Birding Here in Lesotho

As many of you know, or can see on the right hand side of the blog, I really like birding. And yes I have seen lots of new bird species, there have only been a few species that are the same both here and in North America.  Mostly birds that have been introduced to both areas, House Sparrows and Pigeons.  All of the other ones have been new, and that is pretty awesome.  Barn swallows are one of the few species that naturally live in both southern Africa and North America. There are some birds who live at sea that live both in North America and the coast of Africa but I do not think I have a good chance of seeing them.  Same goes with the oceanic birds that I saw while I was visiting New Zealand, odds are they will be too far away from shore to see them.

The birds of Summer are starting to arrive.  The first one that I knew was a summer bird was the greater striped swallow.  We were finishing up a short hike to a nearby plateau, it took us 15-20 mins to get there.  We were sitting by the side of the river and a whole variety of swallows were flying by.  Then I was able to see the light rump of the swallow and when it got closer I could see what species it was.  It was really hard to take picture of it so I am sorry I do not have any.

I have also been getting my host family and neighbours interested in birds.  I have been asking for the SeSotho names of birds.  I am starting to learn some of them but others are quite hard.  I have also been lending my binoculars to them, but they mostly use them to see what their friends are doing from a long distance away.  They do like looking through my "Bird Dictionary", which I have out quite often. 

One evening last week as I was standing watching the sunset across the valley there was a weaver that I could not identify.  So I went and got my binoculars, my neighbour and I were looking through them trying to figure out what species it was.  Then I noticed not that far above me were two white birds flying.  I looked through the binoculars and saw their spoon bills.  Yup there were African Spoonbills in the Maphuts'eng valley.  They were only in the valley for around 20 mins.  We could see them fly down the valley then back up it for a while, then they flew out the same way that they entered.  It was crazy to see them in the valley as there is not really any suitable habitat for them.  They could have been in the valley because of the massive storm we had, it was quite the storm that lasted the whole afternoon.  There were so many swift species being pushed around by the wind before it hit.

 So a few nights ago there was some excitement in the chicken coop.  We got new chicks, at first there were 4 and then the cat got one so there were only three. They are dieing so fast my neighbour is going to give us a chicken because he has around 7. My host brother was a little bit sad that his chicks are dieing.  These are the chicks of the rooster that we ate a few weeks back.  The other rooster has to be kept on a leash in order for it not to try and hurt the hen or the chicken. It kind of has free range over the whole neighbourhood, when ever the leash is not tied to any thing.
But what was really exciting for me and my nkhono was a bird got stuck in the chicken coop. It was a Southern Masked-Weaver.  It was exciting for me because I got to get quite close to a weaver bird. My nkhono because we tried to get it out of there for quite a while. It would fly right past the open door and into the chicken wire on the other side of the coop.  I believe that it followed the other birds in to eat the chicken feed, mostly old papa.  And the other birds were smaller and were able to fly out through the chicken wire.  But this bird was just a little bit too big.  It also was able to get behind the reed screen that keeps out the wind and the wire. It was flopping around back there for quite a while. The next day I found a Southern Grey Sparrow in the chicken coop but it could fly out.  One side of the chicken coop has larger holes that it could get out of. 

Southern Masked-Weaver trying to get through the chicken wire

Weaver stuck between the reeds and the chicken wire

Birding has also been helpful in keeping my mind clear and helping me relax.  I find that when I am walking outside looking at birds I can not be stressed out.  I find that you have to have you mind clear and focus on exactly what you are looking at, so your mind can not stay focused on negative thoughts.  I have found it quite helpful on the few days that I have been stressed out to be distracted by the birds flying by as I go from one place to another. 
Though once I was listening to a conservation farming talk and there was a bird in the distance so I looked through my binoculars at it.  Not knowing that the whole group was about to turn my direction and look at the fields behind me.  I am sure that most of the people in the group instantly knew that I was not too interested in the different farming techniques that they were talking about. I now try to do it more subtly.