Day 31 / 16th October
The sun seemed to come up early today, possibly for a number of reasons: our proximity to the coast, our altitude, and the fact that for the first time in many days there were clear skies and no clouds anywhere. And it stayed like that all day. After an early breakfast we met our bird guide, Zola, and he took us on a bird walk from about 08:30 to 12:30. As this was truly a montane rainforest, I knew I would be getting species I hadn’t got elsewhere in Tanzania. However, while waiting for Zola, the first bird I saw was actually an
African Paradise Flycatcher, which I had already seen on my first day in Tanzania, and I could hear
Common Bulbuls which I had seen pretty much everywhere else I had been in the country.
In the light I could now see how spectacularly beautiful this place was. Amani is on a ridge, and most of the roads follow the ridges or are cut into the sides of the mountains. Within and around the village are some enormous trees, and apart from a few homes the mountains were covered in a rainforest.
Zola arrived and took us along some roads in and around the village. He had good eyes and pointed out many of the smaller birds, and he recognised many of their calls too (which is always good in a bird guide). He was particularly good with the small birds in the tops of tall trees, and many of my photos are of small birds in the centre of a the picture and hard to recognise. Birds like
Moustached Green Tinkerbird,
White-eared Barbet, Green Barbet, Little Greenbul and
Dusky Brown Flycatcher. And the place was a haven for
Sunbirds – we saw five species including the endemic
Amani Sunbird, and a
Collared Sunbird on a nest. Another nest was being built on a steel cable by a pair of
Forest Weavers (aka
Dark-backed Weavers).
Waller's Starlings, a larger black bird with red wing panels, were fairly common too. Mammals we saw were some
Blue Monkeys, a pair of Squirrels which I later identified as
Red-legged Sun Squirrels, and a dozen
Angolan Colobus. This is a different species to the other colobus I’d seen, the Guereza. They were a tad more slender, and seemed to be much shyer; in the darkness of the forest and despite my best efforts I only ended up with a few good photos.
The path took us along a road a couple of kilometres towards another village. Along the way, on some hillsides the native vegetation had been cut back and some small trees/large shrubs about three metres or four metres tall were growing. When we got to a small pond and stopped to look at some
Black-and-White Mannikins – a species I’d seen before, but this was the red-backed subspecies – I asked about the trees as there was quite a number of them.
“Those are a spice tree” said Zola “We produce spices here.”
“And what spice do you get from that tree?” I asked
“Cloves” he replied. I was dumbfounded. Because are such small things I always assumed they came from a small bush or a vine or ground cover, not such a large shrub.
Zola pointed to a tree about two metres from where I was standing and asked “Do you know what that is?”
I admitted I didn’t have a clue, although when he suggested I crush a leaf between my fingers I realised it was Cinnamon. And beside it, was an Avocado. Then Zola pointed at a small plant less than a metre high growing near the pond, and asked me what it was.
“Looks like ginger” I said, with a bit more confidence, and I was right – it looks like ginger, but it was actually cardamom.
Clove Trees
Cinnamon
Cardamom
We still had to walk up a hill to the village, which was where Zola lived and that’s when we started seeing the
Silvery-cheeked Hornbills. I’d seen them before – in Manyara National Park – but they were still spectacular. More importantly, they are similar in appearance to the Trumpeter Hornbill, and so I viewed each one carefully, but with no success.
Around a corner in near some banana trees I found a
Yellow-bellied Waxbill, and a couple of other sparrow-like birds I couldn’t identify. I knew I’d seen them in my book, they weren’t a finch, or a sparrow or weaver, but I couldn’t put a name to them. Both Zola and Bernard didn’t know what it was, as it was drab and with no really distinguishing characteristics.
Zola ducked off for a few minutes and left us watching some
Palmnut Vultures soaring up high before returning with a man in his 40’s whom he introduced as Martin, the government ornithologist. I’d been asking Zola questions that he couldn’t answer, as he’d only been a guide for the last six months. Martin had been training him, so he figured Martin was the best person to answer my questions. Bernard, however, was absolutely beside himself.
