Birds of Botswana

Glossy starling

     I promised you some photos of Botswana birds (also throughout Southern Africa). Here are some of my husbands expert photos.
     But first let me tell you a little how I got into birdwatching and how my husband got in to photographing them. As an adult I have always enjoyed keeping birdfeeders full all year around for the birds. During migration season and during invasions in the winter I enjoyed identifying the various birds that visited the feeders. We then lived in suburbs with housing closer together so we didn't see a lot of these migrants during the year. They did not nest locally. But we lived fairly close to the Milwaukee River, though not on it. I think this location was responsible for some of the attraction. Birds tend to use the River and its surrounds as flyways. I think my first birding trip occurred when we went to Israel for a visit in the 1980s. My husband needed to stay to visit his family there, but I had signed up for a Spring Migration Festival in Eilat, on the Red Sea. That was an interesting time. I will tell that whole story in another posting. Over the years I have attended a few other birding festivals. But mostly during our many travels, I have tried to birdwatch while my husband tears on ahead in the trip. He is not one to stop along the road to identify a special bird I spot through the window, or even to slow down our siteseeing strolls to identify a bird. But then we found some cooperative great blue herons and great egrets which were content to stand still for him to get quite close with his camara. He got some good shots and that is how the bird photography bug bit him. Now he doesn't have the really heavy and long lenses so small birds are not good subjects. But there are a lot of fairly large birds around the world. Africa is certainly no exception. In fact I think there are many more large birds there than in North America and even some of the smaller birds seem to be unafraid of people and pose quite naturally for photography. I think he got some beautiful photos while in AFrica. I have loaded some of them here on this post.

black backed vulture

lilac breasted roller

red billed hornbill

Spotted dikkop or thick knee

helmeted guinea fowl

Kori bustard

black stork

darter

African fish eagle

bee eater

squacco heron

 This is the limit of these high resolution photos that I can fit on this website. There were many more birds seen, but will have to post them another time. Let me know by email, or in comments if you would like to see more.

Scatology

    One of the highlights of our Southern Africa trip was our stay at Kirkman's Kamp in the Sabie-Sands private game reserves next to Kruger National Park in northern South Africa. This place is a 5 star camp with nice cabins and great dinners every night. The service was high end, 5 star all the way. We took 6 game drives during that stay. The Kamp always assigned us to the same Landrover driver and tracker for each game drive. So we became well acquainted and friendly during our stay there. Ralph was our ranger in charge and driver. He was a local Shagaan tribe member and was very knowledgeable about the local animals and plants and just nature in general. It was great fun seeing all the animals close up and I have literally hundreds of great animal photos from this trip, but my intention is not to put those photos on this post right now. Instead I want to stick with my topic title above and describe one game drive in which Ralph expressed his knowledge about animal scat. We were traveling with a couple from Toronto who were naive about these game drives but just in general funny and jocular. Ralph decided to educate us about rhino scat. Apparently rhinoceros species often defecate at the same place again and again perhaps marking their territory. But sometimes both black and white rhino will use the same area and feel the need to mark on top of the others' markings. Ralph asked us if we wanted to hear his lecture on shitology. We laughed and of course said, Yes.  Ralph got off the Landrover and picked up some of the scat, broke it apart and explained to us the difference between the two species of rhino and how we can tell the species apart by their shit. We had got to laughing so much that we couldn't keep a straight face with this teaching episode. We named Ralph, "Professor of Shitology".

     But hidden in this laughable recitation by Ralph was actual true naturalistic information. The white rhino eats grass. It has a very wide mouth. In fact that is where its name came from, a misunderstanding. It was called the wide mouthed rhino which was misunderstood to be "white rhino". Hence its name.

 The mouth is broad and is shaped to break off grass in a grazing motion. A naturalist can look at the droppings of a white rhino and see the left over grass stems in it. The droppings are also lighter color when it dries due to the flakiness created by the grass blades. On the other hand, the black rhino has a narrow mouth because it browses shrubs and bushes as our deer do so its scat is totally different. The droppings are more homogeneous in consistency and are darker colored. Since the black rhino is much more aggressive than the white, this scatological identification in a rhino marking pile might actually be of use. So if you are ever hiking near rhinoceros, remember this caveat about the nature of their scat.

More photos of Ralph and our fun time together at Kirkman's Kamp: Below,  Our dinner in the boma.

                                          Ralph holding forth at dinner in the boma, Kirkman's Kamp
    
 I recently read the book, The Hidden Life of Deer by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas in which she describes something that our local white tailed deer do that I knew nothing about before reading her book. Apparently deer have glands on the back of their ankles which secrete a strong scent. They are called the tarsal glands. When male deer wish to mark their territory, they rub their ankles together to distribute this scent on their feet and ankles and then they crouch with their back legs forward and urinate on their ankle to distribute this scent in that locale. The author also cited a naturalist friend of hers that could distinguish the scat of the leopard frog and the other frogs as well as between the spruce grouse, and at least two other species of grouse. And she notes that these shit piles are pretty similar.

