Surfbirds.com - Jonathan Rossouw
A personal trip to
Cuba in March
was mind-blowing on multiple fronts, with an intoxicating blend of friendly, resourceful people, spectacular music, killer mojitos and faded colonial grandeur enhancing the avian endemics. Personal top three were breeding-plumaged male Bee Hummer, numerous Blue-headed Quail-Doves, and the infinitely cute Cuban Tody.
Cuban Tody, Cuba, copyright Jonathan Rossouw
A whirlwind whip-around of
Southern Mexico in April
netted the lifer haul of the year (74), with knockouts like Rose-breasted Bunting, Lesser Roadrunner and scoped Spotted Wood-Quail alongside more subtle rarities like Short-crested Coquette, Flammulated Flycatcher and Sierra Madre Sparrow.
Next big trip was
Gabon in June
. It produced a mouth-watering list of absolute stonkers, notably point-blank Grey-throated Rail, Maned Owl and Sandy Scops-Owl on day roosts, the exquisite Oriole Cuckoo-shrike, Lyre-tailed Honeyguide in full display at less than 50 metres, Dja River Warbler, settling bogey Black Dwarf Hornbill and Fiery-breasted Bush-shrike, and finally, 8 White-crested Tiger-herons, 20+ African Finfoots (finfeet?!) and a perched Congo Serpent-eagle on a single, hour-long boat ride, undoubtedly, my top African forest trip ever in terms of rarities. On the mammal front, sublime spell overlooking the incomparable Langoue bai in Ivindo NP, with Water Chevrotain, Elegant Needle-clawed Galago, Congo Clawless Otter, and a near constant procession of Forest Elephants and Situtungas was almost as good. |
