Lark Plains Lammergeier

 The poolJanuary 30, 2009
Although leaden thunder rolls around Mount Meru on the heat of every day such moisture as returns to Earth is miserly indeed. Fitting really, the wages of our time.

In the near cool of morning the old blue Land Rover rattles and splutters across the desert plain. Dismas drives and he drops Pi and I first; the springer spaniel and the not so sprightly ornithologist. Hardly together we trot across the arid steppe toward the lonesome pool, now parched and full of bovid bones. All around it's dry and hellish overgrazed. Old safari guides on the Arusha circuit refuse to recognise the changes. They're locked onto routes around 'protected areas'; inside green exclusion zones; so they do not smell the desert wind. By contrast with every pace today I can place my feet in a fine ochre powder which fills the troughs between the waves of hard-nibbled tussock grass. Shaven grasses these; even yesterday's tiny verdant shoots, ungrazed for the moment, are already drooping. Life wilts in the glare of an uncompromising equatorial sun.

Beesleys LarkBeesleys Lark 2: photo Martin GoodeyIt's fair to say the 'short rains' failed and with them so did Beesley's. The Beesley's or Maasai Lark is an elfin, spike-heeled passerine. Inconspicuous, it's just a 'little brown job' - Chersomanes beesleyi. Yet somehow it is as endearing as it's emblematic, it's Critically Endangered. An endemic vertebrate who has lived here, and probably only here, for a milllion years and more. It could have been a 'conservation icon' then, for this tattered shrinking shawl of yellow-brown semi-desert steppe. A unique little area in the shadow of both Meru mountain and the mighty Kilimanjaro. But now Lark Plains has been totally surrounded by skinny 'stake-holders'. Poor pastoralists tempted here by the deep bore-holes drilled very recently by 'the Lord's do-gooders'. Consequently flock numbers have gone through the roof; after only two years everyone is desperate for grass. Marketing Maasai misfortune has made this little pygmy the rarest land bird in all of the Afrotropics.

Checking over my shoulder I see Dismas turn and stop the car. He is dropping Martin a kilometre distant on the south side of the dust-filled track that bisects the plain. Together they will pan and scan for a glimpse of the littlest lark. Perhaps they'll strike lucky where last we saw four birds, just one week ago.

I'm 500 metres further out now, heading for two very isolated acacias who are hunched beside 'the pool'. Suddenly Pi stops, and points, and I make out the tiny tell tale apricot blob of a Beesley's front-on, up a-top a tuft of withered sedge. Good, there are two adults birds here; but alas no young. The same story as last week; when we found and filmed two pairs, both bereft of young, over there where Martin is now, on the south side of the track.

I call Martin on the radio that is clipped to my waist belt. In time he comes over and takes up a sniper's position. However all attempts by James and Pi to very gently move the little birds closer to the seated photographer are fruitless. So eventually we leave Martin to secure what images he can alone. Sure enough after an hour or so of patient waiting some definitive shots are "in the can." From these photographs we can see clearly that these two birds are indeed different individuals from those four he captured digitally last week.  

Montagus HarrierPi: photo Martin GoodeyPi and I have walked to the two acacias to gain some necessary shade, since by ten o'clock the heat is fierce indeed. As we near the thorn trees an indescribably beautiful male Montagu's Harrier, in perfect plumage, drifts silently overhead. He's the only harrier that we see this day.

Evidently there was a brief rain shower here last night, witness the tell-tale pitter patter pucker marks in the dust. Also the occasional deep hum of a lumbering dark grey dung beetle, rearmost legs akimbo. They're passing like tiny USAF drones, surveying an alien landscape in miniature. In a sense Southwest Asia is not so very far away for Common Kestrels from Kazakh (and doubtless several other -stans) have flown over here to Africa to hunt these great big juicy beetles. Euro-asian KestrelAnd as they do so they strike the fear of God into the little Beesley's, who jump then cower, whenever an anchor-shaped shadow passes across their earthy path.

We reach the empty pool and duck under the leafless thorn trees. A Maasai woman in robes of shimmering satin blue together with two wee boys - miniature goatherds dressed in rags - huddle in the dust. Between them they're keeping at least a couple of thirsty, dozy eyes upon their chequered herd of goats and fat-tailed sheep. Their stock, in quiet desperation, nibble yellowing leaves of the spiny euphorbia bushes which dot this expanse of larks.

With no inkling why, my attention is quite suddenly directed heavenwards, to the brown and looming bulk of an adult Tawny Eagle. Tawny Eagle: photo Martin GoodeyCircling right-down out of the blue, blue sky; in-close for an inspection of this mangey mammal show.

