As Team Tanzania we had an amazing trip for other reasons apart from achieving what we set out to do, meeting brothers and sisters in Christ, being blessed and being a blessing. We had the opportunity virtually every day, to drink in the sights and sounds of that beautiful country.
I would like to share a couple of special bird moments and a taste of Ruaha Game Park which wowed not only me but the whole team.
The first morning at Andrew and Miriam Wingfield’s I popped out around the garden to take in the sights and sounds. I stood under a large overhanging tree canopy by the children’s slide enjoying the morning shade and was visited by a male African paradise flycatcher! He flew in about 2m from where I stood and hopped in closer along the overhanging tree.
The movement was a wonder in itself as he carried a tail about 3 times longer than his body which is Robin sized! You could clearly see without binoculars the thin pale blue ring round his black eye. The eye ring colour matched some of the bill. A bluey-black crested head with chestnut wings and back, edged with white leading to the chestnut tail. This bluey-black covers the neck blending to a grey breast merging into a white lower body. A beautiful contrast made a special sight.Out of the corner of my eye I noticed the female. I think I had disturbed a meeting! Ed said I should have taken a picture but I was so lost in the moment it didn’t occur to me.
One morning my roommates and I were awoken by our neighbours. Tap tap, tap, “it’s a little bird trying to get in” stated the voice. Later I asked what it was and shoulders were shrugged so had to leave it to guesswork.
The next day the same little bird came to visit The Marrow, Marshall, Varley and Wakefield, at 6am, semi-light whilst still in bed! I recognised him from the book and the previous day around our village house. Common stonechat seemed a little unfair as that’s the name of a British bird! The other name African stonechat was definitely more suitable and besides his colour was different.
The glass tapping was a bizarre habit. All I could think was he could see his reflection in the tinted glass. Even by putting our hands up to shoo him off didn’t work. It wasn’t until Ed opened the window did he fly off. He came a couple of other times in the week and to other windows. On one occasion The Marrow mumbled from his bed “Move him on Robster!”
During the afternoons we did the children’s work outside, at the village school. Often we’d see large amounts of falcons whizzing around. I think they were migrant falcons or at least preparing to migrate. You can understand how distracting this was for me!
On one occasion Rupert and I had almost arrived back from the school on our walk back to the house and our attention was drawn to what initially looked like swarms of tiny birds. They were in-fact termites! They were being consumed by hobbies (a small falcon) zipping around the sky!
Ruaha Game Park was a real treat. It was somewhat overwhelming. We all would have stayed longer and just sat at the river lodge drinking in the ambience. There were hippos, elephants, zebra, Kudu, Impala etc…and the birds! Apparently around 580 species have been recorded there. In all the time there in Tanzania I managed to identify 84 species. There were more but I was there to do a job….!
Thank you for satisfying my indulgence by humouring me in this month’s article! If you are interested in seeing more or hearing more about it just speak to us we might even show you some photos and the odd(!) movie. Or just come along to one of our presentations.