Simon Thomsett

Category: Raptor Expedition | Date: Mar 26 2009 | By: Laila Bahaa-el-din

From Ruaha we went to Mbeya where we spent a night before crossing the border into Malawi. I really enjoyed Tanzania. It is a really beautiful country with vast forested mountain ranges. Traveling through Malawi was a last minute decision but it was worth the trip. We didn’t have much time to explore as we had just a few days to get to Zambia. As a result, we didn’t spend any time in parks and didn’t see much in the way of wildlife. Lake Malawi looks more like an ocean and the surrounding area has a very coastal feel about it. There is also what seems to be good raptor habitat: forested mountains with interspersed cliff. On our drive-through, we saw large groups of Amur Falcons and Eurasian Hobbies, presumably on their way north to Europe after spending the winter further south.

Lake Malawi

We crossed into Zambia and the rain followed us. We asked the GPS to direct us to South Luangwa National Park and we drove a bumpy three hours to the park. As we approached the gate, we saw vultures and Bateleur Eagles circling high up. We drove over a bridge and looked down to see two elephants playing in the water. It felt good to be back among wildlife! We found our campsite and went into the park early the next morning. It had rained all night and the park was very soggy. We got seriously stuck in mud at one point and had to winch the car out. We decided to stick to the main roads from then on. We saw lots of Pukus and storks and several Fish Eagles. Most surprising to us was how common Banded Snake Eagles seemed to be, having found them uncommon so far on our expedition. We also got our cat fix as we spotted lions lazing in some bushes and a little further on, a leopard sleeping in a tree.

Leopard

The rain continued through the following night and we decided against going into the park again. Simon did some maintenance on the car and then we went for a small drive around the area on the park boundary, again surprised by a Banded Snake Eagle trying to make itself as small as possible as it hid in a tree with a snake it had caught. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t lend itself to photography, so it wasn’t productive on that score. But it is a beautiful park and I hope I go back at some point, perhaps when it is not so flooded.

We left South Luangwa yesterday and drove part of the way to Lusaka and we completed the journey today. Things were pretty quiet until we happened upon a huge group of raptors flying high. We stopped to get a closer look and realised that the group consisted of over 90 Steppe Buzzards and a few migratory eagles as well. Last time Simon saw a migrating group of Steppe Buzzards that large was over 10 years ago! We are in Lusaka now, the capital of Zambia, and shall be moving southward soon.

Simon winching the car

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Tags: banded snake eagle, Lake Malawi, Mbeya, South Luangwa National Park, Zambia

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Category: Raptor Expedition | Date: Mar 23 2009 | By: simonthomsett

The vast Ruaha National Park and its associate reserves cover an area of some 40,000 square kilometers. One of its previous wardens, John Savage, was a raptor enthusiast. He had noted that Ruaha was a possible over-wintering spot for Eleonora’s Falcons and so I have always been curious to see the area. Our drive into the park was noted on my GPS, and not by any barrier or gate. As we passed this invisible threshold, elephant droppings appeared, as did a young and fine looking Rock Python lying in the road. They seemed to know the demarcation. Laila got out to photograph the python who surprised us by suddenly leaping into the air and making us jump out of its way. Shortly we found a hornless large chameleon in the road that was pretty quick on its feet. It changed colours very quickly too when we put it in the bushes out of harms way.

Rock Python

Chameleon

The river is the official entrance and is spanned by a huge bridge. The water was clear and tea coloured, not muddy brown. We may have made a mistake by turning our attention away from the river and drove aimlessly some 25 kilometers into thick and monotonous miombo woodland, with very little wildlife. We were perhaps overly keen to see the famous Roan and Sable antelopes, and of course the Wild Dogs! (we didn’t!). The Borassus Palms here seem thin stemmed and short, but still looked good for Red-necked Falcons. Instead we saw Grey Kestrels and perhaps significantly no Dickinson’s Kestrels. Somewhat disappointed we returned to our rustic and beautifully placed camp-site overlooking the river over which the full moon rose later that night.

Before dawn the next morning, Eurasian Hobbies flew by catching insects and chasing small birds. We watched them from above as they skimmed the surface of the water and sand banks, with crocodiles and hippos and fleeing plovers in their path.

