Zimbabwe

Daring parents

It seems that the Three-banded plover (Charadrius tricollaris) has a knack for living dangerously or rather incubating dangerously.

I rarely find ground birds’ nests. In fact, I have only found two so far and both belong to this little plover!

The first nest I found was at the Maputo Special Reserve in 2011 near Milibangalala while driving through a stretch of road between the woodlands and one of the swampy areas. There, by the shore and almost on the road, we noted the nest as the bird stayed on its eggs up to the last minute until we almost drove upon it and only then it moved a couple of meters to wait for the danger to pass so that it could return.

p1010653-three-banded-plover-11-10-37-am-copy

The first nest in Mozambique.

We spotted two eggs (the normal number) rather large for the bird’s size that looked very much like round pebbles and melted very well with the ashy background.

We found our second nesting bird at Mana Pools this past August and I have already given an advance of it at an earlier post[1]. This time the nest was about one kilometre from the Zambezi River but probably nearer some of the pools. As with the nest in Mozambique, the bird would run off a couple of metres away when we drove past and return to the nest soon afterwards.

Again, there was no nest to speak of and the two dark grey eggs had been laid on the ground in a small area of about 7-8 cm across, among some stones at the very edge of the road. After watching the nest for a while we noted that there were two birds taking turns to sit on it. As soon as its shift was over, the relieved bird did not stay and flew off, probably to feed and drink although we did not see where it went.

Although the birds sat on the eggs, they were also seen standing over them as if shading them from the direct solar heat. At some stage we observed the absence of both birds for a few hours and became concerned that we or other cars passing had disturbed them. The following day we saw them back. In the absence of the birds the eggs are extremely difficult to spot among all the small stones.

It appears unlikely that such a seemingly unsafe choice of nesting site would be successful as the eggs were completely exposed in the absence of the birds. Further, the birds themselves do not seem to offer much protection to the many predators, scaly, feathered and hairy that roam around the area, not to mention the stones thrown by passing cars. Despite these apparently large odds against them, the strategy must work as they are fairly common!

As a note of interest, searching the web I found an account of this bird’s nesting habits in Eritrea written by Stephanie Tyler while she and her husband -Lindsay- were kidnapped by guerrillas in the north-east of the country [2]. Her interest on the birds and the observations she made while being held captive are remarkable. She also stresses the bird’s tolerance to the approach of humans, their failures with the incubation and rearing of the chicks as well as the first observation that the Three-banded plovers are multiple brooded or able to raise more than one brood of young in quick succession. We can say that Three-banded plovers are tough parents!

A video that shows the nesting behaviour of the birds and the “change over” their nesting duties.

 

[1] See: https://bushsnobinafrica.wordpress.com/2016/09/09/spot-the-beast-12/

[2] Tyler, S. (1978). Observations on the nesting of the three-banded plover Charadrius tricollaris. Scopus 2, 39-41. If interested on the details, the original communication is here: https://archive.org/stream/scopus2197east/scopus2197east_djvu.txt 

 

Spot the beast 11

dscn9951-copyI know, this is a difficult one. I give you a closer view below to see if you can spot it…

dscn9951-copy-3Still, all you can see are the two bush tracks joining , dust and trees? What about below?

dscn9951-copy-2You should be able to spot it but here it is:

dscn9952-copy

dscn9950-copy

A Three-banded lapwing (plover) sitting on its nest and quite well camouflaged. I will expand on this finding on a future post.

 

The “hoo” call

After watching Big V and the other elephants until the light faded, we decided to get back to our lodge, as you are not allowed to drive in the dark. Shortly after the turn off to our lodge my wife heard a strange call. As it was unusual we stopped and listened.

At first we thought that it was an owl or some other large bird. Whatever its origin,  we were sure that we had not heard it before so we decided to retrace our “tyre marks” and see if we could spot the originator.

We returned to the main road and, immediately, my wife spotted three ghosts that, as they got closer, gradually became  African wild dogs (painted dogs) walking in the dry bush. We stopped, watched and listened. Suddenly, one dog crossed the road in front of us and started emitting the sound we have heard earlier. It was a plaintive sound repeated three or four times. The call was repeated a few times and then the dogs got together again and walked into the darkness.

Wild dogs seen on another occasion in Mana Pools during the day.

The only option I had to record the sound was to take a video and hope that the sound if not the image will reflect what we heard. The results are a dark video with the wild dog call repeated three times.

