13 Apr 2019: Stuck in a Rut

I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams. The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Expery

Namib Desert

Mark Boorman showed me on Google Earth where to find the Dune Lark near the river bed of the Kuiseb River. Reality and Google Earth differ somewhat, and I got hopelessly lost in the Namib before eventually finding the right area. Leaving the dirt road, I followed a single vehicle spoor into the desert and when the sand got too thick decided to walk. Nadine Gordimer called the desert a place without expectations, but I climbed the dunes with the full expectation of finding the Dune Lark. At first only some Grey-backed Sparrow-Larks reacted to the call but later a pair of Dune Larks popped up from behind a dune and looked for the intruder. Not impressed with me, they left in a hurry. I, on the other hand, was not so fortunate. Turning a vehicle in thick sand is always a challenge, and I got stuck. It took sand ladders and low-range 4x4 to patch my dented ego. The fact that the Dune Lark was bird number 700 for the African Big Year may also have helped.

Dune Lark

Later the morning I tied up with Mark at the Walvis Bay lagoon. We then birded the Walvis Bay salt works area, and the oyster farm, where Mark has special access. Here I felt very privileged to experience the splendour of hundreds of flamingos at very close quarters. We scanned a huge tern roost and found a ringed Great White Pelican but were unable to determine the details on the ring. The highlight of the oyster farm was a Common Redshank, showing well for a few moments before it flew away. Although I had already ticked it earlier the year in Morocco, it remains a great find for Southern Africa!