17-18 September 2019: Zambia

Malawi delivered a total of 60 new birds for my 2019 Big Year list and my Africa Year list now stood at 1166 species. We were heading south, back to South Africa, as I had to fly to Tanzania within a few days.

We crossed the border into Zambia at Mqocha, a small rural village in the north-west of Malawi after driving on a dirt track that intermittently wandered a few kilometres into Zambia and then back into Malawi. Third-party insurance had to be bought at the Lundazi post office, some 30 km into the interior. I was also able to buy some mouse poison, as a mouse had hitched a ride for the past week in Malawi and was enjoying the bananas and tomatoes we bought along the road. That evening we slept at a lodge in Katete, a town situated on the main road to Lusaka. The next morning our illegal immigrant from Malawi was unceremoniously flushed down the lodge’s toilet.

Old Tar Road from Vic Falls

Zambia’s roads and infrastructure were in a much better condition than those we encountered in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi, and it was good to see familiar names such as Spar, Shoprite, Pick and Pay and Pep Stores in almost every town. The police at the roadblocks were professional and friendly, and suddenly travelling through deepest Africa did not seem such a daunting experience. That evening, south of Lusaka and about 200 km from the Zimbabwe border, we booked into a lodge in the town of Choma.

Traffic jam Zambia

First light saw us listening to the morning chorus and using the bonnet of Daai Dêng as a convenient table for our early morning coffee and rusks. We birded the area and found lots of Miombo Blue-eared Starlings, Trumpeter Hornbills and a single Red-breasted Swallow, but could not locate our target bird – Chaplin’s Barbet – a localised and uncommon endemic in Zambia. Later, at the Bruce Miller Farm outside Choma, Mr Miller and his daughter gave us breakfast and his gardener, Sylvester, hiked the farm with us and found us a pair of Chaplin’s Barbets. And so – another great bird bites the dust!

Chaplin's Barbet, Bruce Miller Farm, Choma