237 : Bare-faced Go-away-bird

Bare-faced Go-away-bird - Corythaixoides personata

I spent my lunchtime at work yesterday on Google maps satelite view zooming in to Kogatende airstrip and then finding the location of Olakira near a rocky bend of the Mara river. The camp is not pitched in the satelite view so must be at its Southern location. You can see the square patches of bare earth where the larger tents were situated. You can even see a pod of hippos round the corner in the river. Criss crossing the open Savanah the feint lines of vehicle tracks from safari trucks. The camp moves North in about April/May I believe ready to catch the Wildebeest at the top of their migration as they cross the river on the way to the Masai Mara in Kenya.

I then spent a good half an hour looking at the Imagine Africa site and camps in the Ruaha national park. A large area in central Tanzania that still gets just 3000 visitors a year. There are only 5 camps in an area the size of Wales and you have to find all your own game as the other vehicles are few and far between. I am thinking about a quick dash in and out - 5 days - 3 nights under canvas perhaps. Leave Dubai Thursday morning - fly to Dar and then have an overnight stop in a cheap hotel. Then get the light plane in the morning into Ruaha followed by a couple of hours drive into the chosen camp. The small plane in and the drive into camp would basically be a fun game drive so the holiday would begin on Friday morning and we would have 3 days of solid safari (the light plane ride is fun !). We could catch a plane on Monday morning and travel all day to arrive home by midnight. It works on paper and 3 nights in the bush is enough. I have commissioned my agent to get some itenaries done. You just can't get it out of your system - at least I can't.

We will have to go to Disney world as well - thats the trade off and thats good birding also. In the Autumn we can do Italy for a bit of culture and I think we are well set. At the moment I have nothing booked and nothing to look foward to which is fatal for morale !

The bird above gets its name from its call. They are related to the brighter and greener Turaco's. They are a bird of semi-arid wooded and bush country. What a crest !

I promised we would be zooming off somewhere else in January. I did go out at the weekend only to delete all my photos while trying to download them onto my Ipad. I managed to see a nice suite of birds in Saffa park some Herons, egrets a common sandpiper, chiffchaff I think. Dressed in my safari gear I must have looked like a plonker next to the people going to the table sale or football practice or the swings.

I have a lot to do today so I am banned from the internet after 8 am and before 8 pm !

Tanzania, July 2013