Secretary Bird
I was debating whether to copy across and collect all of my historic posts from my old website before I started to drive this big project on. It occurred to me if I was happy to change the order of things in terms of numbering then as long as I kept track of the progress of the migration of my "collection" to one site there was no need to delay and that I could draft some new posts.
I got back from the Mana Pools in Zimbabwe yesterday. I have been based back in the UK since April 2023 so no longer the "short" 5-7 hour hops down to my "happy place" on safari in Africa. My personal and professional life have both been turned on their heads over the last three years. I don't want to dwell on that but suffice to say I found myself hankering after some continuity or an anchor of sorts. Over the last few years the project was very much the family home, Oaklands in Herefordshire but now that I am that I am unencumbered of that large property and all the very engaging work that went with it there has been a degree of twiddling of my thumbs over the last few months. I have other calls on my time, the least of which is getting my parents house on the market to cover residential care costs. I now have no more excuses though not to fire up the Daily Bird - to see just how far I can get with what I started.
I am now retired or at least on an extended sabbatical until I work out what to do with the time I have left on this good planet. I have a few ideas but in the meantime logging the world's birds with my trusty old lens seems to be just what the doctor, or therapist more likely, ordered. It might be that my biggest legacy apart from two fine boys ends up being this collection of mediocre bird photography accompanied by some rambling prose. I never really cared if anyone ever read the site. It is in part a diary of my nature travels and gives me some focus and momentum to my birding generally.
An In-law once accused me in derisory tones of adopting a stamp collector's mentality to birding. I reject that as a notion. Any birder worth their salt keeps a life list and a year list - sometimes a "backyard list" or a patch list as well. I can't imagine not wanting to see a pied flycatcher or a wood warp let every year. Knowing where and when to find them and setting off to do so - every year if I can. If I don't do that then I haven't walked in a western oak or beech wood ? So I have simply added another list to my birding - the one on this site which records those birds that I have "shot" with my camera. So perhaps it's more hunting than collecting. The photograph is the trophy.
Believe you me getting those shots is ten times as hard as simply seeing the bird. Getting the perfect shot. Well that's Elysium for me. I used to rely on a notebook to record my birding - I still do use analogue notes and travel with paper and pencils. For many the digital apps have replaced their notebooks. Whilst I have drifted away from the discipline of this site for a number of reasons at different times I do feel that it remains a worthwhile exercise. Life slows down when you remember what you have done and seen. Also a comparison with stamps ? You simply have to buy those mail order. To get a photograph of a bird you have never seen you have. to reasearch or anticipate where it will be or travel to somewhere you haven't been. On many occasions for days. So you become part explorer part naturalist when you head off birding the world. You have to operate a tricky camera to take a shot of a creature that often doesn't cooperate. You need patience, skill and care. Equipment and resources and above all time. To own a stamp you simply have to have the cash and know how to lick a corner. My bird "stamps" are not collected. It is the act of witnessing nature in the truest sense of the word.
So today's bird freshly "re-stamped" on my brain is the mighty Secretary Bird. Is it a chicken on stilts ? A stork with a raptor's beak or a raptor with a stork's legs ? What is clear is that this handsome bird is highly adapted for swaggering - yes swaggering across the savannah or through the long grass of Mopana clearings in search of a large variety of prey items from rodents to snakes and insects. This was a first for my guide, Canane for his Mana Pools list and he had worked there for 6 years. Another guide had seen one Secretary Bird only in the park in fifteen years. On arrival I was told there were no Secretary Birds in the park. My own very limited crest fell. A day with a Secretary Bird ranks way beyond a day with dolphins for me. For starters in means I am fairly and squarely on safari. He appeared at about 100 yards range quartering for prey with his long strides.
These birds are listed as "near threatened" and locally common. In other words they are restricted in their range and not doing very well. These are birds with attitude - they stamp their prey to death with well directed blows from those slender elongated legs.
This was not my first sighting. Separating ways with my law firm a few years' ago I threw myself into some travel with my severance pay and took a self-drive road tour around the Cape provinces in South Africa. It was a decade since I first went on safari with my family in Tanzania - that trip a circuit of Lake Manara, the Ngorogoro Crater and the Grumetti River in the Serengeti. Despite drooling over my Roberts field guide and searching square mile after square mile of Savannah with our guide Baraka I singularly failed in my search. He was sure we would see one.
I failed again the next year at Ruaha in South Tanzania. My Italian guide Lorenzo called out a Secretary in flight but it was a glimpse and and a long way away so I didn't even tick it off my World List as I could not cleanly identify it for myself. In my mind I can recall the trailing legs but it could have been a stork. I am somewhat of a masochist or better put, purest when it comes to ticking birds.
