The Tanqua Karoo: Karooport and the R355 towards Calvinia (South Africa)
07 September 2006

(This report was previously posted on Charlie’s Bird Blog)

What a fantastic day - and what a long one too! I woke up in a very dark room at about 02:30, spent an hour trying to remember which country I was in (South Africa), why on earth I’d set the alarm so early (to go birding - obviously…), where I’d left the car-keys (on top of the pile of clothes I was about to struggle into), and flushing the sleep out of my eyes with cold, cold water so that they’d focus properly. After a decidely unsatisfactory ‘breakfast’ of decaf coffee and a few bits of bread and fruit I’d bought at the local supermarket the evening before, I started off on what turned out to be a 18 hour, 600km round-trip out from Cape Town into the beautiful and unique ‘tanqua karoo’.

An ancient and highly specialised biome, the “Tanqua Karoo” (beautifully described in Callan Cohen et al’s superb “Southern African Birdfinder“ as ‘parched brown expanses, aloe-lined escarpments, and lonely isolated hills’) contains some 18 endemic bird species amongst its avifauna and literally hundreds of endemic plants (many of which would be flowering after an early spring of heavy rains) amongst its remarkable flora. The birds I sort of knew (I’ve been into the karoo once before - when, incidentally, I’d felt my first - and so far only - stirrings of unease caused by agorophobia: the place really is that ‘open’), the plants I had no idea about - but with the forecast set for ‘hot and sunny’, and the conditions seemingly just right for someone with a spot of wanderlust to drift wide-eyed in a huge landscape I had a feeling this was going to be one of those days that remain with you for many years…and so it proved…

The route I’d decided on beforehand was the Karooport to Calvinia road - the R355 - an unpaved dirttrack said to be the country’s longest road uninterrupted by a town or village (250km in all).

The road, the colour of crushed concrete, squeezes through a narrow gap between two ridges and then cuts an almost straight line through a western slice of the karoo, flanked on either side by privately-owned ranches boundaried with stock fencing. On the right as you drive north, out past the flat gravel plains which make up this most unlikely farmland (beyond watching the rocks and stones crumble into dust it’s hard to work out what most landowners actually do out here), folds of rumpled red hills millenia old prop up the sky. With most of the land here in private hands access is difficult and discouraged (the locals are not the kind of guys who look kindly on strangers sneaking around their farms with binoculars, incidentally) so most of the birding, therefore, has to be done from the car. This isn’t a bad thing though - with the land being so flat and open using the car as a mobile hide is one of the better ways of seeing some of the larks and chats, and is certainly the best way of getting views of wary birds like bustards and sandgrouse. Having said that it’s worth getting out and checking the bushes and shrubs along the infrequent water-courses (I had good views of a Bokmakierie, South Africa’s national bird, along one, and the range-restricted Grey-backed (Red-headed) Cisticola and Karoo Prinia are often easy to find in this way).

Bokmakierie Telophorus zeylonus

Male Namaqua Dove Oena capensis

Grey-backed (Red-headed) Cisticola Cisticola subruficapillus

Karoo Prinia Prinia maculosa

The karoo’s commoner bird species - such as the Cisticola and the Prinia, the beautiful and gentle-looking Namaqua Dove, and the widespread Cape Bunting - can be seen almost anywhere, but the real ’specials’ (eg Burchell’s Courser, Namaqua, Rufous-eared, and Cinnamon-breasted Warblers - all of which I missed, I may as well admit right now) are tougher to find and accurate information is needed: as my trip out to Cape Town hadn’t been organised at all (I was rostered this trip with just 45 minutes notice) I hadn’t had a chance to pack the ONE essential book I’d recommend to any birder going to South Africa - the aforementioned “Southern African Birdfinder”. In fact the best I’d been able to manage was a quick phone call home from the hotel to ask my wife Jo to read out the relevant section so that I could get an idea of the route I should be taking and a list of sites to stop at - but it wasn’t ever going to be like having the book in the car with me. In the event I stumbled on a few of the best birds and the best sites (including - though I didn’t know it at the time - the picnic site at the wonderfully-named Skitterykloof, famed - again though I didn’t know it at the time - for being the best place in Africa to see Cinnamon-breasted Warbler) I did feel a little like a very small dot bouncing around in a vast wilderness looking for highly mobile needles…

I may have missed a number of the Karoo “specials”, but I also found a whole bunch of them - including such localised species as Ludwig’s Bustard (one bird flying over the car and disappearing on huge, slow wings), Pale Chanting Goshawk (do raptors come much better than this one?), Spike-heeled and Karoo Larks, Karoo Eromomela (NOT the most exhibitionistic of species), Tractrac Chat, Karoo Scrub-robin, and Black-headed Canary (a nomadic species that is usually found only at this time of year, a lifer for me, and a wonderfully evocative bird to see flitting around such a dry and dusty landscape).

