Atlasville, 08 Feb 2008

All good things come to an end! Got back this evening from a third overnight trip this year to Umtu. The project moves on to the next phase but my involvement is now complete. So no more time spent in the trailer under a camelthorn tree on a game farm on the fringes of the Kalahari. After 21 months of commuting up and down from Boksburg to Umtu, a round trip of almost 1,300 km (808 miles), I finish with a bird list of 121 species on the farm and lots of great memories. Tranquility (except when the Red-billed Buffalo Weavers were breeding!), some memorable sunsets, watching the veld turn yellow and white and pink with the spring blossoms, then green as the camelthorn and blackthorn burst into leaf and the sweet grasses flourish, watching the summer migrants arrive and depart, the resident species rearing their young and above all that a once in a lifetime sighting of a pangolin.

Not too much to add from these last all too brief visits, but here are a few photos – a Lilac-breasted Roller in the camelthorn bathed in low angle early morning sunlight, a Black Cuckoo (finally got one!), an Orange-winged Dropwing dragonfly at one of the waterholes and an invasion of Brown Armoured Corncricket that forced me to keep the windows and doors of the trailer closed.

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