BWT Travel Guide

MALAWI
Mount Mulanje –
a bird-rich habitat
Ariadne Van Zandbergen/Alamy
yellow, black and white coloration, and
the Thyolo Alethe, which is a chunky,
oversized Robin-type bird that feeds on
or just above the forest floor, lapping up
its favourite food, ants.
The triumph for us of finding the latter
species was tempered by the fact that
some of its more assertive prey found
their way up our trouser legs and effected
a seriously painful bite.
Another favourite, although slightly
more widely distributed, is the Greenheaded
Oriole, which I actually spotted
before Abasi (equivalent to getting the
ball off Lionel Messi once in five days).
Another species to
make Southern
African birders go
weak at the knees,
this oriole has, as
you can guess, a
moss-green head
and mantle.
Malawi’s highest
mountain is Mount
Mulanje, an
inselberg rising
from the
surrounding 700m
plain, with several
peaks topping
2,500m and one, called
Sapitwa peak, at 3,002m.
Here there is enough luxuriant forest to
give you hope that some of the Afromontane
specialities will survive. We
spent an intoxicating afternoon
obtaining magnificent views of Silverycheeked
Hornbill and a little flycatchertype
gem known as a Blue-mantled
Elminia, while Scarce and African Black
Swifts rode the updrafts on the cliffs
high above. What a place!
There could hardly be a greater
contrast between the high mountain
10 World Birding 2016
F1online digitale Bildagentur GmbH/Alamy
forests and our next location, Liwonde
National Park. Lying on the plain next to
the Shire River that drains Lake Malawi,
it provides a dose of what any tourist
would think of as “wild Africa”.
Only 540 square km in area, Liwonde
apes its host country in miniature by
encompassing a network of different
habitats, including marshes, savannah
and a type of tall woodland known as
mopane. Within this rich mix, game
animals are everywhere indeed, from the
restaurant of my accommodation, the
luxurious Mvuu Lodge, you could see
Waterbuck, Bushbuck, Impala and
Warthogs every time
Silvery-cheeked
Hornbill
you glanced up from
your ice-cold beer.
(At night, we saw
a Pel’s Fishing Owl
from the dinner
table, a common
experience here).
The river froths
with Hippos, living
in one of the
Pel’s Fishing Owl
AfriPics.com/Alamy
highest densities in the world. Together
with a more than healthy population of
Nile Crocodiles, and 900 elephants, this
is not a place to go swimming, or indeed
wandering off.
The richness of Liwonde extends to its
birds, with more than 400 species
recorded in this relatively tiny area (one
of the highest totals in southern Africa).
This means that you can hardly go
anywhere without seeing a glittering
away of colourful, iconic and – frequently
– unusual birds. For example, you can
enjoy such African staples as bee-eaters,
rollers, woodhoopoes, hornbills, weavers
and sunbirds around the camp, while
you’re enjoying a cup of tea, or on a short
daytime walk (a treat in wild Africa). But
you can hardly avoid coming across
delights such as Böhm’s Bee-eater,
a small, dainty species that frolics
around the chalets here, but is actually
pretty rare everywhere else in the world.
On the boat trips to enjoy the Hippos
(and the elephants, which often swim
across the Shire River), it is quite easy to
see African Skimmers and White-backed
Night Herons. The many palm trees host
Dickinson’s Kestrels and Red-necked
Falcons, and the mopane woodland just
drips with birds, including rarities such
as Lilian’s Lovebird (a tiny parrot) and
Racket-tailed Roller. The variety is
dazzling, and indeed we again saw 100
species in a single day here.
Malawi is fabulously rich in wildlife,
safe, genuinely friendly and small,
meaning that the distances between sites
are easily manageable. The only thing
that Malawi seems to lack is visitors –
and they are missing a treat.
With thanks to: Central African
Wilderness Safaris (cawsmw.com) and
Malawi Tourism.