Karoo mountain monitoring

It has been some time since I was out bird monitoring on a wind farm in South Africa so grabbed the opportunity when Tony Williams asked me to join him, Brian Vanderwalt and Vince Ward at a new wind farm site in the Karoo for 12 days.  

Tony, Vince and me relaxing at the braai

The area is at relatively high altitude and very mountainous.  All the vantage points I did were not accessible by car which meant I hiked up steep slopes with very loose rocks every day and sat for 6 hours in rather windy, chilly and sometimes wet conditions. It could get a bit uncomfortable but I love it.  

Being in the Karoo again meant I got to tick some birds I hadn't seen yet this year like the Karoo Chat, Karoo Scrub-Robin, Mountain Wheatear, Karoo Long-billed Lark, Cape Penduline-tit, Grey Tit, Cape Bunting and a lifer, the Namaqua Warbler.  At our guesthouse we had the resident Spotted Eagle Owl in the tree every night, Common Waxbill, Pied Starling, Yellow Canary, Cattle Egret, loads of Cape Sparrows, Helmeted Guineafowl, Rock Martin, the ever-singing Bokmakierie and a Jackal Buzzard checking out the sheep paddock. We even found a pair of African Black Duck alongside a pair of Coot on a farm dam which was surprising.

On the mountains themselves we didn't see too much but had plenty of visits by the Verreaux's Eagle pair that have a nest nearby. I had a Southern Pale Chanting-goshawk fly by, loads of Pied Crows and White-necked a Ravens and a flock of Namaqua Sandgrouse flying over.  Often saw Sickle-winged Chat high up there along with Southern Double-collared Sunbird, Karoo Prinia and the Mountain Chats.

We've seen a few animals on our way to the site including grey rhebuck, steenbok, springbok, bat-eared fox, small grey and yellow mongoose and a troop of baboons. 

It's the end of summer and the area us incredibly dry with little water in the dams and very dry river beds.  It is however pretty cold high up on the koppies and I am a bit afraid of how cold it will be at our next survey in winter.  I'm going to have to stock up on winter Woolies! 

We had an off day and drove into Laingsburg for supplies.  The OK supermarket did not have much to offer but I was able to stock up on some nice fatty biltong for my Banting eating plan.  We took the time to eventually visit the Flood Museum. I have driven through the town countless times and have always wanted to see it so was pleased to visit it on this occasion. The curator and guide is a lady who was part of the tragedy and gave us excellent first hand information on what happened that week-end around the 25th of January 1981.  I was in boarding school at De Villiers Graaff in Villiersdorp (Std 6) that year and remember the flood well, mainly because we had a guy in the hostel with the same surname as the towns name and I always thought he was from there, which of course he wasn't. The flood claimed 104 lives, most of which were never recovered. A truely frightening experience.

The entrance to the museum... Love the burglar bars.

The high water mark up there near the roof... Scary....

The talk was very interesting and the recovered artifacts equally so.  Other historical items unrelated to the flood are also on display, my favourite being the old fashioned telephone exchange used during the "nommer asseblief" times... In pristine condition. 

We frequented the local home industry shop for early coffee and then the Wimpy for lunch before heading home.

Me and Brian Vanderwalt enjoying our coffee and koeksisters....

We are here for another 5 days so I should be hiking fit by the time I leave.  We are eating well, with Zona, Tony's wife being our chef but m running out of wine! If you read this soon, send supplies!!!!!