Atlasville – 20 Dec 2008
Two more trips completed to our field camp near Kolwezi. The rainy season has well and truly arrived and can make getting around on some of the tracks to the drilling sites decidedly interesting. Of course it may be a case of ‘water, water everywhere’ but for running field camps (the drillers have established their own camp too) and operating the drill rigs we still need to use a water bowser to collect 5,000 litres at a time from the nearest water source, Lake Nzilo.
The miombo trees are flush with new growth making the birding more difficult and the sparse grass is now interspersed with some very distinctive flowers and shrubs springing up. However, my birding walks up that hill behind the camp are still providing some good photo opportunities, which included Yellow-fronted Canary, Yellow Bishop, Chinspot Batis, Flappet Lark, Cinnamon-breasted Bunting, Yellow-bellied Hyliota and Pennant-winged Nightjar. I even had a lifer in the camp itself with a Trilling Cisticola singing away from its perch in the tree under which stands our toilet and shower!
Some insect photos added on this trip were a Cat’s Eyed Emperor moth in the camp kitchen, Citrus Swallowtail butterfly just outside my tent and an African Asark Hoverfly. An interesting caterpillar that appeared just outside the kitchen area is known in the local Bemba language as ‘cinsamba’. I have struggled to identify this one and my best guess is that is the caterpillar of Micragone cana, an emperor moth of the Saturnidae family.
The plants that caught my interest were Blood Lily, Yellow Trumpet, African Ginger, an epiphytic yellowspike orchid, Cyperus proteus a sedge in the papyrus genus, a Cyphostemma sp. wild grape and a Commelina sp. dayflower. I had been firmly under the impression, having lived in South Africa for almost 30 years, that with the protea being the South African national flower and name of their national cricket team it must be confined to southern Africa. But no, I was very surprised to find that proteas even grow in miombo, as attested to by this Dwarf Savanna Sugarbush.
