9 Mar 2019: The Road Less Travelled

Rob de Rover mailed me a birding route from Pofadder to Gamoep and Keimoes, indicating possible places to find the Bushmanland specials. With a lot of help from Rob I downloaded the route to Base Camp on my laptop and then sent it to Tracks for Africa on my GPS. I mention this in detail as I am quite proud of this phenomenal technological achievement.

This back-road route meandered for about 230 km through stony gravel plains, sandy river beds and rocky mountain passes. At times I wondered about engaging 4x4. The numerous farm gates (most probably about 20) entailed my exercise for the day.

I was able to tick numerous Stark’s Larks, Large-billed Larks, Spike-heeled Larks and Grey-backed Sparrow-Larks, as well as hundreds of Lark-like Buntings, but the Karoo Lark and the Cape Clapper Lark continued to elude me. The highlight of the day, high in a mountain pass, was a pair of Cinnamon-breasted Warblers I enticed out of hiding from amongst some boulders.

Cinnamon-breasted Warbler, Gamoep