confirm that three days from now would be the eighth. Got him.
After some arguing we arrived at a compromise. They would give me the equivalent of the safari I originally agreed to, at the price I agreed to, plus they would throw in an extra destination on the ninth day. Well, it was a compromise by my definition. When I left Lazarus had a curious expression. I’m not sure he was clear on what had just happened.
I waited outside the headquarters building as the car arrived. Other participants in the safari had arrived during my argument with the frauds inside. They were a married couple from the Czech Republic named Jan and Itka, and Jan’s brother Tomas. Soon an American expat named Jim arrived. He said he was a graduate student who had spent an extended time in Tanzania and was returning to the States, but he looked more like a travel photographer.
Outside the headquarters a few common birds showed up. A pair of SPECKLED MOUSEBIRDS (Colius striatus) briefly sat atop a telephone pole, and were replaced by the ubiquitous House sparrow (Passer domesticus). Really, would a trip be complete without an in-city House sparrow sighting? A bit down the street a BAGLAFECHT WEAVER (Ploceus baglafecht) was lingering about its nest, and more Common bulbuls showed up.
Our driver introduced himself. William was generally a quiet man. He was not bad at all with the birds and proved to have excellent eyes. Mostly he was impassive but I would see him at least once in pure uncomplicated joy.
After an hour or so we were on our way. Outside Arusha the effects of the drought were apparent. The lands were heat-ravaged, barren and sere. A few camels were nearly all the wildlife to be seen. Away toward the horizon dust devils spun black ash in towers like filthy smokes. The trees were leafless skeletons without even the excuse of a winter landscape. As the cracked, hazed landscape swept past I had a flash of deja vu. I made a note to locate a certain passage when I returned home:
Below them . . . lay the inner plain stretching away into a formless gloom beyond their sight. The wind of the world blew now from the West, and the great clouds were lifted high, floating away eastward; but still only a grey light came to the dreary fields . . . . There smokes trailed on the ground and lurked in hollows, and fumes leaked from fissures in the earth . . . all seemed ruinous and dead, a desert burned and choked.
I was dozing soon, watching a particularly large dust devil cross a field of black dirt and swell to tornadic proportions. In my sun-blinded fugue I thought I had not reached Africa and instead come to Mordor.
A few hours later we entered Lake Manyara National Park. On the entrance road we had a flyover MARABOU STORK (Leptopilus crumeniferus), the first of many seen flying or perched throughout the trip, monstrous and prehistoric. A troop of baboons came to the roadside, ignoring the car. Another classic African clan made its first appearance in the form of a SILVERY-CHEEKED HORNBILL (Bycanistes brevis) that worked its awkward way down from the top of a tree. On the way to the hippo pool I called a halt to examine a SECRETARYBIRD (Sagittarius serpentarius). The bird was striding across the plain searching for snakes to kill by stamping to death, a peculiar variation on a Biblical mission. It was tall, elegant, rapacious, an ultimate expression of predatory evolution.
As we drove occasional small scrub and grassland birds flitted from the car’s approach. I was restrained about calling halts. The other people in the car were not obsessive birders and I didn’t want to burden their safaris with innumerable calls for small, obscure birds, so frequently I let a bird go without stopping to look at it. Each time I died a little inside.
Soon we came to a hippo pool where we saw zebras standing nearby in a small herd and numbers of hippos lying like so many large, flat stones in the pool itself. Thompson’s gazelles and impalas stood not far off. Of course the pool also had attracted numbers of birds, including a massive GOLIATH HERON (Ardea goliath), several EGYPTIAN GEESE (Alopochen aegyptiacus), a lone and aesthetic COLLARED PRATINCOLE (Glareala pratincola), SPUR-WINGED LAPWINGS (Vanellus spinosus), and flyover LITTLE SWIFTS (Apus affinis). An AFRICAN FISH-EAGLE (Haliaeetus vocifer) started up the smaller birds and came to its perch in a nearby tree, affording excellent looks. A YELLOW-BILLED STORK (Mycteria ibis) stood off to the left, and the hippos sported YELLOW-BILLED OXPECKERS (Buphagus africanus) like so many vampire bats. A PIED KINGFISHER (Ceryle rudis) arrived and hovered hunting over the water. The local avifauna was rounded out by a PIED AVOCET (Recurvirostris avisetta), a pair of WHITE-FACED WHISTLING-DUCKS (Dendrocygna viduata), and the familiar erect forms of Great egrets (Cosmelodius albus).
Moving on from the hippo pool in the car, we had distant looks at maned lions which did not have manes, and close encounters with African elephants. A trio crossed the road in front of us with a very young calf among them. We would see many elephants, often very near to the car. All moved sedately and with deliberation. They did not need to hurry, being too big. Haste is not a habit with those who have nothing to fear and take no commands.
Monkeys dotted our route onward. Blue monkeys and vervet monkeys appeared in family groups. The infants in each case attracted the most attention. One source of our fascination with primates is that, alone among the animals, they can execute gestures reminiscent of complex human signals. Cuteness, on the other hand, is nearly universal among young animals and irresistable.
An AFRICAN WHITE-BACKED VULTURE (Gyps africanus) showed up in the trees to provide my first Old World vulture species. The brush by the road held CRESTED GUINEAFOWL (Guttera pucherani) and CRESTED FRANCOLIN (Francolins sephaena).
Of course, we were in Africa on safari, and the greatest of the bird clan inevitably claimed its time in the spotlight. A COMMON OSTRICH (Struthio camelus) loomed above the plain, all neck and legs and featherball body. A lion, as we would soon find, is an enormous cat but no less a cat. It does not lose its feline qualities although the adult males may have a more masculine tenor than their domestic counterparts. An ostrich, by contrast, has been remarked to have a distinctly unbirdlike impression. It’s not just the size of the creature. The shape of it, the way it moves, all are irreconcilable with the family of birds. Looking at the world’s largest bird I thought it closer to a feature of the terrain, or perhaps some earthbound meteorological phenomenon - a cloud dropped low over the grass and drastically out of place.
Moving on we passed a COMMON FISCAL (Lanius collaris) perched atop a bush, and a GREY-HEADED KINGFISHER (Halcyon leucocephala) that flew in and landed in a tree. Jan called my attention to a flying raptor which turned out to be a female PALLID HARRIER (Circus macrourus), the only harrier species occurring in Northern Europe which I had not yet seen. Soon after William stopped and pointed out a large acacia a bit off the road. There was a mass beneath it and William told us it was a lion. The great cat was unmoving and in the shade of the tree it seemed gray, as if it lacked fur and showed only a sickly pallor. There was corruption on the air. Through the binoculars the great flank showed no sign of breathing. I suggested the lion was dead. This started up debate in the car. Jim in particular wavered several times on the cat’s condition. “He’s dead, Jim,” I said. William looked out at the lion suspiciously, and finally rapped on the car door a few times. At this point I have to report a miracle. Summoned back from death, the lion sat up and looked at us. Probably how Jesus did it too.
