Lake Manyara National Park

On Sunday we plus Stephanie were up early and off to Lake Manyara National Park for the day.  It is about 2 hours south-west from home.  Contrary to some advice we were allowed in as tourists with a private car - so that is now clear.

On the way we stopped for fuel and it came to 79,000 shillings (Aust$50) for about 34 l.  Unfortunately the pump attendant insisted the amount was 179,000 and we had quite a heated discussion - particularly after the pump reset and the receipt mysteriously disappeared.  We decided that a RAV4 only holds 55 l and drove off.  We won't be going back to that supplier.

Giraffes on the shore of Lake Manyara.

Once in the park we wandered the road network and saw many birds and mammals.  The lake holds many flamingos, pelicans, storks and herons.  The marshland has ducks, waders, jacanas, crakes and assorted weavers.  Raptors were largely absent apart from a single Fish Eagle, a couple of Bateleurs and some distant, unidentified vultures.  The bush had many birds and activity was busy all day.

Dwarf Mongoose

Hildebrandt's Francolin

Yellow-billed Stork nesting

Great White Pelican

Hottentot Teal

We nearly came to grief on one particularly boggy road but managed to think our way carefully out of it.  Soon after we met a couple in a RAV4 who were bogged for two hours on the same road and the people in a second 4WD that got bogged trying to pull the first car out.  The rest of the roads were fine however.

Elephant deep in the undergrowth.

Emerald-spotted Wood Dove

Red-and-yellow Barbet - very tame in picnic area.

Yellow-bellied Greenbul

A lovely small park but we only saw a small fraction of it. We will go back regularly and hopefully find somewhere nice and inexpensive nearby to stay overnight.

Helmeted Guineafowl

Dikdik

Black Bishop

Mammal highlights: Elephants, Giraffe, Hippos (distant), Dikdiks, Mongoose.
Bird highlights: Hildebrandt's Francolin (lifer), Hottentot Teal, Glossy Ibis, African Spoonbill, Great White Pelican, Grey-crowned Crane, Whiskered Tern, Olive Bee-eater, Southern Ground Hornbill, Red-and-yellow Barbet, Slate-coloured Boubou, African Golden Oriole, Yellow-bellied Greenbul and Hildebrandt's Starling.

Plains Zebra

Vervet Monkey

Work, a new car, birds and that election

Since the last post I have been to work a couple of days and done some work at home.  We are still waiting for work permits and inspectors have been visiting workplaces (not ours yet) so we can't be too careful.  We have no idea how this will resolve itself and no indication that our permits are likely any time soon.  Jenny goes every day as she is assured the catholic church have a special arrangement and she is legal.  I'm not convinced.

I've been working on reviewing failed funding applications with an eye to improving ECHO's success rate.  I also have been preparing a talk for a workshop on conservation agriculture coming up next month.  It will present a project I led on conserving biodiverse native grasslands on farms on the Victorian Volcanic Plains over 15 years ago.  I hope I can make it interesting and relevant.

Tree nursery at ECHO.

ECHO - Main office

ECHO - My office (door on far right)

In the meantime we have bought a car!  Another RAV4 wagon - a few years younger than the the one we had in Uganda.  It appears mechanically sound and went well on its first decent run - to the airport and back yesterday - although it is not possible to get much above 80 km/h on the roads here.

Our new car.  So far we are very happy with it.

Last weekend we visited a new friend - Per Holmen - an expat Norwegian birder who now lives in semi-retirement on a golfing estate south of Usa River.  We went on a lovely walk through the acacia woodland which surrounds the golf course and saw some great birds: Knob-billed Duck, Black-winged Kite, Gabar Goshawk, White-bellied Go-away-bird, Jacobin Cuckoo, Grey-headed Kingfisher, African Hoopoe, Greater Honeyguide, Yellow-collared Lovebird, Magpie Shrike, Superb Starling, Vitelline Masked Weaver, Chestnut Weaver, Purple Grenadier and Reichenow's Seedeater (lifer).

