Hi all …..
A short message from my long time client and friend PR ..
“Are you available at short notice ?”
A simple affirmative reply and PR starts booking various things, like airline tickets, hotels etc and I start my research. PR wants to take photographs of various species he has seen previously but did not, could not capture on camera.
He arrives and I have decided that his priority should be a Spotted Creeper. Off we go into the Mukuvisi Woodlands right here in central Harare. We worked hard but eventually ………
Success !
African Spotted Creeper – Salpornis spilonotus
Well done PR !! Good one !! Priority number one ticked but we cant relax now because next on the list is Zimbabwe’s near endemic, and very elusive, Boulder Chat so it is off to Christon Bank just north of Harare.
Boulder Chat – Pinarornis plumosis
That was much easier than the Creeper and whilst we were there we chanced upon this chap.
At first we thought we had found an hepatic Common Cuckoo but later decided that is is in fact a juvenile Red-chested Cuckoo – Cuculus solitarius.
The following day we packed the car and headed off to the Bvumba Mountains just outside Mutare on the border with Mocambique where our priority bird was Swynnerton’s Robin but we would also take whatever else decided to co-operate.
One of the first was the stunning Livingstone’s Turaco – Turaco livingstonii
We then went hunting the Robin ! Found a nice confiding one in the forest at that birding Mecca, Seldomseen, but the light was far from conducive for photography so the hunt continued ………….
…..again…… Success !!
What a stunning little bird – Swynnertonia swynnertoni
Can’t post just one can I ??
We had a fantastic week and PR left for home a very happy man.
Cheers for now …
Tony
Birding in Zimbabwe 
I have very fond memories of Swynertons Robin spotting at Seldomseen, it was also where I began reading Peanuts comics for the first time.
and then you had a beer