28-29 Nov 2019: Yabello

Fools! For I also had my hour; One far fierce hour and sweet: There was a shout about my ears, And palms before my feet.

The Donkey - G.K. Chesterton

The trip to Yabello, roughly 285 km south-west of Negele, took about 8 hours to complete. The area comprised of arid savanna interspersed with termite mounds, open acacia and pockets of thick bush. Most of the locals survive by means of subsistence farming. The one thing that really distressed me was the dire plight of their ill-treated donkeys. Throughout the countryside donkeys would laboriously pull makeshift carts with oversized loads, or with immense loads strapped directly upon their backs. Their drivers, mostly men or teenage boys, relentlessly beat the donkeys across their rumps and faces as they fight for footing on a muddy, rutted road. Life can be pretty hard for an Ethiopian donkey in this harsh land. When people are desperate to survive, their livestock suffer even more.

Beast of Burden

I was appalled to see so many unnecessary, random acts of cruelty. Time and again one would find donkeys straining mightily while pulling an overloaded cart up a rutted incline. The drivers showed their struggling charges no mercy. They would flog them mercilessly with sticks, even as they jogged as fast as their shaking legs would carry them. I saw a donkey, still in its dilapidated harness, fall down in the road with a soft moan. As it lay in the dust, eyes closed, it did not make a sound. I could tell it had given up on life. It just wanted to die. It simply had enough. A teenage boy then beats the donkey to make it rise. I turn my back – afraid to make a scene; not wanting to get involved. I start to doubt my own compassion and humanity. What affected me most about these donkeys was their silence: they did not whinny, they did not bray, they did not even cry for mercy - they just tried their best.

Early the next morning we met up with a local guide to find our target birds – White-tailed Swallow and Stresemann’s Bush-crow. Con Benson and his Mozambican compatriot Jali Makawa were posted in the nearby town of Mega, during the Second World War, when they found the very first White-tailed Swallow. Both these species have a very limited range confined to 130 km south-east and 50 km east of the town of Yabello. Another special species we were hoping to find was the retiring Red-naped Bushshrike, usually hiding in thick bush.

Red-naped Bushshrike, Yabello

About 10 km out of Yabello, on the Addis/Moyale tar road, we stopped for a Straw-tailed Whydah at a termite mound. Nearby, in some acacia trees, we found our first target – the endemic White-tailed Swallow. The fact that there were also Ethiopian Swallows about made for challenging identification in the early morning light. The same patch of bush also delivered Eurasian Wryneck and d’Arnaud’s Barbet.

d'Arnaud's Barbet, Yabello

We were happy to find our second target bird – Stresemann’s Bush-crow, a few kilometres down the road. Locally known as qaaqaa (and pronounced kaka), a group was foraging in camel dung near a local homestead. Our third target, Red-naped Bushshrike, was more difficult to find. Our local guide took us to nearby Commiphora thickets, the preferred habitat of these birds. Finally, at our third search area, a pair of Red-naped Bushshrikes answered the playback and came out of thick cover to sit in the open. A pair of Red-bellied Parrots (African Orange-bellied Parrots) were found nesting in a tree stump. The afternoon was spent off-road on the Soda Plains, roughly 70 km south of Yabello. In these arid, open plains we ticked Somali Fiscal, Shelley’s Rufous Sparrow, Short-tailed Lark and Tiny Cisticola before returning to the Kela roundabout, outside Yabello, for our overnight stay.

Stresemann’s Bush-crow, Yabello

Shelley's Rufous Sparrow, Soda Plains