Tomorrow I jump on a plane for Malawi, the first time since 2007. I can't wait.
A tiny scrap of a country in the grand scheme of things, Malawi has the biggest heart. And an enormous, freshwater, sparklingly clear lake. Into which I will leap, and splash and snorkel, finding all the brightly coloured little fish who swim up to my mask, blowing kisses through the water. Last time, I celebrated my birthday on the beach, eating freshly caught chambo fish in the middle of a circle of baobabs, the crescent moon above. And the next day we dived, deeper than I have ever dived before, circumnavigating a tiny island, exploring the drop-offs, swimming through boulder-encrusted tunnels, peering into cracks to find enormous, silky-black barbel fish with their wide staring eyes. I glanced at my depth gauge at one stage and we were just below twenty-eight metres, the surface of the water too far to be seen. Amazing.
But this time I probably won't dive, I'm not sure if there will be time as it's a whistle-stop tour. There will be time for snorkelling, I'm told - in the shallows, the water so clear it's almost not there, and little shiny cichlids darting through the blue.
We're also heading up to the north, the wild Nyika Plateau - seven thousand feet above sea level, like the remote places of Scotland with wildlife - herds of eland and zebra, and the occasional leopard hiding amongst the rocky kopjes. But it's the scent of Nyika which brings me right back - the whole plateau is dotted with pine forests which, in the early evening, cascade their fresh, greeny scent downwards. Utterly evocative, the first time I visited I filled the bottom of my suitcase with fallen pineneedles, wanting to take the scent home with me. To this day, there is a faint aroma of the pines when I open my suitcase. Nyika is so changeable that even in October, the hottest month in Malawi, up on the plateau the fires are still lit.
So until my return, may all your days be scented with pine needles, and all your nights be painted with firelight.
Wednesday, 27 October 2010
Monday, 18 October 2010
My new favourite bird is a Puffin
I think it's fair to say I've seen a good number of birds in my time. Everything from the sparkly, flying jewels that are white-fronted bee-eaters, to the hunched undertaker shapes of vultures, to the amazing sight (and sound...and smell!) of well over one thousand yellow-billed storks at their nesting site. Even the aptly named Shoebill, which resides in a boggy swampland in northern Zambia and is the holy grail of many birders. Okay, okay, admittedly we saw it from two hundred yards away and at the first sight of us it took off and circled before disappearing into the beyond. But I saw it. Okay? I honestly did. Doesn't matter if it was nothing but a grey dot, I saw it. Not that I'm being definite about this, mind. But I SAW IT.
Anyway - I have seen lots and lots of birds on my various travels round the world.
But it took a four hour drive, followed by a ten minute boat ride, to really make me fall in love. Let me explain.
The teeny tiny island of Skomer is right on the southernmost, westernmost coast of Wales. Wonderful Man and I, given we were both on Gardening Leave (but let's not talk about Gardening Leave), had decided to take a trip - and he was desperate to show me the puffins. "You'll love them, Dills, honestly. They're the most brilliant birds ever." Really? Brillianter than a fish eagle in flight, than a Pel's fishing owl in mid-screech, than the iridescent shininess of a sunbird? Well, in a word, yes. They were.
We drove down to Wales in my stuttering Optimus Prime (more on his demise later) and stayed at a lovely bed and breakfast surrounded by fields of sheep. The village where we stayed, Marloes, had one pub, one restaurant, one church and was only four miles away from Martin's Haven, from where the boats departed.
And so it was that we found ourselves, queuing with a lot of other visitors brandishing binoculars and cameras, waiting to get on to the little fishing boat which would take us across to Skomer. I was a tad nervous. I'm not good at travel in boats or in planes at the best of times and the boat looked really quite small. Rather like a volkswagen beetle with a rudder. Wonderful Man was, well, wonderful, and kept reassuring me that we weren't going to hit rocks and sink, or tip over with the waves, that it was a lovely flat calm sea and that I'd really enjoy the ride. My fingernail marks in his hands slowly faded.
Off we set, put-putting our way out to the island, and, as he nearly always is, Wonderful Man was right. The ride was smooth and only took ten minutes. We walked up about ten million steps and were then let loose on Skomer. What an amazing place.
Criss-crossed by pathways, with a wild and desolate look, the island has no trees and is tiny, walkable in two hours. We set off for the far side, where we'd been told there was a puffin wheel. A puffin wheel? Yes, indeed. A puffin wheel is a formation of puffins in the sky, as they come in to land - much like the planes that circle London as they wait their turn to land at Heathrow.
The sight of a puffin landing is utterly comical. Let me try and describe it. In comes your puffin, looking rather streamlined, with his wings back. And then all of sudden, his wings flap out, his bright red feet shoot out to the side, and he lands, or rather tumbles over end upon end before coming to an undignified stop in a bit of a heap. He then gets up, shakes himself down as if to say "I meant to do that" and waddles off. Yes, waddles. That's another thing that they do.
I had positioned myself on the path, very close to the burrows that the puffins live in. Very quietly and carefully I'd found a burrow which had a puffin in it. Every few seconds, he'd emerge, fix me with a beady eye, and waddle off to a tump which had a bit of nesting material on it. He'd gather up a bit in his beak, and then make his way back into the burrow. Each time bending down to make sure he didn't bump his head. And each time he went back into his burrow I'd move forward a few inches. Out he'd come again (mind your head now) and fix me with a look, before gathering fluff again and disappearing back. I have to say it was utterly mesmerising. I couldn't keep my eyes off him. So much so that I sat there for nearly two hours. Never mind that the puffin probably had so much nesting material in his nest that he'd never see the back of it, but I was utterly transfixed. So much so that when Wonderful Man, fresh from taking approximately 500 photographs, gently suggested that we move away and have our packed lunch, I had to be prised off the path.
