Itinerary - part 3: Dzalanyama and Dedza
(Continued from Part 2 )
Susannah had to return to work for the second week of our holiday, but kindly arranged for someone to give her a lift back to Malosa so we could keep her car. We headed up to Dzalanyama Forest - a place we visited in 2008 and which I had enjoyed very much. We passed by several opportunites to buy mice on sticks from the side of the road but Vitty opted for more traditional produce:
Vitty buying fruit and veg from a roadside trading centre (possibly at Ntcheu?), 22nd May 2011
man with firewood, Dzalanyama, 23rd May 2011 - he will have had a good few miles to go with this
Like many of the best places to stay in Malawi, Dzalanyama Forest Lodge is self-catering - although that just means you have to bring food - there's always someone on hand to cook it for you. This time we had the Forest Lodge to ourselves, which was nice, and it was amazing how much a lick of paint made a difference from the last time we were here - it seemed so much brighter! Given that it was now fully into the dry season and Susannah hadn't seen any rain for over a month, we were surprised to find it raining at Dzalanyama. But it was only light rain, and though the dingy conditions weren't great for photography it didn't put too much of a dampener on things and it eventually brightened up the next day.
Dzalanyama is miombo woodland with rocky outcrops and contains loads of range-restricted species that are peculiar to miombo woodland. Among the specials I saw here were Boehm's Flycatcher, Spotted Creeper, Southern and Yellow-bellied Hyliotas, Stierling's Woodpecker, Green-backed Honeyguide and Lesser Seedcracker, but the list goes on!
Spotted Creeper, Dzalanyama, 23rd May 2011
Boehm's Flycatcher, Dzalanyama, 23rd May 2011
It was good for wildflowers here too...
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wildflowers, Dzalanyama, 23rd May 2011 - I think the purple one was much bluer in reality - blue flowers never photograph well! Any ideas what they are?
...and butterflies:
Sailer sp., Dzalanyama, 23rd May 2011
We spent two nights here but eventually we had to leave. The route out from the forest crosses miles of cultivated land which last time proved the only good place we came across for larks. This time the crops hadn't been harvested so it was much harder to see things, but the one lark we did see well enough to identify proved to be a Fischer's Sparrow-Lark - a relatively scarce species we'd unexpectedly encountered here last time. But that wasn't the best bird seen here! Small Buttonquail isn't a rare bird but it's a tiny Quail-like bird (though apparently more closely related to the waders) that is extremely difficult to see. Certainly I didn't expect to see one so I was extremely happy to find one running away from us along the track we were driving down. Not only that but it was accompanied by three incredibly tiny chicks! Photographed through a dusty windscreen as they had their backs to us, this won't win any awards, but it captures what was possibly the most special moment of the holiday:
Small Buttonquail with chicks, exit from Dzalanyama, 24th May 2011
You have to go through Malawi's capital city Lilongwe in order to get to and from Dzalanyama so we decided to pop in to Lilongwe Nature Reserve for a short visit. I stopped here briefly in 2008 but with too little time to give it justice, and this time we didn't have much longer, and again it was the hottest part of the day when birds are at their hardest to see. Consequently we didn't see much and might as well have not bothered.
It's rare for Vitty to go on holiday without paying a visit to at least one pottery. Last time we'd been a bit disappointed by the one at Nkhotakota so this time we went to the more famous one at Dedza. The place also has rooms, so we spent a night here.
Nearby is supposed to be Chongoni Mountain, a site that's meant to hold a few good birds, so I decided to check this out in the morning. According to the guidebook there should be a Forestry Lodge signposted from the main road. We couldn't find this, but did find a road that led past Chongoni quarry up into a place where there was a Forestry school and a US Peace Corps camp, and we suspected that this was the right area but that the Forestry Lodge was no more. The best forest habitat I could find didn't yield very much in the way of birds (perhaps it wasn't the right place?) but a dambo on the way up contained Locust Finches which just about saved the morning!
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dambo at Chongoni, 25th May 2011
In most places we visited we received a lot of attention from local children who would either shout "Azungu! Azungu!" (Azungu means "white person" and is apparently meant to be respectful), or they would shout "Gimme money" (or often "Gimme my money"). At Chongoni I was initially confused as instead they would whistle a tune at me - a strangely familiar tune but one which at first I couldn't place. Then it dawned on me that I was beside the American Peace Corp camp and the tune they were whistling was the American National Anthem!
Back to Dedza Pottery to join Vitty for breakfast and a tour of the pottery which was reasonably interesting if you like that sort of thing.
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Dedza Pottery, 24th-25th May 2011 - the sign made me wonder if they have a big problem with visitors forgetting to take their children home with them...
After the tour the staff, realising I was a birder, insisted on showing me round the pottery gardens in the hope of finding some birds. Only common species seen here, but it did provide my best photo of a Village Indigobird:
Village Indigobird, Dedza Pottery, 25th May 2011
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