The massive scale of the head, the sheer implied power of the jaws, were mesmerizing. Screw Aslan. After a moment of regarding us in the bright sun the lion lay back down and was again still. “He’s died,” I reported. Two excellent quote opportunities in two minutes. It was getting to be a good day.
Not far beyond we passed a pair of African buffalo. They stood foursquare and stared truculently at the car. In a contest I’d have bet on the buffalo. As we continued our tour through the park I picked up GREEN SANDPIPER (Tringa ochropus) on the margins of a spreading hillside creek, and an EMERALD-SPOTTED WOOD-DOVE (Turtur chalcopsilos) not far beyond that.
After we left the park we stopped at a roadside stand. They offered various trinkets and blankets. I wandered behind the stand and found a group of locals sitting around at their ease. They asked if I wanted any weed. I declined but thanked them. Returning to the road I saw a PALM-NUT VULTURE (Gypohierax angolensis) coast overhead and soar on into the park.
The rest of the group had elected the “camping” rather than the more expensive “lodge” version of the safari. The labels were both misleading, as it turned out. The others were dropped off in a local village with a name which translated to “River of Mosquitos.” Their camping experience involved setting up tents next to the swimming pool of a crappy little hotel in the middle of the village. It all seemed charming.
I had a very different sort of surprise when I was driven to the “lodge.” I had pictured a rustic cabin, but the Lake Manyara Hotel would have been a three- or four-star establishment in the U.S. It was a substantial establishment of rich wood and comparatively opulent appointments, behind a gated entrance road. At the gate we had a delay getting in because the guard was hammered and he almost fell down trying to unlock it. Beyond, the hotel’s contrast with the living conditions of the locals could not be ignored. Though drought was leaving dead cows by the sides of the roads, the rooms had elaborate bathtubs and showers, fed as I would learn by lines of men carrying jerries of water on bicycles up the hill from the village. As I was waiting to check in, a middle-aged American woman came to the front desk with her husband to harangue the desk clerk about the grab bar in their shower being loose. Her indignation was visible. “It’s a dangerous situation,” she insisted in a rising, shrill voice. “Someone could be hurt.” The clerk, who for all I knew had never lived in a house with its own bathtub, was very apologetic, promising to fix the grab bar himself. I made a mental note not to be near the woman if a revolution happened to break out. Collateral damage is a bitch.
The dining room was enormous, and the meal - included in the price of the room - was brought in four courses. Before I retired I asked about the nightly rate in case the River of Mosquitos accommodations did not suit my companions. It was an expensive hotel even by American standards. I wasn’t sure how the safari price could cover nine nights at that rate but I didn’t spend much time on it.
OCTOBER 6
As usual on vacation, I woke early and spent some time birding around the hotel. Between the hotel and the hotel staff’s quarters, I found VARIABLE SUNBIRD (Cinnyris venusta), SULPHUR-BREASTED BUSH-SHRIKE (Malaconotus sulfureopectus), STREAKY SEEDEATER (Serinus striolatus), a pair of glorious male VIOLET-BACKED STARLINGS (Cinnyricinclus leucogaster), BLACK-HEADED WEAVER (Ploceus cucullatus), ROCK MARTIN (Hirundo fuligula), a nice little RED-FRONTED TINKERBIRD (Pongoniulus pusillus), and SPOT-FLANKED BARBET (Tricholaema lacrymosa). Looking off the bluff over the plain and lake below, I had a large eagle fly low overhead - a magnificent MARTIAL EAGLE (Polemaetus bellicosus) pushing aside the sky with its powerful glide. Finally, in a dry field I found a flock of RED-BILLED FIREFINCHES (Lagonsticta senegala).
The group showed up in the car to pick me up and we continued on to Ngorongoro Conservation Area. There had been surprisingly few mosquitos in the River of Mosquitos, but Jim confessed to feeling ill.
At the entrance gate to Ngorongoro we stopped while William obtained necessary papers. I found there my first bee-eater, a LITTLE BEE-EATER (Merops pusillus) in a tree beside the lavatory. We continued on to stop at an overlook. Ngorongoro Crater is technically a caldera, a volcano that has collapsed. It’s about twenty kilometers across and inside the remaining ringwall is a flat plain with grasslands and a fringe of trees. The animal life is rich and the whole is like a lost valley. Edgar Rice Burroughs would have populated it with advanced civilizations and feathered dinosaurs. The impressive view did not make me miss a long-tailed raptor that came in below us and landed up in a tree, a LIZARD BUZZARD (Kaupifalco mongrammicus) that I felt was a very good find.
Due to a late start and delays before picking me up, we went directly to a place on the outside of the caldera wall where we would have lunch, and eventually the others would camp. This was a true campsite where animals such as elephants occasionally showed up. It was going to be a hassle to drop the others off here later and then get me to the lodge. I volunteered to camp instead, but was told it could not be done. They did not have the extra tent or food.
While we were eating an AUGUR BUZZARD (Buteo augur) joined the many Black kites soaring over the campground, and then came to perch in the large tree at the center of the site for long studies. Here we also had AFRICAN GREEN-PIGEON (Treron calva), RUEPPELL’S GRIFFON-VULTURE (Gyps rueppellii), SACRED IBIS (Threskiornis aethiopicus), SUPERB STARLING (Lamprotornis superbus), and HILDEBRANDT’S STARLING (Lamprotornis hildebrandti). The starlings’ behavior resembled those of starlings back home, but there the resemblance ended. They were decked in bright colors bordering on gaudy; in fact only a band of white across the breast separated the one from the other species. They were personable and friendly, inquisitive.
We were warned to watch our lunches because the starlings were not the only would-be thieves in the area. As I was watching the griffon-vulture fly over I heard a rustle behind me. A vervet monkey had rushed onto the hood of the car where I had my box lunch. It stole my half-eaten sandwich. In mock rage I chased the beast up the trunk of a nearby tree. We all laughed at the incident but kept an eye on the monkey as he was obviously planning another run. Eventually he came down the tree again and made a move for my lunch but I intercepted him and instead he went under the car. When he came out the far side he surprised us by going in the open driver’s side window. Itka had stayed in the car to eat her lunch and she gave a surprised shriek. The monkey did not know there were people in the car guarding the food and he shot up through the open roof, bounced off the strut holding up the raised roof cover, and bolted back to his tree. This time the various drivers around and I actually climbed partway up the trunk to drive the monkey higher so he would not be able to simply dive for more food before we could react.
