Birding in Namibia

I just got back from a 2-week road trip around Namibia with my friends Nell and Diede. We started in the desert south and west, continued north to Etosha national Park, and then east to the Caprivi Strip, an area rich in wetlands and wildlife. We drove more than 2500km and identified more than 100 bird species. Namibia’s rich bird life is partly a result of its innumerable ecological zones, many of which have conditions that have created endemic or near-endemic bird species.

 

The desert is home to many unique birds, perhaps the most visible of which is the ostrich. The ostrich stands 6 feet tall with a bare pinkish neck and legs and huge dark brown feathers. They are visible from hundreds of yards away as black specks on the shimmering desert horizon. For me they evoke images of ballerina ostriches in Fantasia with their prancing run and showy feather-flapping. We saw our first cool raptor in the Namib, the southern pale chanting goshawk. Colored a pale gray with orange feet, an orange beak and buff white underbelly, this bird is sleek and majestic. The one we saw was posed on a fence post in the golden light of the setting sun, creating quite a striking image. The bird life may have been unusually rich in the Namib because Sosusvlei, a normally dry lakebed, is full of water, providing water for birds like the sand grouse, which carries water in its breast feathers for up to 40km to its nest. We saw many grouse along the road and wondered if they were off to feed their chicks. We also spotted two larger birds not often seen in the desert, the Northern Korhann and the Egyptian goose. Who knew that so many birds live in the inhospitable Namib?

 

From the Namib, we drove north and west to the coast. Our first stop was the Walvis Bay lagoon, which shelters millions of migratory birds each year. Unfortunately, the flamingoes for which the lagoon is famous were absent. Cape Cormorants had taken their place and appeared to be traveling south, ostensibly to their summer homes on the Cape. Some plovers and gulls accompanied the cormorants and we were lucky enough to see the goliath heron, one of the largest herons in the world. Further north on the Skeleton Coast the cormorants were still on the move as were some arctic terns, which migrate from the arctic to the antarctic and back every year. Honestly, it was surprising to see any living thing along the coast – the barren sand and gravel flats extend as far as the eye can see.

 

From the coast, we turned inland toward Etosha National Park. En route we stopped at Spitzkoppe, a huge granite mountain in the middle of the inland desert plain. Spitzkoppe is home to many unique birds, including many types of martins and swifts, that favor mountainous terrain. We saw plenty of them but the real treat was seeing a corie bustard in the bush not far from Spitzkoppe. The corie bustard is the heaviest flying bird in Africa and is rarely found outside of protected game areas. After Spitzkoppe, we continued on to Etosha. Once we were inside the park, the bustards were as common as gulls on the coast. My favorite birds in Etosha were the rollers, which are colored a brilliant incandescent blue with lavender chests and long split tails. We also saw the Namibian national bird, the crimson breasted shrike, a pretty little black bird with a blazing red chest. The real treat in Ethsoa was seeing a secretary bird, an odd mix between a shore bird and a raptor with knees that bend backward, a sharp beak and a floppy red crest. They hunt insects and snakes by stomping them with their large clawed feet and then snapping at them with their sharp hooked bills. We saw two stamping on and snapping at grasshoppers as they marched purposefully through the tall brown grass.

 

We continued on from Etosha to the Caprivi Strip, the furthest northern and eastern part of Namibia, which is home to huge numbers of birds and other wildlife, which congregates around the big rivers in the area. The first bird we saw was a bataleur, a scavenging black eagle with a short tail and a brilliand red bill and legs. We were all excited at our first spot; little did we know that the bataleur would be only one of many new raptors we would see in Caprivi. Among the plethora of raptors we saw were about a dozen African fish eagles with their unmistakable white heads and breasts contrasting with their brown bodies; a few ospreys, direct relatives of those found in the US; Marshall eagles, some of the largest birds in Southern Africa; two species of owlet, tiny but fierce owls; and snake eagles, which dine solely on snakes. Caprivi is also home to dozens of species of water birds including the African Jacana, or Jesus bird, which appears to walk on water; the purple heron with its huge pointed bill that dwarfs its little head; the African pygmy goose; the open-billed stork, which flies in huge groups that evoke certain Hitchcock films; and coukals, large copper-colored birds that steal rather than build their own nests. My favorite birds in Caprivi were definitely the white-fronted bee-eater. Their name comes from their white foreheads which contrast with their black eye streaks. They have bright red chests and incandescent green backs with some blue and yellow patches. We came across groups of bee-eaters a couple of evenings when they were feeding, flying wild spirals and diving unexpectedly to catch flying insects. Their brilliant colors enhanced by the evening light and their death-defying flying provided some of the best before-dinner entertainment I’ve ever witnessed.

 

It was disappointing to leave Caprivi, but Nell and I have been exploring Tsintsabis and have already identified a few new specits. Snakes are pretty cool, but birds definitely have a chance of passing them on my list of “cool animal groups in Namibia.”