1 Dec 2019: African Big Year in Jeopardy

Our focus at Wondo Genet was to find the White-winged Cliff Chat, a bird we dipped during our previous visit. Endemic to Ethiopia and Eritrea, it is most easily found in the northern highlands of Ethiopia at 1500 to 2500m. It also frequents similar habitats to the more widely distributed Mocking Cliff Chat, such as mountain gorges, rocky slopes, around bridges and even buildings. White-winged Cliff Chats may even share the same location as Mocking Cliff Chats, but that does not make them easier to find.

Abyssinian Slaty Flycatcher, Wondo Genet

Ethiopian Boubou, Wondo Genet

Mekemen and myself headed uphill from the Wabe Shebelle Hotel. The muddy track ran past some houses and we soon had a crowd of young children following in our footsteps. Above the houses we entered an open, cultivated area where Mekemen had previously found our target bird. We identified Streaky Seedeater, Abyssinian Slaty Flycatcher, Tacazze Sunbird and Ethiopian Boubou while crossing a ploughed field, but the White-winged Cliff Chats were missing. There was a moment of excitement when a Northern Black Flycatcher tried to masquerade as a female White-winged Cliff Chat, but we soon saw through its fraudulent conduct. We continued to search the hedges and fringes of the cultivated plots for about an hour before Mekemen finally found a male White-winged Cliff Chat sitting out in the open on the roof of a house. It looked very similar to a Mocking Cliff Chat male, but instead of a white shoulder patch it had a small white base at the bottom edge of the primaries. A few moments later the male was joined by a female sporting fine black and orange barring on her breast and belly. Again, like some many times already this year, I experienced the gratification and exhilaration of finding a new bird.

White-winged Cliff Chat female, Wondo Genet

White-winged Cliff Chat male, Wondo Genet

With only a month to go before the end of the Big Year I had to seriously evaluate my standing on achieving my Big Year aims. I had decided to abide by the American Birding Association’s rules for a Big Year – which determined that all Big Year attempts outside North America had to utilise the Clements list of the birds of the world. My aim for a successful African Big Year was to tick 1500 birds on the Clements list.

Northern Black Flycatcher, Wondo Genet

During the previous eleven months I had used a personal list that I had compiled out of various sources. This list included all subspecies which in future may achieve full species status, as well as those birds which other official world bird lists have listed as full species. This ensured that I would not in future dip out on species because I failed to find and identify a subspecies that would in future become an armchair tick. When I now, for the very first time, compared my personal list to the Clements list, it came as quite a shock and a wake-up call. My personal list for the year stood at 1496 species, but this equated to only 1440 species on the very conservative Clements list. I still had to find 60 new species in the next thirty days, and I was rapidly running out of time and relevant birding locations. The success of my African Big Year was hanging in the balance!