All quiet on the western front - PM 2023

[pedro maia]

N24, Cape Sparrow (Passer melanurus)

[pedro maia]

N25 (W651), Dusky sunbird (Cinnyris fuscus)

 

Couldn´t focus on the damned little thing...

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N26 (W652), Three-banded plover (Charadrius tricollaris)

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N27, Southern yellow-billed hornbill (Tockus leucomelas)

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N28 (W653), Namaqua sandgrouse (Pterocles namaqua)

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N29 (W654), Mountain wheatear (Myrmecocichla monticola)

Male

 

Female

 

Male, pied morph

[michael-ibk]

Great you found the Elephants! 

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N30, Laughing Dove (Spilopelia senegalensis)

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N31, Grey Go-away-bird (Corythaixoides concolor)

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N32 (W655), Grey-backed Sparrow-lark (Eremopterix verticalis)

[Galana]

I find that Namibia's ellies to be some of the best behaved I meet. OK. They will protest if you dare to make them give up a shady tree (who can blame them?)  but apart from that they are no trouble.

Good to see your long drive paid off even if lunch was late.

A good collection of birds too.

Remember "Galana's Law of bird ID".  A Bulbul with a red eye? "Red-eyed Bulbul"  unless Merlin has changed that as well!!

[pedro maia]

46 minutes ago, Galana said:

I find that Namibia's ellies to be some of the best behaved I meet. OK. They will protest if you dare to make them give up a shady tree (who can blame them?)  but apart from that they are no trouble.

Good to see your long drive paid off even if lunch was late.

A good collection of birds too.

Remember "Galana's Law of bird ID".  A Bulbul with a red eye? "Red-eyed Bulbul"  unless Merlin has changed that as well!!

 

Thanks Fred, Red-eyed bulbul suits me fine as well but if you don´t mind I just want to confirm that you´re sure abou that, and I only ask because ebird doesn´t seem to accept it for that location, only common and black-fronted.

[pedro maia]

I checked and it seems to be the same species with different names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_red-eyed_bulbul, but the scientific one doesn´t change, Pycnonotus nigricans.

[Galana]

Should you ask ebird for African Red-eyed perhaps?

Black-fronted does not appear in any of my books and even Common is often split into Dark-capped, Black-eyed and Yellow-vented all of which fit my 'law' perfectly.

[pedro maia]

2 hours ago, Galana said:

Should you ask ebird for African Red-eyed perhaps?

Black-fronted does not appear in any of my books and even Common is often split into Dark-capped, Black-eyed and Yellow-vented all of which fit my 'law' perfectly.

I asked but in their list there’s only Black-fronted for that area, the photos were of the same bird I photographed so I had no doubts and didn’t check my field guide, I did it now and African red-eyed it is.

[PeterHG]

It’s great that you managed to see the Elephants and that your planning paid off!

[Peter Connan]

A nice elephant sighting and beautiful views of the lodge.

One thing I found very interesting about Namibia is how suddenly/unexpectedly the scenery can change.

[pedro maia]

12 hours ago, Peter Connan said:

A nice elephant sighting and beautiful views of the lodge.

One thing I found very interesting about Namibia is how suddenly/unexpectedly the scenery can change.

 

That´s exactly what we thought, Peter.

[pedro maia]

We left Twyfelfontein right after breakfast, we decided not visit the rock engravings and head to the Cape Cross Lodge for lunch, oysters on the menu were a good incentive.

 

I know we barely scratched the surface of Damaraland but it was tottaly worth it and is definitely a place we want to go back, to see some more of it, the lanscapes are amazing, the spaces are huge and one gets a bit of an end of the world feeling, we like that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first part of the drive was cool, we stopped at the Herero women market on the C35 to buy some souvenirs, Herero women´s dresses are incredibly colourful and I didn´t resist to take some pictures to one woman that was walking the road, and also to a Himba woman in the market, I had to pay for it and I have mixed feelings about doing that but it´s done.

 

 

 

 

A Himba village by the road, they immediately approach and asked for maney, we offered them water instead but they were interested in that.

 

 

After Uis we had the only stressful part of our journey, at some point there were road works and a deviation for a provisional road parallel to the actual road, it was narrower, bumpier, in a very dusty terrain and went on for 50/60km, the problem was that because of a toilet break we found ourselves behind two trucks travelling together, a bit slower to us but to get close to overtake them was the problem because of the dust, one of them moved to the right part of the road to allow me to overtake, which I did, only to find out that I wasn´t going to be able to overtake the second one because I just couldn´t see anything, so I had to slow down, the first one got impatient and the only solution was to let him pass, give them some distance and hope that they wouldn´t go all the way to Henties Bay, they didn´t but still I had to drive giving them a good distance for a lot of time.

 

Finally get close to Henties Bay with fog ahead, it would dissipate eventually.

 

[pedro maia]

Bird species from this part of the drive:

 

N33, kori bustard (Ardeotis kori)

 

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N34 (W656), Black-chested snake-eagle (Circaetus pectoralis)

Immature

 

And in case I´m wrong with that ID, an adult flying much higher

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N35, Blacksmith lapwing (Vanellus armatus)

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N36, Pearl-spotted owlet (Glaucidium perlatum)

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N37 (W657), Familiar Chat (Oenanthe familiaris)

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N38 (W658), Rock kestrel (Falco rupicolus)