Day 16, August 9: Seldomseen Lodge

We birded York Lodge at 7 a.m. and saw pied crows, miombo and variable sunbirds, turacos, African green dove and red-eyed dove, palm swift. Others saw white barbet, but I didn't.

pied crows

African green pigeon

arrow-marked babbler

We left for the Highlands about 9 a.m. The Highlands really aren't highlands at all; they're where the Zimbabwe plateau descends towards the Mozambique lowlands, in a series of valleys and small mountain ranges.

 It was a long, boring slow drive along the R5. At about 100 km, we stopped at something called the Halfway House, and saw house sparrows, Southern black tits, and weavers. There were also some very old and interesting steam tractors, built some time after 1914, and shipped laboriously via ship to Cape Town, and then on land up to what was then Southern Rhodesia. 

spectacled weaver

southern black tit

Also, eastern miombo sunbird

We lunched about 2 p.m. just north of the town of Mutare. By this time I was thoroughly sick of York Lodge's sandwiches -- they had made about four times too many. However, wandering around the tiny park,  I saw a Southern hyliota, which made up for the sandwiches and the stray dogs roaming the picnic location.

Mutare itself was a busy little town. We were delayed about 30 minutes because FunGuy, our navigator, had to stop and pick up Pepsi and food, something he could have done earlier. Then he directed the driver to take a wrong turn, and so we didn't get into Seldomseen Lodge until 3:30 pm. Our lodging, in a little detached cottage called Twinsprings, had a bit of a climb up to the main lodge, but in compensation we had a lot of privacy. The cottage itself was spartan, cold, with no dried coffee. But I cured the cold by lighting a fire.

An evening bird walk near the lodge, and through Ken (our host's) shrub nursery. We heard Roberts' warbler and the orange ground thrush, a highland specialty.

Also, variable sunbird

flat-tailed drongo

white-eared barbet

Day 15, August 8: Harare

We did a little birding on the way to the airstrip.

Common sandpiper

Black-threated wattle-eye, in the branches. Really!

A great egret and saddlebill  stork

Blacksmith plover

Rufous-bellied heron

Egyptian geese

African yellow white-eyes

Red-billed fire finch

Common slender mongoose

Wire-tailed swallow

Double-banded sandgrouse

three-banded plover

cape buffaloes

red-billed oxpeckers

And a nyala, quite a specialty of Mana Pools

A double-bandad sandgrouse and one of its two chicks

yellow-billed stork

After we got back to York Lodge in Harare...

A red-eyed dove

and one of my favorite birds of the whole trip, a purple-crested turaco. They come down to the bird-bath in York Lodge to drink.

Day 14, August 7: Mana Pools National Park

An early morning, of course, and a long drive, further afield in the park, to see the crested francolin.

First, the usual waterfowl. A goliath heron

Its smaller cousin, the black-headed heron

And the small squacco heron

An elegant male eland

a southern grey-headed sparrow

A partially obscured trumpeter hornbill

More common elands, male and female

White-crested helmetshrikes, with those weird eyes.

Our old pal, the southern red-billed hornbill

A black-backed puffback

Wire-tailed swallow. You can just about see the tail.

A beautiful lilac-breasted roller

A savannah hare.

We saw a flock of crested francolins, by the road south of the airstrip, in heavy brush, but they were never out in the open. But we did see a common dwarf mongoose, which lives in a hollow log.

A chinspot batis, annoyingly refusing to look at the camera.

A redheaded weaver, not in breeding plumage, and therefore without the red head

A swallow-tailed bee-eater.

Overhead, a battler

Blacksmith lapwings are common in this park

Our old friend the glossy ibis

An Egyptian goose

And a menagerie of hippo, cattle egrets, and chacma baboons

A pied kingfisher

After lunch, we went for a (rather dangerous) walk with a herd of 5 male elephants.

Everything went well, until one 40 year old male split away from the herd, and decided the best way to rejoin them was through our group. At the instruction of Stretch, we all sat down; the theory being an elephant will recognize a seated human as being in his or her own space, and will not invade it. This elephant, however, kicked one of our guids,a nd ran his trunk down Marjorie's back; I think he liked the smell of her laundry detergent. Cool, but terrifying. Look at the tusks on this guy!

Here is a more peaceful scene, with an elephant stretching his trunk up to eat tree leaves.

And here's a bateleur, perched in a tree watching, and hoping there would be carnage and carrion to eat.

Other birds seen: Spur-winged Goose, Helmeted Guineafowl, Mourning Collared-Dove, Red-eyed Dove, Ring-necked Dove, Laughing Dove, Emerald-spotted Wood-Dove, Gray Go-away-bird, Water Thick-knee, Black-winged Stilt, Blacksmith Lapwing, White-crowned Lapwing, African Jacana, Common Sandpiper, Wood Sandpiper, Common Greenshank, Three-banded Courser, African Openbill, Saddle-billed Stork, Marabou Stork, Yellow-billed Stork, Glossy Ibis, African Sacred Ibis, Hadada Ibis, African Spoonbill, Black-crowned Night Heron, Little Egret (Western), Striated Heron, Rufous-bellied Heron, Cattle Egret, Great Egret,  Gray Heron, Hamerkop, African Harrier-Hawk, African Goshawk, Black Kite (Yellow-billed), African Fish-Eagle, Crowned Hornbill,  Brown-hooded Kingfisher, Pied Kingfisher, Lilac-breasted Roller, Lilian's Lovebird, Brown-necked Parrot, Meyer's Parrot, African Black-headed Oriole, Black-throated Wattle-eye, Brubru, Black-backed Puffback, Brown-crowned Tchagra, Tropical Boubou, Fork-tailed Drongo, Long-billed Crombec, Green-backed Camaroptera, Yellow-breasted Apalis, Gray-rumped Swallow, Plain Martin, Yellow-bellied Greenbul, Common Bulbul, Southern Yellow White-eye, Red-billed Oxpecker, Meves's Starling, Ashy Flycatcher, White-browed Robin-Chat, Collared Sunbird, Scarlet-chested Sunbird, White-bellied Sunbird, White-browed Sparrow-Weaver, Spectacled Weaver,  Blue Waxbill, Red-billed Firefinch, Southern Gray-headed Sparrow, African Pied Wagtail