Headless chicken
Or blue-arsed fly. Either way, that's been me over the last month or so. And on Monday I'm off to India for 10 days. So all my good intentions of posting photos of Sebastian and Joaquim and Paulo's birthdays and my latest birding trip with Malcolm have gone out the window.
So see you all in a couple of weeks when I shall endeavour to make good!
Labels: birds, birthdays, Joaquim, Paulo, Pemba life, Sebastian, working mum
Got to fly.
Well I know you're all dying to know whether I was successful in my appeal in the case of the tinted windows, but unfortunately I've been too busy to go and check. (I should mention the value of the fine at this point: about $8.) And as I'm off to the bush tomorrow for 12 days birding with Malcolm, you'll just have to hang in there a little longer. Ta-ra.
Labels: birds, Pemba life
Lake Kagavero
Yesterday I went to Lake Kagavero. It was my fourth visit. Kagavero is a scenic little lake, home to a nesting pair of Fish Eagles and many other water birds, and a stopping off point for many more - or so I hope - during migration, as well as visiting hippos and assorted small wildlife. I'm intending to set up a picnic spot cum bush campsite on a rise overlooking the lake, and a bird hide down on the lake shore. The community are on-side, as long as I organise a blessing involving large amounts of goat meat and rice. The picnic site is great: funky overhanging vegetation and a lovely view, and the birdhide should be easy enough, although we may have to consider building it on stilts (a first for me) as the water level of the lake varies considerably between rainy and dry seasons. It's even strategically en-route to the Park's most sought-after destination, Ibo Island. But here's the catch. It's a mere 100km from Pemba to Kagavero, which should be a bonus, but at the moment it's a three-hour drive from hell, through massive holes, over vicious corregations and around unhelpfully placed boulders, all accompanied by vast quantities of red dust. Although I wasn't driving, my back is telling me all about it today. That's not a great selling point. Some days, my job seems more challenging than others.
Labels: birds, Ibo
Birthdays and bird days
It's been a while, hasn't it? I have been submerged in birthday cake making, birthday party throwing, and - for a change of scene - bird watching.
Following hot on the heels of Sebastian's wonky plane came Joaquim's rather better rocket (easier design) and then on the day of the great pirate party, well, see below. My boys were born 2 years minus a week apart, which is convenient when it comes to parties as I only have to do one a year. Thank god. No doubt there will come a time when they insist on having one each, but for the time being they are content enough to share, and I'm happy with that as I seriously doubt that I have the stamina to do this twice in a 10 day stretch.
So there were two birthday boys. One had a rather extravagant curly moustache, which didn't last long in the paddling pool.
The other spent most of the party stark naked, apart from a brief appearance in a dino costume, which was not really in theme, but that's hard for a two-year-old to understand. Perhaps it was a sea-monster.
There was also a treasure hunt, pass the parcel, a pin-the-tail type game, a bouncy castle/paddling pool combo, more party games and a rather fabulous pirate ship cake (if I say so myself). We nearly burned the new house down with the canons, which were these candle-style sparkler-ish fireworky things which are probably illegal in any developed country, but looked fantastic stuck in the side of the cake and also set fire the paper tablecloth in a rather dramatic battle-scene simulation.
The kids were kept busy and sugar-fuelled, the parents had plenty of cold beer and wine, the boys got lots of presents, and it seems that a great time was had by all. But by the end of the day it was all I could do to stay out of bed until the boys were in theirs.
So the next day, I jumped ship and headed off to the bush with Malcolm, a visiting ornithologist who I last saw 11 years ago in Uganda. We spent a week with binoculars at hand, assessing the Park's potential for bird-watching and starting a training course for some of our rangers and community guides, who - we hope - will at some future point become top-class bird guides. I love spending time in the bush, and this time the pleasure was compounded by re-discovering an old friend and by finding out that we do indeed have great bird life and that this might just be the saving grace in terms of tourism for the interior of the park, where we don't have enough big game to compete with such neighbouring giants as Tanzania, Kenya, SA, Botswana, Namibia and the like. But who needs rhinos when you have brown-breasted barbets, Zanzibar red bishops and Livingstone's fly-catcher? None of which are the fellow in the pic below, but isn't he beautiful?
Labels: birds, Joaquim, parties, Sebastian
