Rain On Private Heligoland

Helmeted Guineafowl: photo Anabel Harries

In praise of damp, of wet, of gorgeous gloaming greyness.

Before the first bird sang cell phone two-o-nine "peep-a-peeps" to force me out of bed. It's my birthday and overnight there's been rain. Quite a lot of rain. At long last - so let's thank all the gods imaginable!

Yes. For the third night in succession it's been raining in the darkness. Better than that, yesterday the fierce rays of the equatorial sun could scarcely touch the earth and so never pierced the soil. We were protected by great grey blankets of cloud, rolling off Mount Meru. Wrapped there by oceanic breezes, around the volcano's lofty cone.

Now it looks as if it will continue raining even during day time. And thus the all important life-giving moisture will be able, once again, to penetrate this cracked and suffering, sun-baked earth.

I dress quickly and shuffle through the house. Switching-off the soft orange glow of our outside lamp; (it's a lure for many moths in season, and a stage for the great game, as far as four pinkish house geckos are concerned); I walk to the kitchen to make a hot cup for the family.

Standing in the half light of dawn, beneath a westing window, I peer outside just as our district's only Helmeted Guineafowl rattles his bush-greeting, that of an avian refugee, to a new day in 'camp birdman'.

And for the first time here in Kwaidi village we watch a vanguard nuptial flight of termites just as it begins, fluttering up the hill, over the straggling kei-apple hedge. A measurable few thousand at first, yet many hundreds of thousands will have traversed our air space, before the warm coffee has been assimilated by our bodies.

Drip, drip, dripping onto the damp and darkening earth - continuing steady, the rain elicits peals of praise from three Spotted Morning Thrushes; and for the first time together, two distinct types of calls from an apparently solitary Ruppell's Robin-Chat, unseen in the hedge. He, or is he in fact a she, has been deathly quiet for the last two months, through eight weeks of clogging dust and cracking dryness, and a near absence of any ant activity; which is so essential to his well-being. Incidentally I will admit now that it took me twenty-odd months, of East African highland residency, to accept my dear friend Anabel Harries' conviction that one of these robin-chat calls, a disembodied piercing whistle: "treep-tirra-treep", does in fact emanate from this near-invisible Cossypha semirufa, secreted in the tangled mass of an invasive shrub, that boisterous invader, "cherry-pie" Lantana.

Three nights with at least a little rain, and yesterday that piling-up of thunder clouds, have ensured that today at dawn the top soil is moist and dark, soft and fragrant, to a depth of at least an inch.

Tender greenery is appearing now in parts of the garden that never benefited from the life-sustaining sprinkle of the grey watering can. Shoots spiking-up through the softening earth, there's winks of greenery all around the wilding acre, a rented wedge of land in westernmost Arusha, which embraces our present home.

Many local, that is resident, birds drop-in and pop-up with the green renaissance. Feathered residents rejoicing; conspicuous now, many delight us with beautiful bursts of song. Other Intra-African and rains migrants, such as the wizzle-sizzling gangs of Chestnut Weaver, have already largely passed through. Chestnut Weaver: photo Martin GoodeyLast week there was at least 350 weavers in the garden every day. Some of the youthful males (as yet only in partial breeding plumage) were busy making play nests, shredding the fresh growth in the canopy of the Mexican Forget-me-not and Cardinal's Hat-bush. Thankfully, with daily rain this week, they've started moving-on, up north, possibly to somewhere in eastern Kenya.

Compared with such easy-to-see local African birds most of the Palaearctic passage migrant species arriving now must be both known-of in advance and also diligently searched-for, even though some of the more territorial ones, will betray their chosen, temporary, location with calls and seemingly random snatches of their northern songs.

By mid-November a river of Palaearctic birds is flooding through central Africa. Today some are falling into our garden from the drizzly sky above; drop-outs from the great flights of many millions, which now traverse the equatorial belt of Africa, most are pushing determinedly onward to bush and woodland 'wintering areas' south and east of Tanganyika territory.

As far as this observer is concerned the great push began unseen, just prior to dawn, on November 7 when two cool-brown Luscinia 'robin-thrushes' from deepest Russia, each much less than the bulk of a human heart, must have dropped silently into our plot.