Later on I learnt that when wild dogs get separated from their packs they get very concerned and in these situations they emit the call we heard that aims at getting a reply from the pack in order to reunite with them. This call is known -rather appropriately- as a “hoo” call.

So, what we saw were probably three dogs trying to re-join their pack by hoo calling. Later on we learnt that there was indeed a pack of about twenty dogs roaming around Mana Pools at the time so we probably saw three members of that group.

After that, we lost them but their plaintive call got “recorded” in our minds.

The hoo call (and the bad video!):

I am sure that you will agree with me that you do not expect such a sound to come from a wild dog!

Big V

Boswell and Big V[1]  are the best-known elephant bulls in Mana Pools National Park. I recently reported about Boswell’s skills to feed on his hind legs[2], a rather unique trick. When we witnessed an elephant feeding on Acacia pods overhead and I reported in an earlier post[3] was Big V so I have already introduced both to you.

Mana Pools this August was extremely dry, as last year the rains were not good. For this reason the area looks more as it does towards the end of the dry season in November than it should be in August: a dust bowl! I believe that the animals are in for a tough two to three months until new rains arrive, if they do as these days weather patterns have changed.

Luckily for most of the animals in Mana the Zambezi River is there and, together with the pools that lend the name to the park, they provide water and fodder to keep the grazers going while the trees such as the apple-ring acacia (Faidherbia albida) will supply elephants with browsing. The animals that seemed hardest hit at the moment were the hippos that need to consume large amounts of grass so it was common to see them walking about during late afternoon already far from the water.

While checking in we learnt that lions had been spotted around an area known as Mana mouth. After recovering from the six-hour journey from Harare and, after unpacking and organizing our lodge, we decided to go there as it is close and the sunsets there are usually beautiful, even without lions! We never reach our destination as on our way we found Big V!

With him were, in addition to his usual young male retinue, a young female and its small calf, something unusual as large bulls tend to hang out on their own or with a few askaris[4]. He towered over the lot and he was clearly the undisputed leader of the group.

In an interesting contrast to his dominance over other elephants, Big V is an extremely relaxed elephant that allows the human observer to approach him either in the car or on foot. In contrast, the younger males can be more boisterous and occasionally perform threatening displays and mock charges that remind us that we are dealing with wild animals!

On this occasion it appeared that Big V was doing some “community” work by pulling down branches from an apple-ring acacia. Clearly, for the elephants this was the equivalent of eating at a Michelin-starred restaurant!

Although Big V was not standing on its hind legs “Boswell style” it stretched and reached high up the tree, to a height the others could not. As a result of its efforts large branches were brought down showing a great dexterity with his nose (it is easy to forget that he was breathing while doing this!) as well as the damage elephants can do to trees!

He will then fed on them, including the main branches, some of which were really thick! While Big V was eating, the other elephants were eager to collect any fallen pods or small branches but from a distance as Big V’s belly rumblings were sufficient to keep them all at bay! Well, not all…

The small female and her calf approached the feeding giant ignoring his rumblings. Expecting some rebuke we were surprised to see that they slowly got closer and closer  she started to steal bits of the branch to feed. The calf was also allowed into Big V’s inner circle and managed to pick some scraps. The large bull completely ignored them!

 

DSCN0022 8.49.54 PM copyAt one stage, the female even took bits of the branch from Big V’s mouth!

The reasons for this closeness I ignore but it was unexpected and we spent a few minutes watching how it developed. Spellbound with these interactions, we forgot about the lions and when the light was fading we returned to our lodge still talking about what amazing creatures elephants are!

 

[1] This elephant has a large v-shaped notch on its left ear.

[2] https://bushsnobinafrica.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/boswell/

[3] https://bushsnobinafrica.wordpress.com/2015/10/14/elephant-overhead-and-it-was-not-dumbo/

[4] From Arabic, an askari was a local soldier serving in the armies of the European colonial powers in Africa. It is also used for security guards and the young bulls that accompany large bull elephants.

Fish eagles

A visit to Lake Chivero Recreational Park, just over 30 km from Harare, does not sound like a grand outing when you have just come back from a family trip to Mana Pools and Hwange National Parks. However, it was a Sunday and our good friends Tom and Chizuki had time to share so we decided to explore the area and have a picnic lunch there.

Lake Chivero had some influence on our daughter’s life, the Senior Editor of this blog. My wife and I visited the area on 27 October 1990 and she still remembers that I had to help her to climb over the rocky terrain to see some of the San (Bushman) paintings as she was heavily pregnant. She claims, possibly with some justification, that this accelerated the arrival of our daughter the following day!

