Birding

Since the end of December, Chris and I had known there was a chance for us to meet up with Antje and Bernard Madden, the parents of Chris’ best friend Patrick. Since we’ve known Antje and Bernard since we were kids and we get along with them extremely well,     we decided to make an effort to see them while they were in the Caprivi.

Antje and Bernard had been invited by Holger Kolberg of the Ministry of Namibian Wildlife (?)  to join them for their annual count of birdlife in the wetlands of the Caprivi game reserves and since Chris and I wanted to spend time with the Maddens, we headed with them to the Buffalo National Park.

Arriving at the designated campsite, Antje and Bernard introduced us to the birding team and explained how and why we were there as well. Thankfully Holger, Claire, Neil, Gudrun and Frans didn’t seem to mind Chris and me tagging along (amateur birders that we are).

We spent three nights at a very scenic campsite overlooking the Okavango River, with the days filled to the brim with counting and learning about birds in the Buffalo and Mahango National Parks. In the evenings we sat around the fire, enjoyed our braais, drank ice cold beers and G&T’s while telling stories.

The next part of the count was in the Bwabwata National Park on the Kwando River. Here we stayed at the beautiful Mavunje Camp, owned and run by Dan Stephens. For two days Dan took us out on the boat to do the bird counts, ensuring that we got to all the best sites and deftly avoiding all hippo obstacles along the way. The afternoons were spent with ringing the birds and looking for those few species that had evaded us on the boat.

Thus Chris and I had spent a week learning about and appreciating the intricacies of birding and of bird counting, as taught by the experts. I don’t claim that we were useful birders by the end of the week, but we definitely had fun learning!

We were both happy and sad when we had to go our separate ways. Happy that we had met these wonderful people and that we had gotten to spend so much time learning from them and sad that our time together was over.

P.S.:

For more information on Holger and his work, visit https://vulturesresightings.crowdmap.com/

To find out about Dan’s wonderful Mavunje Camp visit: www.mashiriversafaris.com