     I have a book titled What Bird Did That? A driver's guide to some common birds of North America by Peter Hansard/Buton Silver, TenSpeed Press, 1991. This book is a tongue in cheek analysis of common bird's droppings on the windshield of your car or when they defecate from the sky on a hard surface. Strangely enough you can actually identify the bird species by these splats, though color and consistency can be altered by their diet. Still they eat typical things at certain times of the year and therefore the splays on the windshield are typical. This book is no doubt tongue in cheek as evidenced by the Dedication reprinted below:
     "This book is dedicated to the memory of Arnold McLay, undoubtedly one of the world's most brilliant and dedicated collectors of ornithological dejecta.
     "Arnold passed away in August 1986 while attempting to bring to our headquarters a rare triple splay of the Wryneck, which he had managed to collect on his windshield, some two hundred miles away in Dunbar. Unfortunately, the splay had almost completely obscured his vision and in order to see properly, Arnold was forced to drive with his head protruding form the driver's window. Tragically, he was only five miles from his destination when the combined effects of exhaustion and excitement caused him to misjudge the proximity of an oncoming truck and trailer.
     "His decapitation, however, was not in vain. Arnold's windshield and its remarkable splay miraculously survived the collision. It is, thankfully, preserved to this very day in the executive boardroom of the Birmingham Ornithological Dejecta Society.
     "In keeping with Arnold McLay's unswerving devotion to the preservation and study of splays, a commemorative plaque underneath the windshield simply reads: "The Last Great Splay of Arnold McLay"
     "These words and that windshield are an inspiration to us all."
And yet when we get to the end of the Introduction we are tempted to see seriousness to the topic and the description of the splays of various birds. Indeed, according to the authors in 1988 New Zealand devoted two official postage stamps to a picture of two rare birds and their typical windshield splays. The authors claim that the purpose of this stamp issue was to determine if there were other areas in the country where these two rare birds were living. The authors claim that indeed within 6 months of the issuing of these stamps,  three new colonies of the kaka, one of these rare birds, were put under protection. Of course, there were no such stamps issued and this is made up. But the authors had me going, enough so that as a stamp collector I did search the Internet and even a catalog of New Zealand stamps to find these "interesting stamp issues." References are made to various "Dejecta Societies" and I was hooked in to looking up some of these "societies" to see if they really existed. A very funny book which is responsible for several belly shaking laughs.
       I hope you have enjoyed this report on scatological nature. Hopefully it didn't put you to sleep like the next photo, but rather made you alert and feeling satisfied like the second photo below.

Invictus and South Africa today

     I know the movie, Invictus, is now out of most movie theatres, but I still recommend that you somehow get to see it -- look for the DVD or on Netflix, or whatever. It was a great 'feel good' movie.It is the story of Nelson Mendela and the South African rugby team. Mendela decides that that team, even though it had poor skills, even though it was all white except for one man, even so, that team could and should be the anchor to draw the country, both races together. All sorts of small and larger transformations occur in the movie. 



Capetown from Table Mtn
Robbens Island is to left center, Mendala's prison.

      My husband and I were in South Africa most of September, 2009. We traveled all over with many different guides. We tried to ask each guide how he thought the country was doing just about 15 years after Apartheid ended. We were particularly curious to find out how the black people felt about that historical event and where they thought their country was now. Of course, these were all people who were in the tourist business -- in addition to guides, waiters, bartenders, hotel employees and owners. etc. But to the man or woman, they were very pleased, and positive, and forward looking about their country. Also to the man or woman, they did not hold a grudge. I found that amazing. We know how horrible Apartheid was. The blacks had no freedom. They had a 2 pm curfew and had to be off the streets of white South African cities and towns, unless they had a paper pass. Then of course, there was poverty, inequality, and even brutality from the white authorities. Remember the whites were and are only 5% of the population. And still this tiny minority subjected the remainder of the South African people. But there is no grudge! Amazing!

                                                                                    Cape Point from Table Mountain

     The last week of our trip we had a white guide, a Jewish South African who had lived in Israel for 25 years, but who now was back in his homeland. He was the only one who told us about the trials that were held after the end of Apartheid. These were broadcast on the radio and TV, over loudspeakers in the streets and in schools and other public places These trials were for the atrocities that went both ways between racial sides. They were extremely difficult to listen to. People of both races were seen crying on the street corners as they listened. This went on for some weeks. But the understanding was that when these trials were over, the judgements would be over. There would be foregiveness and no revenge, no grudges. Nelson Mendela was extremely important in leading the people and making sure that this was the result of the trials. It seems to have worked.

Downtown Capetown from Table Mountain

     Our Jewish guide did say that he thought the country was at a crossroads. There needed to be more done about housing the poor. The very common slums in the townships needed to be improved and relocated. Land reform and redistribution had to take place slowly unlike in Zimbabwe but it had to take place. The progress in this direction was entirely too slow and it was unclear how long the poor would wait. But we found the country modern, beautiful, and very positive. Johannesburg and to some degree Capetown has crime problems, yes, but the more rural areas are delightful to travel in and the people are warm and friendly. In spite of Apartheid, there does not seem to be the racial bad feelings and undercurrent that we have in this country. It was amazing. I want to go back.

                                                 Stadium for 2010 World Cup

     So go see the movie and you will see the beginnings of these small transformations. I hope this wonderful country can continue to move forward, improve the daily life of the poor, protect their public lands, and animals and be an example for the other African countries who must follow them into the 21st century.

     My husband has shot literally thousands of photographs from this country and others in southern Africa. I have included some of these in this blog. You will probably see others on this blog site as time goes on.