After lunch was done and the tents set up we headed over the ring wall into the crater. Here we had our first Grant’s gazelles, as well as a lion - this one bearing a full mane - loosely attended by a pair of jackals. William pointed out a pair of GREY-CROWNED CRANES (Bulearica regulorum) with their showy crests. He also pulled over when he found a KORI BUSTARD (Ardeotis kori), which was another bird large and interesting enough to attract the attention of the others in the car. When I told them the name of the large bird with its dagger bill, Jim asked “What’s a bustard?” “That,” I answered. William snorted.
One of the specialties of Ngorongoro Crater escaped us until later in the day when we found far out across the veldt the silhouette of a black rhinoceras. It stood quiet in the hot sun and motionless but you sensed that once it started going there was nothing that would stop it. Ironic that such a symbol of unbridled power should be impotent against the forces that have brought it step by step along the dimming roadway to extinction.
We came to a hippo pool where the beasts were more than just flat gray stepping-stones. The bulges of their eyes and nostrils and ears showed above the waterline. Occasionally they rolled and a vast expanse of flank erupted from the water. Here there were CROWNED LAPWING (Vanellus coronatus) and a Black-crowned night-heron (Nycticorax nycticorax). An odd shape out in the grass turned out to be a cheetah sitting at its ease, all spots and gangly body made for sudden speed.
Now the track bent back toward the caldera wall. A pair of YELLOW-THROATED SANDGROUSE (Pterocles gutturalis) ran alongside the car for a few moments before heading into the sanctuary of thicker brush. A SPECKLED PIGEON (Columba guinea) followed, and then a BLACK-BELLIED BUSTARD (Eupodotis melanogaster). Another wet spot offered Gray heron (Ardea cinerea), Cattle egret (Bubulcus ibis), dramatic BLACKSMITH LAPWINGS (Vanellus armatus), several Common moorhens (Gallinula chloropus), and a few LONG-TOED LAPWINGS (Vanellus crassirostris).
I was in the front passenger seat. As we were nearing the caldera’s saline ponds, a svelte tawny shape glided across the road in front of the car and moved out a short distance into the grass. William was astonished and announced it was a caracal, a wild cat somewhat smaller than a leopard, with the smoky coloration of a puma and the delicate face of a whiskerless lynx. The backs of the ears were beautifully patterned in black and white. It was a device for signalling for the cat, and art for us. This was a rare sighting and William had to think whether he had seen one at Ngorongoro in his twenty years as a safari driver. The cat paused and leaped and William exclaimed it was hunting. He whooped as the cat struck again and came up with something like a rat or lizard. It ate as we sat; we few, we fortunate few who a hunting caracal saw.
The saline ponds served up flocks of LESSER FLAMINGO (Phoeniconaias minor) and Greater flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber). With that we took the track back up the caldera wall and to our respective quarters.
The Hotel Ngorongoro brought a strong frisson of deja vu. It was in many ways the Lake Manyara Hotel twisted to a new shape. The fixtures and even the woodwork were the same, suggesting common ownership and construction. As I reached the hotel with daylight still to spare I spent the waning light searching out more of the smaller bird species. Here I found TROPICAL BOUBOU (Laniarius aethiopicus), ASHY FLYCATCHER (Muscicapa caerulescens), RED-WINGED STARLING (Onchognathus morio), and BROWN-BACKED WOODPECKER (Picoides obsoletus). The last bird for the day was a WHITE-NAPED RAVEN (Corvus albicollis) that came up from within the crater itself and passed over with a very corvid croak.
That night the earth shook twice, briefly, as if to remind us that Africa had once existed without humans and might throw us off once again.
OCTOBER 7
Morning birding around the lodge brought only BRONZE SUNBIRD (Nectarinia kilimensis) and EASTERN DOUBLE-COLLARED SUNBIRD (Cinnyris mediocris) as new birds. At the boundary of the lodge area I found myself abruptly face-to-face with an African buffalo that had made its way up from the caldera. After hippopotamus, the buffalo is considered the most dangerous animal in the area. I wasn’t really bothered. The big bull looked me directly in the eyes. Then it crashed off through the brush.
The pickup was delayed as usual but eventually we were on our way to Tarangire National Park. At the entrance William parked to check out a problem with the car, which had been frequently dying on us and hard to restart. He then found the latch would not work to keep the hood closed. We were delayed here forty-five minutes and I spotted a subtly gorgeous GREY CUCKOO-SHRIKE (Coracina caesia) and a fairly simply-marked GROSBEAK WEAVER (Amblyospiza albifrons). I also found a robin-chat but it was in shadow and disappeared before I could see any diagnostic marks.
The problems with the car had William very concerned and he was not willing to risk a breakdown within the maze of the park. We drove out to a town called Karatu where the fellows at a repair shop had a look at the motor. In town I saw a wagtail and was prepared to write it off as a species I had seen before until I realized the European form had been split from the AFRICAN PIED WAGTAIL (Motacilla aguimp). While William dealt with the car, Jim and Itka and Tomas and I walked down the road to a traditional open-air market or fair. We chewed sugarcane and saw various slabs of meat cooked in the open. A friendly group of women offered us tastes of the enormous flank of steak they were cooking over a fire. They joked with Tomas and it was probably the least touristy experience we had with the locals. A boy walked by with a pail on his shoulder. It held a goat’s head and the eyes were blank.
Shillers of souvenirs and secondhand art eventually descended on us. Tomas was very polite to them and thus could not be rid of them, they surrounded him in a cloud like gnats and followed in his train. “These are best,” they claimed. “This is cheapest.” I was polite too but frank about the fact that I did not want their wares at any price so they gave up on me. Tomas kept looking at the items for sale before declining and I advised him to stop doing that. We headed back toward the repair shop and Tomas eventually lost his gnats.
When the Karatu repair shop was unable to address the problem, we started on the road back to Arusha to meet a car coming out to pick us up. The car died again and we pulled off the road at a dry field across from beginning forest. A WHITE-TAILED BLUE FLYCATCHER (Elminia longicauda) drew me along the road to a small tree where a pair of AFRICAN PARADISE-FLYCATCHERS (Terpsiphone viridis) burst out with dramatic long tail-feathers, vaguely reminiscent of the lengthened coverts of the near-mythic quetzal. Above House martins (Delichon urbica) mingled with several swifts, including a NYANZA SWIFT (Apus niansae).
Eventually the car arrived with another driver, Manuel. William would drive the broken car back to Arusha for repairs. We said goodbye to William and Manuel took us on toward Tarangire. On the way we stopped in Karatu again so Jim could catch a bus. He was still feeling ill and wanted to visit a hospital rather than risk a serious sickness during the long trip back to the States. We were sorry to lose him but I later learned he did fine.
Now less cramped in the car, we continued to Tarangire. Again we had to stop at the entrance to a park while our driver obtained necessary papers. At the entrance I found GREY-BACKED CAMAROPTERA (Camaroptera brachyura), CARDINAL WOODPECKER (Dedropicos fuscescens), ASHY STARLING (Cosmopsarus unicolor), and GREATER BLUE-EARED STARLING (Lamprotornis chalybaeus). We drove into the park itself where we saw our first waterbucks and dik-diks. Dik-diks are the smallest members of the antelope tribe in Africa. It may have been just the small size of the creatures but they seemed like a cross between deer and rabbits to me. They looked ephemeral, like they would vanish if you took your eyes away for a moment.