Apparently, Bernard and Martin were good friends at one time before Martin went to work for the government and had been moved around the country. Bernard didn’t know Martin was here and they were both very, very happy to see each other as it had been at least ten years since they had last spoken. More importantly, Martin was the one who originally trained Bernard in birdwatching.
Zola suggested I show Martin the photos I had taken of the sparrow-like bird and so I showed him an image on the camera. He took one look and said “
Citril”. And I thought “Of course!”
Martin and I spoke for about ten minutes before he had to go back to work; he was compiling a report on the endangered birds found in the Usambaras. “That would include”, I suggested, “the Long-billed Tailorbird?”
“ Yes”, he replied. “Their status is critical.”
Martin left us and we turned and walked back along the road to Amani. It was almost midday now and the sun was very hot, but it quite pleasant in the shade. Luckily, there was plenty of tall trees to provide lots of shade.
Road through the rainforest; Bernard on the left, Zola on the right
Road through the rainforest; Zola in front
Arriving back at 12:30 we had lunch, then spent the afternoon lazing around Amani, or going for the odd walk, but the birds were all very quiet (apart from the bulbuls).
After dinner Zola met us again for something I was looking forward to – a Chameleon Walk. There are at least ten species of chameleon found in the Usambaras, and some found only here and nowhere else, and I was keen to see some up close. Like most people, I find chameleons really fascinating, and the only wild one I’d seen this trip was on my first day climbing Kilimanjaro (and some captive ones at MBT Snake Park).
We left at about 7:30pm. We returned about 10:30pm, a little disappointed as we had seen only five chameleons, all of them were the same species, and all females. Not too sure why we had been so unlucky as normally they are easy to find.
It took us an hour to find the first one, and then the second and third were within about 50 metres along the trail. They were an endemic, the Usambara Three-horned Chameleon but because they were females, they had no horns. Except one, which was actually a juvenile male and we mistook it for a female. It's horns were just small bumps, like pimples.
I’d been shining the light up into trees to see if I could see any mammals, but the only thing I saw on the way back was a couple of eyes that probably belonged to Galago, but which one I can’t say. However, I did find a small tree frog with yellow, green and black squiggles, and it stayed still long enough for me to get a photo of it.
Arriving back at the guesthouse I walked into my room and before I switched on the light, in the total dark, I knew something was wrong. I didn’t know what it was exactly, but I just sensed there was something very different about the room even though the reflected light from the hallway dimly lit the beds and my luggage as being exactly where I remembered them. In the silence I could also hear a very, very faint noise that seemed to be coming from all around the room itself. A scratching-type noise that was constant and was more like a very faint hum.
I reached for the light switch and as I flicked it down I felt something touch my finger. It was an ant. And with the light switched on I could see that the room was literally covered in ants. They were everywhere – all over the floor, on the beds, the table, the walls, the roof. I crunched my way into the bathroom and found them everywhere in there too. They weren’t in a trail like you see many ants species when they march, these ants had spread out and were foraging. Surprisingly, there were dense clusters around the light switch and on the power cables to the switch. I guess the electricity had some attraction for them. Most importantly, even though they were large and had decent-sized mandibles, they weren’t army ants.
I went to get Bernard, who found me an empty room down the hall and put me in there. Luckily, the luggage I had left in my room was all zipped up so I just brushed the ants off the bags and moved them down the hall to my new room. By this time it was around 11:00pm and as I’d been walking a lot that day, I went straight to bed and wondered what I would do if the ants decided to follow me down here.
Hix
New Birds: Crowned Hawk-eagle, Little Swift, White-eared Barbet, Green Barbet, Moustached Tinkerbird, Black-throated Wattle-eye, Waller's Starling, Black-bellied Starling, Banded Sunbird, Collared Sunbird, Amani Sunbird, Eastern Olive Sunbird, Purple-banded Sunbird, Southern Citril, Forest Weaver.
New Mammals: Angolan Colobus
New Amphibians: Vermiculated Tree Frog
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