On our game drive by the river, we came upon a massive Land Monitor Lizard, then the day was filled with a total of 27 lions, in which we observed four hunts, all failures. While our objective is to monitor raptors and take pictures we have agreed that we can allow time to watch other predators. As the hours go by, we also have raptors come to us. We saw 31 vultures in one kettle, the largest group so far in our southern Tanzanian trip. Bateleurs dominated the lists, as did migrant Hobbies. A few Lesser Kestrels were seen hunting over a large pride of lion just as a storm hit us all. We also saw a Verreaux’s Eagle Owl flying out in the open in broad daylight being scalded by a nervous troop of Vervet monkeys.

Lions galore

Eurasian Hobby

On our last full day we drove up a hill, to an unsightly cell-phone tower. As much as I hate them in protected areas, a path is usually cleared up to them and they do allow one a sneaky way up hills. We encountered a nest-building Martial Eagle, a pair of African Hawk Eagles, a Wahlberg’s near a nest, a falcon on a distant cliff top and finally when we reached the summit a pair of Verreaux’s Eagles that sat side by side on one hellish section of road on which I could not stop.

Ruaha is certainly deserving of a return visit.

(Photos by Laila Bahaa-el-din)

Tags: eleonora's falcons, hornless chameleon in ruaha, lions hunting, python in ruaha

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Category: Raptor Expedition | Date: Mar 16 2009 | By: Laila Bahaa-el-din

We got the car back from the garage and were almost ready to set off again. Our last day in Arusha was spent getting bits and pieces done, and we finally set off mid-afternoon. We drove for 100km along the Pare Mountains and saw five Lanner Falcons along the way and ended the day spectacularly. Darkness was falling and we were driving past a cliff area and I noticed Swallows all bunching together. I said “perfect place, perfect time, perfect prey for Taita Falcons.” I told Simon to stop and look behind him at the number of swifts that were moving past the back of the car. He turned and saw a Taita Falcon right among the swallows trying to catch them. I saw it briefly but was hurrying to get the camera out so didn’t get to watch it for long. By the time the camera was ready with flash, the falcon was gone. The Taita Falcon is a rare, crepuscular bird and seeing it hunting is quite special, so I was quite pleased with my detective skills. It was getting really dark now, so we turned off the main road into our camp for the night: Pangani River Camp. It was set by Pangani River and a large swamp, though we got there at nightfall and left early the next morning so we didn’t get to see too much of it.

Our plan was to head for Selous Game Reserve the next day. I was reading up on the place in the Lonely Planet when I noticed the huge amount of money it was going to cost us. We decided to change our plans at the last minute. The main road we were driving along went straight through a national park called Mikumi NP. We decided that this would make most sense for a one night stop before moving on to Iringa. As we got to the National Park, nothing much changed apart from a sign saying it was a park and a slightly lower speed limit. Fast traffic such as buses and trucks was still speeding down the highway. We wondered how a park could work with this huge road through it, but it wasn’t long before we started seeing elephants, impalas and plenty of other wildlife on either side of the road. We did, however, also see plenty of animals dead on the side of the road.

Once in the park, you drive for about 40km before you get to the gate where you pay to be able to drive around the park. We paid our fee, then passed through the gate and were immediately amazed by the amount of wildlife there was. It was the largest density of wildlife we had yet seen on entering a park. Huge herds of giraffes and impalas immediately caught our attention, as well as several herds of elephants and zebras. We hadn’t been driving 10 minutes when we came across a huge lioness lying right next to the road sign in the middle of the road! A few hundred metres away lay a big male lion lazing under a tree. We chose the park as a last minute “we’ve got nowhere else to go” place but it turned out to be incredible. As the day was already getting late, we had to make our way to the campsite near the main road. As we drove back, Simon spotted a Dickinson’s Kestrel, an important one for us.