Vitelline Masked Weaver, Chestnut Weaver and a House Sparrow

Grey-headed Kingfisher

Per knows the birding scene here well and is keen to take us to some of the best spots he knows in the district.

The rain has continued and while welcome, makes it difficult to get things done for everyone.  It was about six weeks late this year so we hope it will continue well into June but normally June is the beginning of a four month rain-free period.  We are just missing the sunshine and a bit more warmth.

Stephanie and Jenny playing Cribbage.

Yesterday I drove to Kilimanjaro Airport to collect Stephanie - one of our friends from our 2010-11 Bukoba time.  Stephanie is having a holiday and will stay with us for a few days before and after a visit back to Bukoba to the school she taught in.  Today we went into Arusha for shopping and a nice lunch.  Tomorrow we are hoping to go to Lake Manyara National Park but we have conflicting advice on whether we can enter with tourist visas and our private car.  We will see.

While having a long lunch at a nice outdoor restaurant in Arusha today we followed the election count on the ABC.  We are so disappointed in the result and cannot comprehend how this result came about.  Can we now expect the Adani mine to go ahead, the asylum seekers to continue to languish on Nauru and Manus Island, the banks to get their promised tax cuts, no action on climate change or encouragement of electric cars, more dodgy deals for mates, support for the next US war (looming in Iran it seems), continuing degredation of the Murray-Darling basin ... ?  The thought of another three years of this is soul-destroying.

Thank the gods that Essendon had a win to keep our slim season hopes alive.

First week at work

Jenny and I started work this week.  We are still waiting for our work visas so strictly speaking we are just visiting our prospective workplaces.  I spent Monday , Thursday and Friday at ECHO and had a tour and met most of the dozen or so staff.  We have an American boss and a couple of young American women here for 6 month internships from ECHO head office in Florida.  The rest of the staff are locals with many years of experience between them.  Everybody has been most welcoming.  I've been looking at failed funding applications to see how we can improve our success rate.  Some obvious issues have stood out.  I've also been getting up to speed with the range of legumes species we work with and working on my Swahili.

On Friday I went to the Tanzanian Tropical Pesticides Research Institute.  We are planning a Conservation Agriculture workshop there in June and I have been asked to be a speaker.  The Institute holds the national herbarium and we got to look at their Canavalia (Jackbean) accessions.  Roland Bunch, a third world expert on conservation agriculture with legumes has collected some Canavalia species in Mali that he currently can't identify.  Roland is sharing an office with me and I can learn much from him.

Some of the diversity in Canavalia (Jackbean) beans. (Photo: Roland Bunch)

Yesterday (Saturday) Jenny and I went to Lake Duluti to our east for a walk.  It is a crater lake with rainforest surrounds and a great bird list.  We walked the circuit twice and saw 30 bird species (e.g. Purple Heron, Fish Eagle, Black Crake, Hartlaub's Turaco, Giant Kingfisher, Little Greenbul, Northern Brownbul, Thick-billed Weaver, Taveta Weaver and Red-throated Twinspot).  We also saw several large Monitor lizards, Blue Monkeys and Ochre Bush Squirrels.

Taveta Weaver - restricted to a small area either side of the Tz-Kenya border
- essentially around the lower slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

The first Grey Heron we've seen .

This morning we will listen to Essendon beat Geelong then do some shopping.  Later today we are looking at a Toyota RAV4 that sounds promising.  We also need to find a new bed for the spare room as we are expecting Stephanie, one of our friends from our Bukoba days, to arrive in two weeks from New York.  She will stay with us a couple of times during her visit to Tz.

Nile Monitor.

Hartlaub's Turaco.

I've had a go at getting a sourdough starter culture underway but after a promising start it turned too sour and has been discarded.

Our landlord Paul has arrived back from his other home in Tropical Queensland and has granted me custodianship of his extensive library of bird, tree, reptile etc. African books.  What a treat!

A small selection of Paul Oliver's books that I will be looking after.

Bird list: 139