Driving through the low hills and shallow gullies of Tarangire, we found giraffes and elephants common. A pride of lions gave a good show. As for birdlife, I saw a magnificent MAGPIE SHRIKE (Uroleses melanoleucus) with its long black tail here, as well as NORTHERN WHITE-CROWNED SHRIKE (Eurocephalus rueppelli), and in a wet spot WOOD SANDPIPER (Tringa glareola) and LITTLE STINT (Calidris minuta). Jan brought to my attention a covey of HELMETED GUINEAFOWL (Numida meleagris) in the shade of a roadside bush. Manuel and I found, and briefly debated the identification of, a pair of YELLOW-NECKED SPURFOWL (Francolinus leucoscepus). Crossing a small stream we came within sight of a THREE-BANDED PLOVER (Charadrius tricollaris), and then on the far bank Tomas and Itka asked about the “green bird” that was sitting in the grass. They lost sight of the bird but I picked it back up, and we moved to a position where the full beauty of a LILAC-BREASTED ROLLER (Coracius caudata) could be appreciated. The ostriches and bustards had elicited appreciation from the others during the trip, but I think the roller appealed most to their aesthetic senses and it would be hard not to give the bird its due for the shimmering play of iridescent lilac and blue and half-guessed other colors.
The roller flew off with the rainbow delicacy of a coatl and we drove on. I decided the point-tailed doves that sat tight off the road were NAMAQUA DOVES (Oena capensis). Manuel helped me with the field marks on a WHITE-HEADED VULTURE (Trigonoceps occipitalis) as we ended the visit and headed out. Our time had been shortened by the delay for repairing the car. Most of our visit had been in the heat of the day and animals were scarce. At the entrance to the park we stopped again and I found a dramatically colored PURPLE GRENADIER (Uraeginthus ianthinogaster) as well as SOUTHERN CORDON-BLEU (Uraeginthus angolensis) and a nearly-tame RED-NECKED SPURFOWL (Francolinus afer).
The entrance/guard station to Tarangire is some miles of dusty track from both the main road and the Elephant Tent Lodge where I would be staying. One dusty track looks much like another and we got lost, ending up near an abandoned half-constructed building. The car refused to start back up there and we had to push it while Itka cranked the ignition. It got going again and some local Masai guided us to the lodge, where I took my leave of Tomas and Jan and Itka. Manuel told me that someone in another car would be by in the morning to pick me up for the five-day safari I would start with the next group.
The Elephant Tent Lodge was much closer to my idea of a lodge, with thatched buildings up on short stilts. The windows were covered with curtains in the bedroom but not in the antechamber to the bathroom so I thought I would have to be careful about keeping the door of the bathroom closed or the light off when I was showering and toweling off. The people in the next unit did not think of this and I turned around to a full view of the woman nude. It was all right; she had a good body.
A bit of late birding turned up VON DER DECKEN’S HORNBILL (Tockus deckeni),
RED-BILLED BUFFALO-WEAVER (Bubalornis niger), RED-BILLED HORNBILL (Tockus erythrorhynchus), AFRICAN PALM SWIFT (Cypsiurus parvus), and STRIPED KINGFISHER (Halcyon chelicuti) - surprising for someone used to finding kingfishers around water, but apparently not unusual for this species. My last bird for the day was an AFRICAN MOURNING DOVE (Streptopelia decipiens).
Dinner was in the communal dining hut where I sat with a group of German tourists on holiday. One of them proved to be the woman of the unexpected viewing earlier. I didn’t embarrass her by mentioning it.
OCTOBER 8
Early birding around the area of the lodge resulted in a close encounter with a dik-dik that had strayed within the perimeter of the water impoundment. Usually the lodge’s artificial water pool was supposed to attract big game but the unrelenting heat had dried it away leaving only a dirt field circled by dikes. Some good dry-country birds included CHESTNUT WEAVER (Ploceus rubiginosus), flights of YELLOW-COLLARED LOVEBIRDS (Agapornis personatus), and a raptorlike bird that, when pursued to several perches, proved to be an ungainly WHITE-BELLIED GO-AWAY BIRD (Corythaixoides leucogaster) with its odd vertical crest. A NORTHERN PIED BABBLER (Turdoides hypoleucus) was cooperative and sat in view long enough to get details needed for identification. The first of many WHITE-CRESTED HELMET-SHRIKES (Prionops plumatus) came shortly before a WHITE-HEADED BUFFALO-WEAVER (Bubalornis albirostris). Another babbler proved to be a BLACK-LORED BABBLER (Turdoides sharpei), and I happened on a pair of BLACK-FACED SANDGROUSE (Pterocles decorata), male and female, in the short grass.
After breakfast the car had still not arrived so I kept to the vicinity of the lodge, finding a neatly marked CUT-THROAT FINCH (Amadina fasciata) and BLUE-NAPED MOUSEBIRDS (Urocolius macrourus). I finally had good looks at a RUFOUS-TAILED WEAVER (Histurgops ruficaudus) and was able to figure out what it was. While sitting on the porch of my cabin I saw a bird fly into a distant tree that flew like a woodpecker. Following it up yielded a GREY WOODPECKER (Dendropicus goertae).
It was now closing on noon and I was starting to get concerned. I had no vehicle and could have been stuck at the lodge indefinitely. One of the hotel staff called Hartebeest for me and I learned the car had been delayed but was on its way. Around 12:30 it finally showed up and I loaded up my stuff and joined the new group. Alain was a Swede who constructed electrical substations; he was affable and pleasant to talk to. Traveling with him was an attractive Brazilian woman named Giselle. Her English was a bit limited but she carried herself with grace and made no complaint about any hardships of the trip. Giselle’s daughter Isabella was also with us. As she was around eight years old I initially questioned the wisdom of bringing a small child along on safari. It turned out she was a delight. Her sense of fun was infectious and I think everybody came to love her a little bit. Pavel was something of a cipher, quiet, thoughtful, and evidently accustomed to rough living, but he had sharp eyes and a good camera. Rounding out the group were Nick and Bobby, former schoolmates who had reunited for this trip. They shared a frat-house sense of humor and kept up a repetitive joke that they wanted to see either violence or miscegenation among the animals. Both were likeable. We fell early into a discussion about vacation policies and work/life balance among our various companies, which devolved into a contest of quoting “Seinfeld.” I started a game of trading friendly barbs with Bobby that would last for much of the trip. The driver’s name was Roman. He was younger than William or Manuel had been. I do not think I saw him once without sunglasses. He proved to be very good with the birds, too.