The South Luanga in Zambia in November 2017 had no Secretary Birds at all. I remember being a bit peeved that I wouldn't have a chance on that holiday to get the shot. I was compensated with a huge haul of wonderful African birds but no Secretary.
So I finally got the picture a full five years later at Addo National Park. That bird put on a fantastic show. My Guide was delighted for me - we both had rictus grins and high fived. Others in the van were desperate to see their first lion and failed to join in the celebration and probably sighed hard as we lingered for long minutes until the bird finally disappeared over the crest of a hill. But celebrate I did - "There he goes like John Wayne". I bored the other safari guests in that van with a potted ten year history of all of my failed attempts to see one of the things. "Ten Years ! Ten Years and there he is !". That's why I recommend that anyone who goes on safari turns themselves into a birder first. If you don't see that lion or even harder a Leopard or a Cheetah you are guaranteed to see a hundred species, minimum of beautiful birds in the gaps between your impala. baboons, warthogs and elephants.
If the odds are with you to see a lion on a safari if you plan your trip well then how much more is a Secrtary Bird worth to you personally if it takes you ten years to find one. So safari clients seem to be desperate to see big cats but also rapidly tire of anything else they are shown. As if a herd of beautiful zebra is ever going to be on show anywhere else on earth ?
So I was internally cross with a German chap this week I shared a van with twice who kept exclaiming ABI - "Another Bloody Impala" like it was clever to get bored of an ungulate he had seen for the first time in his life that week. I get it - but then again I just don't. Such a piss poor attitude. Mana Pools has a great density of Impala and consequently Leopards. The lioness I filmed suckling her cubs had generated her milk on all those fine and noble impala. Equally by a behaviour guide and start to see what is going on. Out was the middle of the rutting season and the male impala were dunging and expending huge amounts of energy trying to corral females in their territories. Buck groups were circling the females intent on sneaking an opportunity to copulate and the males holding their station were losing condition as they fought and harried to pass on their genes. Many of them become easier kills because of the energy they expend. ABI ? It's lazy insult to a beautiful creature.
I believe I have safari Karma and it was proved again this week. The god of the Bush rewards travellers who come with the right attitude. also have eyes trained to see a small bird moving in a bush at 50 paces. You will not believe however how much harder it can be to see an elephant or leopard in thick bush. Don't get me onto Kudo - the "Grey Ghosts". But "ABI" - really Wolfgang ? Celebrate your ungulates as without them you are have zero chance of seeing big Kitties and you are killing your karma ! Boy George would not be impressed and your Chameleons will just go. They won't come and go !
I am glad I waited a decade for this shot. If you are reading this you must be a birder - and you will understand the sentiment. I dare to think how many shiny hard earned coins I invested over that period to eventually see my Secretary Bird. What a beauty. Disembowelling a mongoose with those model's legs and sharp talons or tossing small lizards down his beautiful long neck whole. The most beautiful killer on the plains - perhaps more Robert Redford than John Wayne.
I watched my Zimbabwe Secretary bird quartering this week and took a short film. Tacking around vegetation like a yacht in a race. Graceful strides and a steely focus. In full sail with his crest catching the wind.
My next ambition - of course a Secretary Bird on a kill. That's what the guide-beggars want once they have seen their first sleeping lion. A lion on a kill. How do we see a lion making a kill ? With luck and perseverance and some knowledge and a lot of patience. Time in country. I always end a safari post with an animal photo. So to prove the Karma boast here is a leopard photographed by lamplight crushing the windpipe of an impala - just another bloody impala Wolfgang. Sorry you left the day before. Poor timing. You need to start honouring the chameleons. The last thing he said before leaving was the place wasn't very "rich". By the end of a week in which I walked or drove everyday for 7-9 hours I could not have wanted for more. Sone of the best sightings of my safari life. I learned about the Zambezi and water stress, the water seasons, management of elephants, tree succession in the Mopana and even how to sex a cricket and tell which were virgins. If you want to see the big five go to a canned concession in South Africa. You can see the whole lot in an afternoon but truly it's a zoo. If you want the agony of not seeing a leopard and striking lucky the next year on your next trip head for somewhere like Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana or Zimbabwe. The last black Rhino I found I bumped into on a self drive in a small National Park in South Africa. called Mountain Craddock on the edge of the Karoo. It was with a calf - spotted by my soon be "then" wife it was worth so much more than one seen a few days later on a private and fenced game reserve. So I am not knocking South Africa. If your Kitties and Pachyderms are all easy then you are not on safari. You are in a "Safari Park".
Oh - here's a hyena with another, literally, bloody impala for good measure. Some lovely South African newly weds I bumped into, Rory and Chelsea found the missing ear from this carcass the next day on a game hike and said it was as soft as a silk purse.
Secretary Bird - Saggitarius serpentarious
Addo National Park, RSA November 2022 and Mana Pools,
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