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In my South-America trip I still had to fill in a gap of two weeks. The plan was to travel first for four weeks in Chile. I had arranged to visit a language school in Cusco, Peru, two weeks after that. So it would make a lot of sense for me to travel through Bolivia: new country, new experiences and new animals! Only I didn’t really have a clue of what I would be doing. Three weeks before I was heading off to Chile I stumbled upon the webpage of Asociación Armonía, the Bolivian version of BirdLife. The page about Barba Azul Nature Reserve looked very interesting and I noticed there was also a possibility to stay there working as a volunteer. I was supposed to get in touch with Tjalle Boorsma, which is a very Dutch name! So I just sent an email to Tjalle in Dutch and also received a reply in Dutch. Fortunately it was possible for me to stay there as a volunteer. So after Chile it was on to Bolivia!
The Inca Tern is a unique South-American bird species that I really wanted to see. A gray tern with a red bill and with two white plumes on either side of the head that makes it look like it has a moustache. In the end I was only successful in one place: the harbour of the town Arica all the way in the north of Chile at the coast. That was sufficient though! The harbour was a nice place to visit anyway with pelicans, night herons and sea lions battling for the available fish.
The main purpose of my visit to Patagonia was seeing puma’s. That worked out fine, but of course I always do my best to see birds as well. Patagonia has some really cool specialties like Magellanic plover and Magellanic woodpecker. This blog however does not concern these species because I couldn’t find them… Luckily there were other interesting birds, I will show a selection of my photo’s of them below.
A little while ago I was in the Western Sahara looking for a new cat species: Sand Cat! Although searching for the cat mostly meants going out at night, naturally we also went out during the day. That gave us the opportunity to see some nice birds as well. There aren’t a lot of birds in the Sahara but the birds that do live here are top notch!
Although the average Dutch garden does contain much birds then one might initially think, the African garden is something else. Here no Blackbirds or Finches but very different birds. In some ways the basis stays the same, they also have doves here, but there is al lot of stuff on top of that.
Talking about the African savannah, most people will probably be thinking about lions and elephants. Those species do indeed live there and they are certainly nice to look at! Still, I can recommend everyone to also pay some attention to the birds hopping and flying around the big pile of mammals. Of course there is the Ostrich, the largest bird in the world although it can’t fly. That’s a bird most people will still recognize and probably also want to see when they go on safari. And, to be fair, they are certainly worth a look or two.
The Okavango Delta is the largest delta in the world that is not connected to a sea. A number of bird species feel right at home in that kind of area. During my trip through Africa I’ve also sailed through the Okavango and spent the night there. You can read more about that over here. Of course along the way I didn’t just have a look at the (very) nice scenery but also at the birds that can be found over there. It’s possible to encounter a lot of different birds here that either like to stay very close to the water or not that close to the water, but not too far away either. I would like to share the pictures of the more conspicuous of those. There are some interesting birds among them!
When you’re in Africa as a birder there is much to be seen. Although birds in the Netherlands certainly are nice to look upon and each bird is beautiful in it’s own way (except Egyptian Gooses they will always remain hideous), but Africa is a different playing field! Yes, sadly Egyptian Gooses are still an evil that can also not be avoided here, although at least they are actually wild here, but to compensate for the inconvenience there is a whole lot of other colourful birds. A family that I’ve grown especially fond of are the Hornbills. All colourful birds with huge beaks, what else do you want! That’s why I wanted to give this group of birds in a separate blog some extra attention.
A couple of weeks ago I happened to notice a big discount offer for a Polar Bear Special cruise around Svalbard. Seeing Polar Bears at an affordable price sounded really good so I quickly made the decision. Seeing a polar bear is something a lot of nature enthusiasts want to do at some point in their life and for me this was no different. The benefit of booking late is also that you don’t have to wait very long before the trip starts. So, after a long travel and a night sleeping on the floor of Gardermoen airport, my plane finally landed on the airport of Longyearbyen. The ship would leave tomorrow in the afternoon so I have time to do some birding before the actual trip starts. After I’ve stored my stuff it’s time to go birding!
In 2016 I went for a short trip to Israël. It was mostly a culturally oriented trip, while I of course did my best to see some nice animals on the side as well. It was a nice trip on which I met pretty nice people wherever I went. The birds were a different matter though!