What was a return to Tarangire for me, of course, was a first visit for them. Again we stopped at the entrance gate and this time I found TAWNY-FLANKED PRINIA (Prinia subflava) and BROWN-CROWNED TCHAGRA (Tchagra australis) in the small trees there. Inside the park we saw a few elands, and then a pair of giraffes. One of the giraffes proved to have a RED-BILLED OXPECKER (Buphagus erythrorhynchus) working its way up one leg. Elephants were a particular attraction on this drive as the others had not seen any up close yet.
We paused just after crossing a stream to examine a TAWNY EAGLE (Aquila rapax) standing on the bank. Luck was with us as a STEPPE EAGLE (Aquila nipalensis) was perched in a tree right by the car, allowing comparison of these two similar - and magnificent - species. A hippo pool held HADADA IBIS (Bostrychia hagedash),
COMMON GREENSHANK (Tringa nebularia), BLACK-WINGED STILT (Himantopus himantopus), and Ruff (Philomachus pugnax). I called a halt on our way out of the park to examine a raptor overhead, finding the odd shape of a BATELEUR (Terathopius ecaudatus) with substantial wings and insignificant tail. I had been hoping to spot one just because they offer such a unique flight profile and was pleased to get a good look at this one. A few more would appear during the trip.
On our way out of the park Roman noted something dangling from a thick horizontal branch of a banyan tree. He called out a leopard. That is how you find a leopard - look for a thick branch with something hanging that looks like a short vine. It will be either the tail or a leg of the great cat. I loaned my binoculars to the others so they could see what I could see: a long-limbed spotted cat sprawled over the great arm of the tree. This would not be the last leopard we saw during our time together.
Our next destination was mythical, and thus demanded a long journey, so we drove for many hours back to the Lake Manyara area. We pulled in to the River of Mosquitoes motel again and ended up waiting for various arrangements for some time. Again I was the only one who had elected the “lodge” option. Bobby and Nick expressed displeasure at the poolside setup which did not exactly match to their or anyone else’s idea of “camping,” and they also said the tour operators had said there would be only four people in the car (which with the addition of a cook had become very cramped). Pavel complained there had been many last-minute changes from his itinerary and with Roman out of the car I took this opportunity to inquire regarding the story I had been told about my own safari schedule. It was no surprise that it had no basis in truth - no-one on the safari had had to delay their trip as the folks at Hartebeest claimed. It was all an artefact of the bait-and-switch tactics used by tour operators who subcontracted out the tours they had arranged. Once you were in-country they simply tried to get you to move around your plans so they could cram as many people in for as few days on tour as possible.
In fact, each of us had been told some variant on the same basic story: mysterious other travelers on the tour had backed out or delayed their arrivals making the original planned tour impossible. The people at the original tour company Bobby and Nick dealt with went so far as to suggest they simply change their plane tickets to accommodate the “revised” arrangements. I was glad I had stuck to my guns and forced Hartebeest to give me the tour I had arranged but I was angry about the attempted deception. I thought about burning down their headquarters but then remembered I had promised myself not to bring work with me on vacation.
I found myself at the Lake Manyara Hotel after dark. I had a good meal and slept well although I was worried about how the others would fare in the town.
OCTOBER 9
The next morning the group was late picking me up as usual so I spent time birdwatching and taking pictures of the band of baboons that was roaming the hotel grounds. Some scrubby trees uphill from the hotel yielded BLACK-BACKED PUFFBACK (Dryoscopus cubla) and YELLOW WHITE-EYE (Zosterops senegalensis). The latter was a tough identification because there are so many white-eye species in the area and many are very similar. Swifts nesting under the hotel eaves included MOTTLED SWIFTS (Apus aequatorialis). A distinctly-patterned hawk flew from the lake valley up over the hill and above the lodge toward the highlands beyond, proving to be an AFRICAN HARRIER-HAWK (Polyboroides typus). Gardens under sprinklers within the hotel complex held various sunbirds, including a few AMETHYST SUNBIRDS (Chalcomitra amethystina) with dramatic iridescent throat and breast patches. Returning to the scrubby trees I found RED-BILLED QUELEA (Quelea quelea) which looked like any of a half-dozen birds I had already seen in Africa, and a nearby field of dry grass held a small flock of AFRICAN FIREFINCHES (Lagonosicta rubricata) right where I had found Red-bellied firefinches a few days earlier.
Finally the car arrived and we started a couple hours’ drive to our next destination, the Serengeti. When we were close we stopped where the others would be camping and we dropped off camping gear and supplies. Then we continued on to the park.
On the way we paused as I saw a large bulk out on a bare dirt field and guessed aloud it might be a lion. When we stopped it raised its head revealing the form of a hyena. There is something disconcerting about the way a hyena is built. Certainly it appears powerful but the front-heavy look of it and the way its back slopes down jar in one’s sight. There is the laughing bark and the Heath-Ledger-Joker smile they wear. I don’t know anything about Swahili mythology but I would not be surprised to hear they viewed the hyena as a vessel for a demon.
A few hundred yards further on we came upon an overturned safari vehicle. It had slid in the dark on the loose gravel of the road like ice. The occupants had been injured and already taken away. Now there were maybe a dozen guys standing around looking at the car which was on its side with its top all crushed in. They were trying to figure out how to right the car to tow it away. One was tying a rope through the windows with some idea of pulling the car right. We stopped and I suggested we had plenty of people to simply push it over. So a bunch of us lined up all along the roof of the car and rocked it until it fell on all four wheels with a satisfying crash. Some women were standing watching and I noticed a cute Nordic-looking girl among them with extremely pale blonde hair. We were on the move already but I remembered her face later.
At the park entrance we stopped and I saw FISCHER’S SPARROW-LARK (Eremopterix leucopareia) and what might have been a flyover European bee-eater. Inside we stopped by some large rocks where the back and top of the head of a female lion could just be seen. As we watched a curious asthmatic growling sound started coming from inside the car. It was Isabella, trying to talk to the lioness with a great intensity about her. Not only the lioness but her cub sat up to look over at the car. We laughed and congratulated Isabella and I suggested she see a doctor about her breathing issues. We also saw more than one leopard in trees along the route.
Roman pointed out a WHITE-BELLIED BUSTARD (Eupodotis senegalensis), which was the first of this tribe for the rest of our group. Rounding a bend I briefly viewed a SPOTTED THICK-KNEE (Burhinus capensis) before we were out of sight again. Hartebeests and reedbucks stood grazing between rock hummocks. Other birds here were GRAY-BACKED FISCAL (Lanius excubitoroides), SPOTTED REDSHANK (Tringa erythropa), BANDED MARTIN (Riparia cincta), and PLAIN MARTIN (Riparia paludicola). Off in the distance we witnessed one thing we had not seen in Africa yet: rain, dropping in a thin curtain on the parched veldt.