It was also at Chivero a few years later, when we were living in Zimbabwe, that our friend John invited our daughter -about eight years old then- to join him as part of a crew of two on a sailing regatta. We all went there and watched the race and also the moment when they capsized in the middle of the lake. We watched the events from the shore with great concern! Luckily, they managed to straightened the sailing craft and continued racing! This probably had something to do with our daughters’ love of the water and her keenness on sailing!

During the present visit we aimed for the game park area of the park as it was still unknown to us. We were aware that the park is somehow too close to the city so we did not have high expectations.

The total area of Lake Chivero Recreational Park is 6,100 hectares including the 16 km long lake. The animals that populate the game park, of about 1,900 hectares, came from Hwange National Park. Additional animals were brought in from Lake Kariba during the game rescue operation better known as “Operation Noah” that took place between 1958 and 1964.

We enjoyed watching several impala, tsessebe (Damaliscus lunatus lunatus), wildebeest, giraffe, zebra, wild pig and a slender mongoose as well as a number of ostriches and other birds. Busy watching animals we were, very soon it seemed, faced with our lunch! We decided to stop by the lake where the lodges are. The area was clean and the personnel very friendly. They pointed us to a viewpoint on the lake where we could have our sandwiches.

As soon as we stopped the car we were pleasantly surprised to hear a fish eagle (Haliaeetus vocifer), a call that we regard as the quintessence of the African wilderness. Usually fish eagles occur in pairs and their territories are large so you find them a good distance apart. What we saw in this area of the lake was different. There were many eagles and we estimated the number at between 40 and 50 birds, both adults and immature. They were all over the place, at the lakeshore, flying about and perched on the trees above and around us!

Picture credit: Tom Milliken.
The fish discarded under the eagles. Picture credit: bushsnob.
A view of the lake shore from our picnic site. Picture by bushsnob.

At some point we noted fast forming ripples on the surface of the lake and,after a while, we realized that shoals of fish were responsible for them. The latter would take place spontaneously or when the walking marabous or the eagles scared them by either wading or flying over them. We observed lots of interaction between eagles and between them and the marabous, particularly when fishing.

Picture credit: Tom Milliken.
Picture credit: Tom Milliken.
Picture credit: Tom Milliken.
Picture credit: Tom Milliken.

An area among the trees seemed to attract the attention of the eagles and, on close inspection, we found several dead fish that looked like Tilapia. Judging by the amount of guano present the spot was probably used for sleeping by some of the eagles.

Clearly there was a lot of fish at the lake and the eagles were profiting from it! It was by far the larges concentration of fish eagles I have ever seen and we were pleased to be able to watch them at close quarters. However, as this was the first time where we had seen such a congregation of fish eagles, I made a point to follow up the subject later.

Our lunch over we left the eagles thinking that a return visit to watch them at leisure would be justified. On our way out of the game park we were surprised to spot three white rhinos grazing placidly about 100 metres from us, a rare sight these days that added another justification for a re-visit!

Back home, searching the internet, I learnt that lake Chivero showed high levels of pollution in the 1970s but that the toxic levels had since declined. However, the lake is now highly eutrophic[1] and this, through the abundance of fish feeding on the increased amount of nutrients, has had a positive impact on the fish eagles’ increase in numbers[2].

Although the increase in nutrients may benefit bird populations -in our case the fish eagles- this may be at the expense of other species that require other -more fragile- resources that may be altered by nutrient changes and/or pollution and the overall environmental health may be in fact poorer[3].

So, what in principle appeared as a good thing, it may turn out badly for the lake habitat. It will be interesting to come back to the lake in a few years to see how things develop.

Below you will find four videos of what we heard and saw so that you can get the atmosphere at the lake that day.

 

A fish eagle flying over the lake shore and attempting to catch fish a few times. The response of the fish every time the bird approaches them can be seen as ripples on the water surface.

 

Fish moving ahead of the walking marabou storks.

 

Listen to the calls of the fish eagles!

 

Spontaneous fish runs indicating the large fish population in the area.

 

[1] Euthropic (From Greek eutrophos = well-nourished). Eutrophication of a pond or lake arises from the oversupply of nutrients of various origins, which induces explosive growth of plants and algae.

[2] Mundy, P.J. & Couto, J.T. 2000. High productivity by Fish Eagles on a polluted dam near Harare. Ostrich 71 (1 & 2): 11–14.

[3] MacDonald, M.A. (2006). The indirect effects of increased nutrient inputs on birds in the UK: a review. RSPB Research Report 21. Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. 204p.