They dropped into a "wildlife garden", an oasis and our island, the home range and quiet refuge of the birdman. No unkempt patch this, it is in fact a carefully watered and lovingly tended thicket, a tangle full of life. It's a funnel-shaped mosaic of what some could call 'neophyte bush' which, although it is shaped rather like a large Heligoland bird trap, has neither wired walls, nor netted roof, nor terminal catching box. The garden is indeed my welcome-migrant trap, since it is perched at three degrees south of the Equator on a hilltop ridge 1,400 metres above sea level. It 's a tangled triangular thicket, beside an illuminated chicken farm, on the denuded lower slopes of Mount Meru's towering cone. The lights, set upon the white-washed walls, cast a inviting green glow across our garden through a rampant hedge.

During the two weeks prior to the nightingales' arrival we had received only one dust-laden, ochre-coloured shower of rain, across the deforested slopes. Trush Nightingale: photo Anabel HarriesThrush Nightingale: (or is it Common N?) photo Anabel HarriesTherefore a sudden appearance in my garden of the first two returning Sprossers (Thrush Nightingales) of the season, on what is probably a fairly typical date at this latitude, was a lovely surprise for me. And the fact that they have remained here with us ever since, is a delight beyond words, even though they are usually in-hiding, in the hedge bottoms along the shaded longer axes of the garden. The Sprossers are currently, for me, the most endearing of all the returning Palaearctic migrants which we have attracted to date.

The first european passerines of the 'autumn return'; those indigo darts from heaven - Barn Swallows; appeared in the cool dry times of August, hurrying south, fully three months ago. Interestingly the earliest birds were nearly all adult males. The northernmost swallow species had been absent since at least mid May, when the last few shining individuals had spirited themselves away, perhaps with Siberia in their sights.

For a full month from mid-August onwards, out of the thirty-odd 'european' passerine species which we might see here in the course of a year, there was only ever Barn Swallows.

On occasion we would watch them, passing-us-by, often across the highway to the ocean. In little threaded bands of between three and nine travellers; these 'rustic' swallows were always a very welcome and familiar sight. As if there to remind us of summer days, when hope could reign, in the european farmland of our long gone childhood. Sadly, the old farms of England fell early, and largely unreported under the trans-oceanic tidal wave that has created "Globalistan".

It was not until September 18 that, from high in the montane morning gloom, we heard other familiar 'homeland' swallow voices; of black and white House Martins, dry-rattling southwards overhead. The next 'Europeans' appeared in the soft gentle "swooo-eet" of Willow Warblers; heard on the last day of that month (coincidentally in an 'old English rose garden' at Mufindi in the far southwest of the country) and then, somewhat surprisingly, a rather early Garden Warbler was found singing in broad-leaved bushland the very next morning at Kisolanza, also in the Udzungwa mountains.

'Flava' Wagtails (chiefly Motacilla flava lutea) began appearing in October; wherever there was enough water on the land to support some cattle (and, inside the nature parks, wherever other larger, wilder ungulates might make a wallow); but appearing only in very small numbers. And the three species of migrant palaearctic wheatear (Northern, Isabelline and Pied) started arriving in certain places near Tanzania's northern border right on cue, about a week after the September equinox.

Spotted Flycatcher: photo Anabel HarriesHowever it was not until the first eastern Spotted Flycatchers arrived, and in good numbers, (yet only in the far north), during the third week of October, that my eager anticipation could grow. We found three pugnacious flycatchers together, evidently very recently-arrived, near Klein's Camp in the north eastern Serengeti on October 17, and saw about twenty around Speke's Bay lodge at the south east corner of Lake Nyanza a couple of days later. My great 26-day 'boomerang' birding safari ended in Arusha (with a tally of 611 species seen) on October 21. Since then, for a variety of reasons, I've been more-or-less confined to camp birdman, that is to this garden, a Heligoland of habo, this tiny birdy oasis on the western front of boom-town, build-out Arusha.

Nearly all my recent experiences of Palaearctic passerines have been here in 'my own private Heligoland'. Until November 7 that experience had been confined to hearing occasional passing Willow Warblers; (singing quietly of a morning, as they gleaned insects among the upturned orange shoe-brush flowers of Australian Silky Oaks Grevilea robusta); or watching a few more Barn Swallows flickering overhead.