We were slated to spend two days in the Serengeti. I reflected that there might be greater numbers of animals here but the wide-open character of the place usually left them far away, so the views were not as spectacular as those had at the other parks. I was anticipating another relatively quiet day without many sightings but I shouldn’t have doubted.
The Seronera Wildlife Lodge was even more elaborate than the Lake Manyara Hotel and the Ngorongoro Lodge. It had a viewing platform to look far out over the plains, and tunnels had been bored out of a great rock in the middle of the compound allowing access to the great dining hall. Hyraxes of two species were the main native residents. In the vicinity of the lodge I found a MARICO SUNBIRD (Cinnyris mariquensis). A lone CAPE ROOK (Corvus capensis) stalked the edge of the viewing platform, and WHITE-RUMPED SWIFTS (Apus caffer) skimmed overhead. Dark descended and far out in the distance heat lightning briefly showed glowering clouds above Africa.
OCTOBER 10
My regular morning’s exploration around the hotel environs did not turn up much new. A SLATE-COLORED BOUBOU (Laniarius funebris) looked a good deal like its fiscal and boubou relatives. A large long-tailed bird like a robust roadrunner turned out to be a WHITE-BROWED COUCAL (Centropus superciliosus) which I liked the look of.
For once the car appeared at the designated time and we headed back to Serengeti Park, not knowing that Africa would show us her heart this morning.
We had gotten a very early start as planned and the animals were active and visible. A a hippo pool I found a Common sandpiper (Actitis hypoleucos) and a couple of BLACK CRAKES (Amaurornis flavirostris) lacking the secretive nature of most of their rail cousins. Nick and Bobby jokingly urged Roman to drive closer to the hippos and to his credit Roman did not give the idea a moment’s consideration. The drivers universally were extremely careful about the park rules. I think they had taken to heart that their livelihoods depended on not stressing the animals in these preserves. Bobby asked Roman if a lion would attack a hippo by itself and of course Roman said no.
We turned a corner beyond the hippo pool and I saw a hippo standing by itself some sixty feet from the water. As this was the first we had seen out of water we stopped to get a look. We watched it for a bit and then a lion stepped out from the brush. It stalked in a circle around the hippo which backed the lion off by stepping forward warningly. Roman shook his head and said it was a young lion and he had never seen anything like this before. The lion tried to feint around the hippo again without success, and then sat down in an obvious pretense of disinterest. It went so far as to yawn and scratch its ear. The hippo, not fooled, stood there like a mountain, waiting the lion out. After a minute or so the hippo took a couple paces toward the water but the lion was up immediately and trying to get around to the hippo’s rear so first one and then the other stopped, regarding each other. Finally the lion thought better of its quarry and walked off into the brush again. The hippo joined its fellows in the pool and we in the car went off amazed. Nick and Bobby were particularly elated but now they wanted to see actual violence.
As we continued on, seeing buffalo herds and more impalas and gazelles, a few largish birds in trees attracted my attention: AFRICAN GREY HORNBILL (Tockus nasutus) and BARE-FACED GO-AWAY BIRD (Corthaixoides personata). Unfortunately we did not get to hear the go-away bird tell us to, you know, go away. Then Roman noticed more leopard sign but it actually led us to an impala that was stashed on a forked branch with its legs dangling down. The track circled around to the far side of the tree and from there we could see the leopard itself on the same branch closer to the tree. Bobby could not get over the strength the leopard must have to drag its kill up into the branches. I lent Pavel and then Isabella my binoculars so they could see the leopard better. Giselle smiled as Isabella exclaimed with delight at the beauty of the cat at its ease beside its food. Later Pavel would spot and point out yet another leopard with its kill in a tree.
Bobby showed me his cooler in the car. One corner had been gnawed on. A hyena got it after we dropped it off at the campsite during lunch, and stole the beer out of it. One of the cooks found it out in the long grass and they harangued Bobby about it. I’d heard that hyenae have among the most powerful jaws in the world of land animals. Looking at the cooler I could believe it.
More miles and more animals. I told Roman I still had not seen one of the more common vulture species and we soon found together a LAPPET-FACED VULTURE (Targos tracheliotus) atop an acacia. Just a hundred feet or so further on I saw a colorful bird perch up in another tree and I called a halt to show the group an AFRICAN HOOPOE (Upupa africana). Its gaudy black-and-orange-striped plumage was incongruous against the dusty green of the foliage. A nearby tree hosted a small number of FISCHER’S LOVEBIRDS (Agapornis fischeri) and I felt fortunate that I had seen their kin at the lodge because I was fresh on the subtle details separating the two similar species.
We moved away from the trees and came around a curve to see a long line of buffalo parallel to the track and dwindling in the distance. Something about the way their march led out of sight spoke of inevitability. It was an evocative scene but the animals were too far away to make a good photograph. Then someone called out that there was a cheetah and we all looked to see two of the big cats heading toward the buffalo line. One disappeared and the other started a run toward the buffalo. They saw the cheetah coming and a few bulls turned in its direction. The cheetah stopped. I don’t know if a big cat trying to pick off a sick or young buffalo from among its kin can be called a jig but if so it was definitely up. The cheetah ran back a ways and turned to look but the buffalo were still coming on so it retreated still further. The buffalo persisted and drove the cheetah all the way to the point where we first saw it, sitting atop a dead log, before they returned to the business of marching. We saw the cheetah several times after that and it was still sitting forlorn on the log. I guessed it would have buffalo on its breath before the day was out.
We saw a SADDLE-BILLED STORK (Ephippiorhynchus senegalensis) standing in the waving grass and then came across a male maned lion cooling in the shade of a small tree. Not far off were a handful of lionesses, and then in the other direction the lions’ kill - a buffalo carcass. A couple of vultures showed up to sample the kill and we watched one of the lionesses rise and stalk toward the interlopers. By the expression on her face she was fit to be tied and the vultures quickly left. There was cheering from the car. Two guesses who it was coming from.
Another of the diverse group of starlings Tanzania offers showed up: a RUEPPELL’S LONG-TAILED STARLING (Lamprotornis purpuropterus) on some low brushy branches. We stopped for lunch and I found a LAUGHING DOVE (Streptopelia senegalensis) as well as VITELLINE MASKED WEAVERS (Ploceus velatus) and SPECKLE-FRONTED WEAVERS (Sporopipes frontalis). Back on the track I noted a distant hulk on the ground which was a SOUTHERN GROUND-HORNBILL (Bucorvus leadbeateri), looking like a belligerent dodo.
On our way out of the park we found a cheetah laying on the ground just a few yards away from the road under a small shade tree. It was gravid. The belly swelled round with the heaviness of her brood and she looked up around her bulk at us. I imagined I saw contentment in those eyes used to looking for prey.