Lioness by the road sign

We were a bit apprehensive about a campsite right by the main road, but we drove up to it to find a Martial Eagle perched in a high tree. During the course of the night, elephants and bushbucks came through camp and we were woken at 6 a.m. sharp by hundreds of birds calling in a large dawn chorus. Not such a bad campsite after all. We needed to cross the main road to get back to the main area of the park that was so successful for us the day before. About 100 metres before the main road, we came across four lions. We sat and watched them for a while and noticed Eurasian Hobbies fly by catching insects. Back through the main gate, we saw large amounts of wildlife again and some interesting raptor species as well. We saw a few more Dickinson’s Kestrels as well as two of the rare African Marsh Harriers. A highlight for me was seeing a Black-breasted Snake Eagle swoop down from the sky to catch a snake and fly off with it.

Black-breasted Snake Eagle with snake

We had to get out of the park with a few hours spare before nightfall to get to our next destination: Riverside Campsite just outside of Iringa. It was a four-hour drive through some beautiful mountainous, lush habitat with a big river running through. It didn’t look like East Africa at all, but more like I imagine Central and West Africa to be. Within these mountains is a park called Udzungwa Mountains National Park which we had to skip for now, but Simon may return to later. The Cassin’s Hawk-eagle, a West African forest species, has been seen in this park along with some other unusual wildlife for the area.

From Mikumi to Iringa - the view

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Tags: , iringa, mikumi national park, pangani river, taita falcon sighting

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Category: Raptor Expedition | Date: Mar 12 2009 | By: simonthomsett

Leaving Manyara, the road is smooth and fast. That was good, for my car was suffering with crippled rear suspension and broken rod mountings. The roads of Serengeti and Ngorongoro and the Mara previously had added their toll.

Craig Blackbeard is a pilot working from Arusha and deeply interested in raptors. His passion led him years ago to my house in Athi, where he surprised me by saying he knew of many pairs of Peregrines, Lanners and Taita Falcons. He told me of the open trapping and taking of falcons and other raptors in Tanzania. These birds as well as most species of wildlife are legally taken and exported. I have never been convinced that any of the exports of raptors to centres or individuals around the world has done any good to the species conservation abroad or in the country from which they originate. Without going into details, the idea is that one can sustainably use wildlife. Done in some way (as yet explained), the public can therefore see the benefit of having wildlife, and thus continue to nurture it and keep it in perpetuity.

I see this working in some management areas that have set quotas and clear methods in which the money generated is fed back into habitat conservation. But I have yet to see any so-called conservation-orientated bird of prey centre abroad benefit African raptors by importing raptors. If the past method of capture and husbandry by the capture teams in Kenya is an example, then I would estimate 1 in 10 raptors taken from the wild actually make it to their foreign destination alive. There is no concern for the capture of adults as opposed to immatures (immatures are not breeding, hold no territory and have a high mortality rate. Their removal does not affect the wild population as much as the removal of adults). Given that the sustainable quota for raptors is unknown, then this sort of utilisation is definitely in need of cessation until proved to be practical. Craig and I have talked long about this subject, and I now had a chance to see for myself some of the territory he had described.

We left my car in the garage and went with Craig to a small mountain southeast of Manyara called Lokisale. It stands at nearly 7000 feet. There Craig walked us to a small and unimpressive cliff to show us a Peregrine eyrie. It confirmed to me that falcons were doing well, for in Kenya poor sites such as these are increasingly devoid of falcons. They have been pushed back into tougher nest sites.

African Hawk-eagle

Arusha lies at the foothills of a fine little park. Arusha National Park is a mismatch of craters, a gigantic sometimes snow-clad mountain, warm savannah, fresh and soda water lakes and thick forest. Just how so many habitats can be thrown into one place is amazing. Among it, and all around it is a burgeoning human population. We spent an afternoon and morning in the park mostly scanning the Ngurdoto Crater for Taita Falcons. I had seen one there a long time ago, but Craig had certainly seen them and had a report that they were breeding there. We waited patiently and were rewarded with a young male Peregrine, and a strange pair of Lanners … but no Taita Falcons. We saw Martial Eagles, a couple of Long Crested Eagles and over-wintering Steppe Buzzards. Perhaps the rarest and most encouraging sighting was of a displaying African Marsh Harrier. It allowed us an opportunity to observe this critically endangered species, which in Kenya is virtually extinct.

Ngurdoto Crater

Tags: african hawk-eagle, arusha, exporting raptors abroad, wildlife sustainable use

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