An unanticipated lightness envelops and uplifts this 'birdman'. It elicits a jovial, barking imitation of the wild "kyoow!" the yelp of Aquila rapax. Immediately over a brown feathered shoulder, tilted effortlessly toward me, a glinting iris bursts my little bubble of fun. Pinning my image to a retina of such sophistication as we humans can only dream of. I feel the gaze, flinch and instinctively adopt a crouching primate shuffle, attempting one supposes to get ready for any eventuality. And I cover my face behind my own weapons of vision, two glass-black reflectors, the objective lens of the 10 by 42s. Whatever, clearly we've spied each other well-sharp by now. Curiosity satisfied, yet with thoughts doubtless better left unknown, the fine old Tawny sails away. But only after she's circled very close and very low; just above head height, for what must have been a minute, or maybe it was more.

After the departure of the Tawny Eagle I settle to watch an Isabelline Wheatear, who's snatching ants in the shade of a straggling bush, near what would once have been the margin of the pool. This bold and upright bird tries hard to fend-off a small feeding flock of others; all are hungry 'desert' birds. Easily he frightens a juvenile African Pipit, whose youthful naivety is betrayed by all those buffy feather fringes. Red-capped LarkNot so three Short-tailed Larks who are puffing-up the dust. They are very busy in the shade, digging vigorously at the edge of the pan, and easily they stand their ground. So do two Red-capped Larks, unusually they too are clearly intent on digging for their morning grub. A young male Vitelline Masked Weaver, together with a pair of pale-eyed Kenya Rufous Sparrows, perch in the bush only a metre above the wheatear; it's pretty obvious that I've just dislodged them from the shade of their tree.

A little farther away, on the lip of a miniature wadi which, in seasons that are soggy, returns aquatic life to this parched pool, a pair of Crowned Lapwings "wikka" in annoyance as Pi appears before them. She's broken cover at a gallop; in pursuit of a darting, weaving sandy-coloured Scrub Hare. Farther still, and undeniably faint, some Ashy Citicolas can be heard trilling wheezily on the breeze, as first hare then dog, bursts into their bend in the wadi.

Martin calls-up again to say he is fully satisfied with the shots he's got, and that he's heading back to the vehicle for some liquid refreshment. Aware that we must all be home in Arusha by one o'clock I call to Pi and we too return toward the distant grey-blue blob of the waiting Land Rover.

En route just about noon we halt the car. Pausing to collect some honeycombed chunks of gaseous black lava which lie beside the new chinese-engineered Nairobi road. 'An improvement' that is being blasted around the western edge of the plain. This is just one section of a continent-wide road-to-resources network i.e. part of the latest strategic infrastructure plan - allegedly for Africa. Laying smooth tarmac straps connecting Indian Ocean coastal enclaves to the as yet relatively untapped riches of the dark interior. It's the latest ugly scramble to break-open the Congo treasure chest.

Beside the road, under the singing sun and despite the hammer-blows of heat, we are suddenly catapulted into action by the appearance of Gypaetus barbatus. One of the most venerable of all the 10,000 birds on this planet. He's that awesome feathered airman. One whose ghostly materialisation, along the highest snow-laden summit ridges of the Old World, has put the-wind-up so many a mountaineer. Yes, he's the remige-rattling, bearded bone-breaker, Ossifragus himself. Deigning to visit us again!

In the form of an adult Lammergeier, silver-maned, diamond rudder-tailed, he scythes past us above a grumbling, and glaring yellow, Komatsu land-grader. As always, he's perfection etched in motion. Against the briliant sky and barren volcanic hills he flies. Lammergeier: photo Martin GoodeyLammergeier: photo Martin GoodeyWith no sign of effort he sweeps back and forth above the roadworks. Then with but a single deep flap, he appears to motion toward a particularly grievous scar in the landscape. To the twin snaking dunes of rust-coloured rubble that stretch away to the far horizon. And in so doing it's as if he's revealing all the limitations of our mind map. The two furrows, one left and one right, betray our lack of vision, one that we constantly attempt to hide yet somehow only exaggerate, with all of our developments.

Watching the lone Lammergeier soaring, circling ever higher, up between the clouds of heaven, far above the ploughed profanity of this stupid trail of greed, you feel you can sense infinity, just as if it's coursing through one's veins.

For a few exquisite moments this bird of birds treats us to such a glorious demonstration of grace, of efficiency incarnate, that he reduces this hobbling biped to breathlessness. I'm happy and I'm humbled. At ease and delightfully reassured. Mindful of how much like a circus act we men must oft appear - trapped down our petrochemical drainpipe - especially when we're placed beside the true masters of the air. The emperors of effortless flight; sent from heaven itself. Those few beings in whom the true meaning of the word freedom has been by Earth enshrined. 

Lammergeier