The trip starts at dawn tomorrow as we make our way to Gabarone. The trip has been many months in the planning, buying the Jeep, deciding to join Callan Cohen in Windhoek for a guided few weeks to experience birding at it best in the autumn days of Namibia and then going off on our own up to the Caprivi Strip and into the Okavango Panhandle.
Our itinerary takes us from abundant shorebirds in one of Africa's richest estuaries, to finding the Rockrunner in the Erongo Mountains, the magnificent granite inselberg, into the haunting and desolate Namib Desert, the bizarre Welwitschia, as well as five days crossing Etosha National Park, to the Waterberg for the diminutive Damara Dik-dik.
Callan has a reputation as one of Africa's foremost birdwatching and wildlife tour guides and when I first met him in 2001, for a day of birding in the Cape, I made a resolution to spend time with him again. So what better time than the Big Birding Year. The bird list for the trip is some 300 birds and the Namibian specials will be lifers for me, as this is my first time in this part of Namibia having only visited the Caprivi before, so lots of excitement and anticipation too.
Connectivity is going to be a challenge to keep the blog current but I plan to attempt to show Fred's photos and share some of the experiences.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
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