A flying bird showed a wheatear’s tail pattern and I had enough of its other coloration to narrow the identificaiton down to Northern wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe). We stopped again at the park entrance and spoke with some Masai who were hanging around there for a while. Just before we were to leave I noted a small raptor in a tree right at the gate structure itself. I was able to get a decent look at it through the dense branches and found it was a GREATER KESTREL (Falco rupicoloides), a very elegant and fierce-looking bird.
Some of the group had not seen a traditional Masai settlement so we stopped at one a few miles down the road. I was familiar with the experience and decided to do some more birding away from the settlement instead. Despite the occasional blasts of sand thrown up by wind or cars passing on the road just a little ways off, several birds turned up, including both RUFOUS SPARROW (Passer rufocinctus) and GREY-HEADED SPARROW (Passer griseus), TAITA FISCAL (Lanius doraslis), and CHIN-SPOT BATIS (Batis molitor). I pursued a flying form to a small grove of trees across the road and was surprised to find in all that blank dust and bare trees the spectacular spray of color of a RED-AND-YELLOW BARBET (Trachyphonus erythrocephalus). I always appreciate each new bird I see but I confess I spent extra time watching the barbet. I would be hard-pressed to decide whether it or the Lilac-breasted roller was the most beautiful of the birds I saw in Africa. You could as well choose between “The Godfather” and “Caddyshack” as the best movie of the Seventies.
Next I came across a lark and took a deep breath before plunging into the identification process. Fortunately I noted several characteristics which turned out to be diagnostic for a FAWN-COLOURED LARK (Miragra africanoides). I was pretty proud of myself and then remembered that some people spend their time searching for a cure for cancer.
Eventually the Masai village tour ended and we started the long road back to the Manyara/Ngorongoro area. We were going down into the Ngorongoro caldera again the next day so after a couple of hours’ travel we steered into the campground on the crater wall. As we came in sight of the tents there was a backup of safari vehicles. Looking ahead we saw a bull elephant vandalizing a parked safari car. Someone had left a crate of bananas in the front seat and the elephant had smashed the window to rob the bananas. A bunch of safari guides were standing watching and doing not much more. Again, somehow, it fell to our group to do something actually positive. Roman leaned on the horn and we all started bellowing at the elephant. At first it seemed oblivious to us but after a few moments the noise seemed to aggravate it and it moved off without hurry into the bush. Gun to my head, I’d say it was Isabella’s enthusiastic growling that carried the day.
After the excitement of the arrival, moods dampened considerably. It was turning cold on the crater wall and there was the threat of rain. We worked for nearly an hour setting up the tents. In the middle of it I noticed the pale-haired girl from before and I walked over to entertain her with the tale of the elephant vandal. It turned out her group had arrived just minutes too late to see the fun. As I was talking to her and her friend, two guys came hurrying over to hover anxiously over us. Evidently they were the boyfriends and the appropriate thing to do was to gracefully withdraw from the situation. I ignored the guys and kept talking to the girls. I wasn’t a cheetah and the two guys sure weren’t buffalo.
Roman ran me up to the Ngorongoro Lodge and we reached there well after dark. I was concerned about him driving back to the caldera campground after such a long day’s driving, but it turned out he was able to use a room set aside for the drivers at the lodge itself.
That night it started to rain and it was cold. I thought of the folks back at the campground. They would be fine but it would not be a very comfortable night.
OCTOBER 11
The rain ended early in the morning. Roman and I hit the road together about sunrise. We picked up the folks at the campground. Pavel’s tent had been leaky and he was evidently miserable but did not complain much. I found a DUSKY TURTLE DOVE (Streptopelia lugens) while walking around the camp area with Isabella. I was careful to stay within sight of the others so as not to give Isabella the idea that it was all right to wander off where her parents couldn’t see her. Africa is famously dangerous for the unwary.
When we hit the caldera on the way down I saw a PIED WHEATEAR (Oenanthe pleschanka). Unfortunately the car started having brake problems and Roman was forced to take it very slow down the wall’s treacherous descent road. A few jackals were around and we scared one out of the road ahead of the car. Once we reached the bottom we crossed a streambed where Roman pointed out a HAMMERKOP (Scopus umbretta), one of those examples of evolution that looks strange to human eyes but is perfectly suited to its feeding strategy. A hippo pool not much further on had BLACK-HEADED HERON (Ardea melanocephala), RED-BILLED TEAL (Anas erythroryncha), Glossy ibis (Plegadis falcinellus), and AFRICAN SPOONBILL (Platelea alba). I pointed out the spoonbill to the others and let them appreciate the odd physiology. I think some of them had heard of spoonbills before.
Off in the distance we could see lions at their ease, with herbeasts like gazelles and impala not far away. Nick wondered aloud that the prey would be so comfortable so close to the predators. I pointed out that as long as they had the lions in sight there was no chance of surprise; it was when they couldn’t see any lions that they might be in danger. I told Nick about owls being mobbed by chickadees and other small birds.
The nature lesson ended or maybe began when we saw a dark shape well out in the grass and it was a rhino. This was the first for the others and we spent some time studying it. At first it was nether-regions oriented toward us but then it turned to give us a perfect look at the profile. My binoculars as well as a couple pairs Roman had brought were again very popular.
We ended the day early because Roman needed to take the car to a nearby car repair site. There we saw many Marabou storks and a baboon picking trash from a fire pit. After we had drinks at a hole in the wall, we recovered the car. Bobby, Nick, and Pavel left us at this point as they had other things arranged for the next few days. Bobby and Nick were off to Zanzibar and I think Pavel was going to do some cultural tourism as well. Alain, Giselle, Isabella, and I went on with Roman to the Lake Manyara area where I again stayed at the Lake Manyara Hotel.
OCTOBER 12
Morning at the hotel was reasonably productive, with SCARLET-CHESTED SUNBIRD (Chalcomitra senegalensis) as the first new bird. I scared off some quail or grouse just over the lip of the hill and unfortunately missed getting a real sighting before they were off in the brush. Among the swifts and martins swirling over the hotel were a RED-RUMPED SWALLOW (Hirundo daurica) and a SCARCE SWIFT (Schoutedenapus myoptilus).
Roman and the others showed up in the car and we ran down to the Lake Manyara park. As usual we stopped at the entrance. While we waited a LONG-CRESTED EAGLE (Lophaetus occipitalis) passed over.
We stopped at the first hippo pool where there was a fence set up and you could get out of the car. There I found a Curlew sandpiper (Calidris ferruginea), a sitting WIRE-TAILED SWALLOW (Hirundo smithii), and several HOTTENTOT TEAL (Anas hottentota).
Driving on we did not see a lot of animals. It was a very hot day and most creatures feathered or furred were concealed in the undergrowth. At one point I saw something that in retrospect was probably a klipspringer on a rocky slope, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time.