Tree Pipit: photo Martin Goodey

However with the arrival of close and thundery weather from the eastern ocean on the last two afternoons of last week (November 9 & 10) the situation for this 'trap-birder' of Arusha improved dramatically. So much so that on Saturday November 10 after an afternoon shower we received a fall of four species additional to the returnees list: a Common Swift, two Tree Pipits and a first year yellow-footed Marsh Warbler; and finally in a fiery sunset a pale grey female European Nightjar wafted into view then landed, giving superb views, as she was mobbed by many colourful smaller local birds, whilst sitting lengthways along a branch of loosely blue-flowering jacaranda.

Eurasion Nightjar: photo Anabel Harries

Next morning, Sunday November 11, an afro-tropical migrant in the form of a female Black Cuckooshrike was another rarity for this garden. In all we managed 53 species during one twenty four hour period in the middle of last week-end. On November 12, on yet another bright and sunny morning, a Crowned Hornbill passing through eastwards was new for the garden. Whilst the last (of three) Spotted Flycatchers which had been present around the garden since Saturday afternoon's 'great fall' departed in the sunshine.

On November 13 the Sprossers, after a week here, had become tame and therefore more easily seen, especially when they were chasing-off potential rivals, "leaf-tossers" who might wish to share the damp litter of old indigenous leaves (chiefly Cordia africana which Dismas Aloyce and I have imported in old supermarket bags from Anabel's and the Burka-TGT coffee estate). Occasional Willow Warblers, Tree Pipits and Spotted Flycatchers appeared each day, yet these were clearly transients, as was a Yellow Wagtail that was heard flying over, during my dawn patrol (coffee mug in hand) in a lovely thick mist at six a.m. on Tuesday.

By 1445 hrs today November 15 - the rain has eased, so I should get-out quick! First though I'll provide today's little big list of the Palaearctic migrants which have passed through the roofless Heligoland, dropping out of the sky above, and in from the weird world beyond.

NB: Ten of these eleven Palaearctic bird species have been seen from inside the house, usually from this desk, as I struggled to stay-in and write this piece!

Booted Eagle one pale morph circling, Common Quail one female crouching (seen at the top of the garden courtesy of Pi-dog), Common Swift 15, Barn Swallow six, House Martin 100+ feeding overhead, Sprosser two, Red-backed Shrike two, Blackcap one (a male mobbing a shrike), acredula-type Willow Warbler two, Eastern Common Whitethroat three, fuscus Reed Warbler one.

Walking the garden paths a few times each day, (somewhat like a captive tiger pacing around an enclosure!), I'm often accompanied by our indefatigable spaniel Pi. She pads the same tracks as I do, but she is hounding the poor Zebra mice from clump to clump, from tussock to tussock, just one hole after another. All of us are together in this little trap-like oasis, and one senses that every mammal, and almost every bird, has in its own way prayed for this essential and substantial rain which we received at last today.

Yes, we have prayed for the cooling moisture from above, for the Grey Godess who brings the rain, for she alone of all the colours can tempt-forth the soft-leaved forbs and all those lovely waving grasses, releasing the invertebrate horde upon whom we so depend.

And thereby she resuscitates, in an aging old-world birder, moments of perfect happiness, of childhood freedoms half-forgotten. Time jumping at the shape of hopping feathered acquaintance; bursting with song, in tender woodland springs of old; safely home and our native birds. Birds just like those super skulkers - the Luscinia "robin-thrushes". Both the red in tail and the only slightly rufous, and indeed all the other members of that great, grey-green and olive-brown band of insectivorous songsters.

So now the rain has stopped 'kabisa' - the sky's been washed a perfect blue, big sun is out and I'm just sitting dreaming.

Looking out, immediately beyond the window pane, into our nearest Cardinal's Hat, who do I see there - shining bright?

A preening White-browed Coucal, two Singing Cisticolas and a dumpy Streaky Seed-eater.

No, there's not a single European in sight!

White-browed Coucal: photo Anabel Harries

Singing Cisticola: photo Martin GoodeyStreaky Seed-eater: photo Martin Goodey