 

Boswell

It is irrelevant here to argue against or in favour of naming wild animals. It happens often among the big five and others that are singled out for certain notable characteristics or behaviour and I am sure it helps researchers in their work. There is a tusker-naming project at the Letaba Elephant Hall in the Kruger National Park and many notable animals have been given names, not only in Africa but also throughout the world.

Boswell in Mana Pools is a bull elephant that is one of the legitimate owners of the place. It kindly let us enjoy its home without a grudge while it goes about its business. Boswell is well known by all that, like us, are frequent visitors of this beautiful wilderness area. It has a distinct feature: it can reach for the apple ring acacia pods higher than its colleagues.

Over the years it has developed a trick that few others can match: it does not only stretch but over-stretches by standing on its hind legs in perfect balance while it feeds at incredible heights. I do not know how it learnt to do it but perhaps it is an elephant tradition that is passed from generation to generation at Mana Pools.

Whatever the origin of its skill, many brilliant pictures have been taken in the past by great photographers and these can easily be found in the Internet. However, one thing is to watch professional pictures and/or documentaries and another, rather different one, is to see it performing live, just like any artist!

We have seen Boswell often once we learnt to recognize it but we have not seen its trick as it only takes place at a certain time of the year when the right conditions are present. Even at that time, you must find Boswell and it has to be willing to perform. This is not as easy as you may think.

During our last visit to Mana Pools last July game was not yet abundant in the riverine part of the park so I decided to cut short my participation in a family game drive and stay in camp to take things easy and to watch what was going on there as its proximity to the river is always rewarding. We had been, as usual, “attacked” by monkeys and the baboons were particularly vicious when they did not find anything, pulling down one tent an even biting our solar-powered lamps!

I spent some time tidying up and eventually sat down to have a cuppa and to write notes on the trip. Although it passed about five metres from me I only saw Boswell’s bottom and looked for the camera only to realize that it was with the rest of the family! Luckily I had my iPad with me!

Boswell crossed the river fast and soon reached a couple of acacias on the other side, about one hundred metres from me. There it started feeding and I watched for the first time his two-legged feeding trick.

As usually happens, my pictures are rather pathetic but I am, nevertheless, proud to be able to say that I saw Boswell performing for me alone at its home!

Curious

A couple of mongooses at what we thought was their burrow inside a termite mound was the first we saw while on a game drive close to Ngweshla pan at Hwange National park.

See what happened next in the slide show and video below.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

World Elephant Day

Yesterday (12 August)  it was World Elephant Day and I thought that what we saw last week at Ngweshla pan in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe is a suitable scene to remember these amazing animals that the more I watch, the more I get entertained and admire.

I owe my increasing interest for these animals to my daughter (the intermittent Senior Editor of this blog) who, from very young age was fascinated by these animals and gradually “educated” me to appreciate them.

I hope you will find the video fun!

Pachyderm GO!

Apparently there is a new, rather hazardous, cell phone game going around in selected places of the world, mainly the “developed” part of it where “players” follow creatures called Pokémons that somehow materialize in their cameras. Amazing technology that I hope can eventually be used for the good of humanity. But this is just another of my idealistic hopes.

In Zimbabwe, away from it all, as usual we decided to go in search of real creatures and, having our two children with us (knowledgeable on Pokéscience), we went to the bush where they assured us Pokémons do not yet dwell. We chose Mana Pools National Park, a jewel among the Zimbabwe parks. We were in for a surprise!

At some stage during our game drive I saw some elephants and stopped the car to watch them with the naked eye, together with my children. My wife, however, looked at them through her tablet to catch the best images of them. At some point, one of the elephants started to walk straight for the car.

I was enjoying its closeness when my son decided that the beast was too close and asked me to move a little to feel safer. My wife in the meantime continued trying to catch the beast.

DSCN9919 copy

Seeing that my wife was still looking through her device totally oblivious to the animal’s proximity, I started wondering whether she was watching the same beast that we were or if she was actually trying to throw a Poke Ball at a Phanpy[1] or a Donphan?

After the incident my wife explained that she did not realize how close it was until I moved the car. The creature had come within a couple of metres from us before I drove off but she said that she had managed to capture it.

We are all looking forward to get home to see what she caught!

 

[1] Phanpy is a small, blue elephant-like Pokémon that evolves into Donphan, a gray, elephant-like Pokémon with a thick, black band of hide running down the length of its back and extending to the tip of its long trunk.