For lunch we stopped at a small overlook with picnic tables. It was just me and Alain and Giselle and Isabella. Roman took a nap in the car rather than join us. A variety of birds we’d seen before were here. Isabella asked me what a bird under one of the tables was and at first I thought it was another Red-and-yellow barbet but it was actually the similarly colored USAMBIRO BARBET (Trachyphonus usambiro). A tall SPOTTED MORNING-THRUSH (Cichladusa guttata) also appeared briefly, and SWAHILI SPARROWS (Passer suahelicus) decorated a close-by bush. Alain and Giselle and I got talking about how they’d met when Alain was working for a year in Brazil and Giselle had moved to Switzerland with him. Giselle said she missed the beaches of Brazil and complained that she had gotten fat. This was absurd and a little depressing because you would have had a hard time finding a pound Giselle could spare from her frame. The Brazilian anorexic model factory has a lot to answer for.
We moved on, seeing a few more elephants and giraffes and such. On our way back up the hillside I spotted a CLIFF CHAT (Mymecocichla cinnamomeiventris).
This was our last day together and we went on back to Arusha. I was supposed to stay at a lodge near Arusha National Park, my last safari destination, and I started to get suspicious as the day was waning and we were just on our way to Arusha. My suspicions were confirmed when we reached Arusha and Roman announced I would be staying at a hotel in town. I would have argued the point but Roman had been driving for a long day and I would have felt bad about forcing him to do another hour and a half round trip to the lodge. In hindsight I should have insisted they put me up at Le Jacaranda if they were not going to take me to the lodge. I ended up at a hotel in Arusha which seemed marginally all right from the lobby but the room proved to be miserable. There was a bathroom the size of a closet with no separate space for the shower. Instead the shower head simply jutted out of the wall such that some of its spray landed on the toilet. There was a restaurant downstairs and I’ve had worse food but only at gunpoint. I was pretty furious at Hartebeest Safaris and I hadn’t been screwed nearly as badly as the other people on the trip.
OCTOBER 13
I waited in the lobby of the Arusha Imperial Arms or whatever the hell the place was for over an hour and a half beyond my scheduled pickup time. A drop-dead gorgeous brunette named Farah came over to talk to me on the pretense of finding out what safari companies were best. I told her I was hooked up with Hartebeest and when she asked if they were good I laughed a little. I advised her that they were complete crooks and recommended one of the larger operations whose cars I had seen a number of times during my stay.
Eventually Lazarus himself picked me up. He was my transportation for the moment and I still had one day of safari to do. I smiled thinly at him and kept my peace about the lying and scamming and I didn’t cut anything off him at all.
It turned out my driver to Arusha National Park was William, who I hadn’t seen for several days. We went in and around to the saline ponds, seeing a Common stonechat (Saxicola torquata) on the initial drive. Again there was a problem with the car and we had to make a precarious turn rather than continue up one steep track. Instead we took another route to the ponds.
Near the ponds there were overlooks where you could get out of the car. I scoped one pond finding a number of MACCOA DUCKS (Oxyura maccoa) and LITTLE GREBES (Tachybaptus ruficollis). On one stretch between ponds we found a WHITE-FRONTED BEE-EATER (Merops bullockoides) and we would later find a couple more in random spots.
We stopped at a pond where there were a number of flamingos and a walkable rock-strewn margin. The pale blonde was there and again I chatted her up while her boyfriend flitted around in the background monitoring us.
On the far side of the park William stopped at a ranger station and I arranged a short hike with an armed guide. The guide was a woman, very nice and capable, and we set off across a field with buffalo and up a decent hill. At the top she was winded and wiping sweat and I felt it had been a pretty good hike given the heat. We then descended to a waterfall with Little bee-eaters flitting around and I saw the pale blonde yet again. This time we really got flirting and the boyfriend probably was pretty well along the way to being upset but their guide led the group away and it was just me and the woman guide (whose name I unfortunately did not make a note of).
On the way back we found the buffalo had shifted position and were right in our path. The guide became very nervous as some of the herd were headed to cut off our remaining route back to the car. She asked if I was comfortable moving quickly with her to get ahead of them and I told her it was no problem for me. We did manage to work around the buffalo and they looked at us like we were idiot tourists in the middle of their street. It all ended up being not very dramatic or dangerous. I mean I’ve been circled by a nine-foot shark when I was alone in the water and after that it’s hard to get worked up about the menace of a steroidal cow.
I rejoined William and we headed back through the park. William was distressed that we had not seen a colobus monkey yet and he was determined to show them to me because they were his favorite animal. Eventually we did find a small troop of them in branches right above the car. They were very interesting to watch and more decorative than the other monkey species we had seen but it was William’s reaction that stays with me the most. His usually impassive face was alight with wonder and it was clear he could have remained watching them there for hours.
Eventually we returned to Arusha and William dropped me off at Le Jacaranda in the last light. I went over to the Hotel Impala and ate at their Indian restaurant. The food tasted good and was probably the worst choice I made on the trip.
OCTOBER 14
Beginning about 4 a.m. I found myself in need of frequent trips to the bathroom, owing probably to the food from the Hotel Impala’s Indian restaurant. Fortunately this was a day when I had nothing scheduled save a late afternoon run to the airport to catch my flight home, and for a negligible additional fee I was allowed to check out late (5 p.m. rather than 11 a.m.).
I felt fine otherwise and at midday I even took a walk into the downtown area. A local man of perhaps twenty invited himself along to walk with me. He professed to wish to become an ornithologist and his familiarity with the birds we saw suggested this was true. Mostly we saw bulbuls and sunbirds that I had seen before.
Closer to the shop district another fellow joined us and kept trying to steer me to his sister’s and his shops to buy souvenirs. They tried to sell me an ebonwood elephant for over eighty dollars and I said I was not interested. He asked me what amount I would pay and when I named it he said I would not get anything for that price. Eventually I ignored his recommendations and went into another shop he was trying to guide me away from. There I got what I wanted for the price I had named.
When I came out the same guy was waiting for me and he tried again to get me to go into his shop. I told him I’d gotten what I wanted and it was for the price I had said before. He became very upset and started making remarks about Americans coming to Tanzania and not caring about the people there and generally insinuating that I was a racist. I laughed and walked away waving my purchase.
On the way back to the hotel I saw a raptor that had puzzled me several times earlier. This time I confirmed it was a BOOTED EAGLE (Hiraaetus pennatus). It was the last new species I would see in Africa.
The worst part of the trip home was the shuttle ride from the hotel to the airport. It was a long one and then I had to go through security before I had access to a bathroom again. However, that crisis passed - no pun intended - and the situation was little more than a nuisance for the rest of the trip.
I didn’t sleep much on the planes as I left Africa and passed back through Amsterdam on my way back to the new world. More movies and more airplane food. Sometimes I paged through my notes and they reminded me of a running cheetah here or a glowering hippopotamus there.
The bug I’d picked up in Africa hung on for a day or so after I returned home but worse things have happened.