Ludwig’s Bustard Neotis ludwigii

Pale Chanting-goshawk Melierax canorus

Spike-heeled Lark Chersomanes albofasciata

Grey-backed Finch-lark Eremopterix verticalis

Karoo Scrub-robin Cercotrichas coryphaeus

Black-headed Canary Serinus alario

As to be expected when birding such a huge area with a relatively low density of birds, finding anything at all was at times frustratingly difficult (at times there seem to be miles of nothing with nothing in them, and will I EVER find a Ground Woodpecker?) but then again sometimes superbly surprising - in fact the first bird I saw as the sun came up was the endemic, rare, and beautiful Black Harrier drifting across the road just 100metres in front of the car, and a curious and naive immature Mountain Wheatear almost landed on my head as I crouched in the darkness of an abandoned building pishing at Karoo Robins and Black-headed Canaries!

However, as well as the birds the karoo was in full flower and every step off the road brought me into contact with a whole new world of plump succulents and orange, golden-yellow, or raspberry-red plants and shrubs bursting up out of the stony ground or sheltering from the wind in the hollows of ancient, eroded rocks.

I hadn’t been to Cape Town for two years before this trip, not into the karoo for almost eight years, and I possibly may never get the chance to be here at this time of year again: I just wanted to absorb the whole country, to be certain that I would be able to remember the details years from now - and I think I did it…it helps to have a camera of course, but this was one of the most beautiful and sense-filling places I’ve ever been, and if I’d had been given the choice the night before to see all the ‘Karoo Specials’ at breakneck speed, or miss a few but have the chance to take my time and ‘explore’ I hope I’d have taken the latter option: birds are great, but sometimes you just have to bathe in the wonder of this stunning planet of ours…

All photographs copyright Charlie Moores.

Trip List:
Southern Ostrich Struthio camelus 2; Cape Shelduck Tadorna cana 2; Yellow-billed Kite Milvus aegypteus 5; Black Harrier Circus maurus 2; Pale Chanting-goshawk Melierax canorus 1; Steppe Buzzard Buteo (buteo) vulpinus 1; Rock (Common) Kestrel Falco (tinnunculus) rupicola 3; Ludwig’s Bustard Neotis ludwigii1; Three-banded Plover Charadrius tricollaris 2; Namaqua Dove Oena capensis 4; White-backed Mousebird Colius colius c)20; African Hoopoe Upupa (epops) africana 1; Large-billed Lark Galerida magnirostris 1; Karoo Lark Calendulauda albescens 4-5; Spike-heeled Lark Chersomanes albofasciata 3; Grey-backed Sparrow-lark Eremopterix verticalis c)10; Red-capped Lark Calandrella cinerea 5-6; Greater Striped Swallow Hirundo cucullata 1; Grey-backed/Red-headed Cisticola Cisticola subruficapillus c)10; Levaillant’s Cisticola Cisticola tinniens 2; Karoo Prinia Prinia maculosa c)20; Karoo Eremomela Eremomela gregalis 2; Cape Robin-chat Cossypha caffra 3-4; Karoo Scrub-robin Cercotrichas coryphaeus 4-5; Mountain Wheatear Oenanthe monticola 3; Capped Wheatear Oenanthe pileata 3; Karoo Chat Cercomela schlegelii 6-8; Tractrac Chat Cercomela tractrac 2; Grey Tit Parus afer 3; Malachite Sunbird Nectarinia famosa 1; Fiscal Shrike Lanius collaris 2; Bokmakierie Telophorus zeylonus 4; Pied Crow Corvus albus 20+; Cape Sparrow Passer melanurus 8-10 ; Southern Masked-weaver Ploceus velatus 8-10; Southern Red Bishop Euplectes orix 1; Yellow Bishop Euplectes capensis 1; Common Waxbill Estrilda astrild 4-5; Pin-tailed Whydah Vidua macroura 1; Yellow Canary Serinus flaviventris 10+; White-throated Canary Serinus albogularis c)10; Black-headed Canary Serinus alario 6-8; Lark-like Bunting Emberiza impetuani 1; Cape Bunting Emberiza capensis 2-3

Tent Tortoise Psammobates tentorius sp (Probably ‘Karoo Tent Tortoise’ - if anyone knows, please let me know. Thanks)