 

Follow up: The situation was clarified later and, luckily for Mana Pools, this is what she actually saw:

DSCN9950 copy

 

 

 

 

 

Ups and downs

 

The final day of our stay at Mana Pools we drove all morning and hardly saw any mammals. Our drive started towards the west, following the river frontage (from right to left in the map below), towards Vundu camp. Although the views of the river in that area are really beautiful, after a while we decided to take another road in a southerly direction, towards the Kanga pan area (outside the map). Although the sighting of  crowned eagle lifted our spirits for a while, our luck did not change.

DSCN9960 copy

Crowned eagle.

DSCN9944 copy

Map of the Mana Pools area adjacent to the Zambezi River.

Our last hope of finding some interesting action was to re-visit the “carnage” at Long pool of the day before but our bad luck continued! Professional-looking photographers had moved in and probably paid some good money to film the birds so we did not wish to interfere with their work and drove on and back to our lodge.

The view from our lodge.

To recompense ourselves for our rather poor morning performance we decided to go for a late hearty English breakfast, also known as brunch. We enjoyed bacon, scrambled eggs and fried tomatoes. The siesta under the trees that followed recharged the “morale batteries” and, by 16:00 hours, we went out again. This time we headed towards the Nkupe campsite and the Zambezi shore near Mana mouth where earlier we had some interesting sightings.

When you start getting carried away by watching Matabele ants (Megaponera analis) and photographing armoured crickets and dragonflies you know that Mana is on one of the occasions that it hides its booty from you. Clearly the park had water “up country” and most animals were spread out beyond the area that we could cover by car.

To be fair, we actually enjoyed watching the ants[1] that reminded someone of the fierce Matabele warriors of the past, hence their name. It was a rather large colony moving over the ground as a coordinated force. The major workers of this group were carrying brown capsules that were not prey as we initially thought but their own cocoons as I later learnt. One of these major workers would have also carried their queen but we did not pay sufficient attention to spot that.

Eventually we managed to see some zebra and even three shy eland bulls that quickly moved off as soon as they spotted us. Because of their premature departure we did not hear the unique clicks that are normally loud enough to be heard from some distance away. A knee tendon slides over a bone and vibrates causing the clicks. The larger the animal and the thicker and longer the tendon, the graver the sound and the higher place the animal occupies in the pecking order. The clicks, therefore, prevent fighting.

Soon the shadows started to lengthen and it was time to return to our lodge. We decided to spend the last minutes of the day checking our mail so we drove via the park’s office to access their Wi-Fi. It was close to 17:30 hours and the sun had already dropped behind the escarpment on the Zambian shore of the Zambezi.

On arrival to the office our luck turned! At the parking area we met head on with a large bull elephant and we stopped mesmerized at such a great animal so relaxed yet so powerful and potentially dangerous. Ignoring us it kept feeding as we drove within a couple of metres from it to park the car. We have had the privilege of having been close to these bull elephants before[2] but the experience is always exhilarating.

Good stretch!

I got out of the car to watch the animal and joined onlookers from the park’s office that were also there enjoying the moment. It was one of bulls that reside around the most popular area of the park and clearly used to humans. In pursuit of good food it was performing some really funny contortions.

Boswell is probably the best-known bull elephant at Mana Pools. It has developed the ability of standing only on its hind legs while stretching an amazing length to reach the highest of branches. Although the elephant we found was not Boswell, it was probably one of its disciples as I am sure that at some stage it was actually on its hind legs though hidden by bushes!

I got carried away taking pictures and, rather carelessly, I forgot that I was photographing an adult bull elephant a couple of metres away! At one point, after removing my eye from the camera’s viewfinder, the animal was actually towering over me and I thought that I was ridiculously close for comfort and hastily retreated concerned about my bush-future! Luckily, harming me was not in the pachyderm’s mind and it continued feeding and keeping the distance that it thought prudent for both!

Bushsnob repositioned and elephant stretching.
Coming closer.

Unfortunately, the light soon faltered and I was forced to stop taking pictures so we parted company and we returned to our lodge. Our experience confirmed yet again the nature of Mana Pools: you can go through a frustrating day and then, suddenly, you find yourself in a unique situation that not only makes you forget the tedious drive but that leaves an enduring memory!

 

 

[1] For more information, see https://bushsnobinafrica.wordpress.com/2015/10/03/talking-ants/

[2] See: https://bushsnobinafrica.wordpress.com/2015/10/14/elephant-overhead-and-it-was-not-dumbo/