We then moved to a different area called The Wick, a massive, almost sheer cliff dotted with nesting seabirds - we saw manx shearwaters, razorbills, fulmars, kittiwakes and guillemots in incredible numbers - the fulmars with their bright white heads peeking out like chinks of light in the rock. Around the Wick there is a natural amphitheatre of curving rock which drops almost vertically down to the sea, creating a closely walled inlet, from where the puffins rise like phoenixes before coming in to land. It's an incredible sight.
And to make it even more beautiful, May, when we visited, is bluebell time. Swathes of blue and purple greeted us as we made our way on the little paths that criss-cross the island (to keep us away from the puffin burrows. Puffins don't like it when a hiking-booted foot descends into their burrows so the rule is enforced strictly to keep to the paths.)
Each corner we turned, there was something else to see - from the puffin wheel to the great black-backed gulls, each the size of a Tower of London raven. We had to be careful around these as they had a habit, a la Hitchcock's The Birds, of swooping down and pecking. The trick is to hold something above your head that you don't mind them having a go at. Hence one corner of Skomer Island is perpetually full of walkers holding newspapers, maps, rucksacks and even hats on walking sticks above their heads. And I thought the sight of a puffin coming in to land was funny!
If you have any sort of interest at all in birds, birding, the natural world or just looking at lovely things, visit Skomer Island. You'll leave with a huge smile on your face (and probably a bit of bird poo on your shoulder).
Anyway - I have seen lots and lots of birds on my various travels round the world.
But it took a four hour drive, followed by a ten minute boat ride, to really make me fall in love. Let me explain.
The teeny tiny island of Skomer is right on the southernmost, westernmost coast of Wales. Wonderful Man and I, given we were both on Gardening Leave (but let's not talk about Gardening Leave), had decided to take a trip - and he was desperate to show me the puffins. "You'll love them, Dills, honestly. They're the most brilliant birds ever." Really? Brillianter than a fish eagle in flight, than a Pel's fishing owl in mid-screech, than the iridescent shininess of a sunbird? Well, in a word, yes. They were.
We drove down to Wales in my stuttering Optimus Prime (more on his demise later) and stayed at a lovely bed and breakfast surrounded by fields of sheep. The village where we stayed, Marloes, had one pub, one restaurant, one church and was only four miles away from Martin's Haven, from where the boats departed.
And so it was that we found ourselves, queuing with a lot of other visitors brandishing binoculars and cameras, waiting to get on to the little fishing boat which would take us across to Skomer. I was a tad nervous. I'm not good at travel in boats or in planes at the best of times and the boat looked really quite small. Rather like a volkswagen beetle with a rudder. Wonderful Man was, well, wonderful, and kept reassuring me that we weren't going to hit rocks and sink, or tip over with the waves, that it was a lovely flat calm sea and that I'd really enjoy the ride. My fingernail marks in his hands slowly faded.
Off we set, put-putting our way out to the island, and, as he nearly always is, Wonderful Man was right. The ride was smooth and only took ten minutes. We walked up about ten million steps and were then let loose on Skomer. What an amazing place.
Criss-crossed by pathways, with a wild and desolate look, the island has no trees and is tiny, walkable in two hours. We set off for the far side, where we'd been told there was a puffin wheel. A puffin wheel? Yes, indeed. A puffin wheel is a formation of puffins in the sky, as they come in to land - much like the planes that circle London as they wait their turn to land at Heathrow.
The sight of a puffin landing is utterly comical. Let me try and describe it. In comes your puffin, looking rather streamlined, with his wings back. And then all of sudden, his wings flap out, his bright red feet shoot out to the side, and he lands, or rather tumbles over end upon end before coming to an undignified stop in a bit of a heap. He then gets up, shakes himself down as if to say "I meant to do that" and waddles off. Yes, waddles. That's another thing that they do.
I had positioned myself on the path, very close to the burrows that the puffins live in. Very quietly and carefully I'd found a burrow which had a puffin in it. Every few seconds, he'd emerge, fix me with a beady eye, and waddle off to a tump which had a bit of nesting material on it. He'd gather up a bit in his beak, and then make his way back into the burrow. Each time bending down to make sure he didn't bump his head. And each time he went back into his burrow I'd move forward a few inches. Out he'd come again (mind your head now) and fix me with a look, before gathering fluff again and disappearing back. I have to say it was utterly mesmerising. I couldn't keep my eyes off him. So much so that I sat there for nearly two hours. Never mind that the puffin probably had so much nesting material in his nest that he'd never see the back of it, but I was utterly transfixed. So much so that when Wonderful Man, fresh from taking approximately 500 photographs, gently suggested that we move away and have our packed lunch, I had to be prised off the path.
We then moved to a different area called The Wick, a massive, almost sheer cliff dotted with nesting seabirds - we saw manx shearwaters, razorbills, fulmars, kittiwakes and guillemots in incredible numbers - the fulmars with their bright white heads peeking out like chinks of light in the rock. Around the Wick there is a natural amphitheatre of curving rock which drops almost vertically down to the sea, creating a closely walled inlet, from where the puffins rise like phoenixes before coming in to land. It's an incredible sight.
And to make it even more beautiful, May, when we visited, is bluebell time. Swathes of blue and purple greeted us as we made our way on the little paths that criss-cross the island (to keep us away from the puffin burrows. Puffins don't like it when a hiking-booted foot descends into their burrows so the rule is enforced strictly to keep to the paths.)
Each corner we turned, there was something else to see - from the puffin wheel to the great black-backed gulls, each the size of a Tower of London raven. We had to be careful around these as they had a habit, a la Hitchcock's The Birds, of swooping down and pecking. The trick is to hold something above your head that you don't mind them having a go at. Hence one corner of Skomer Island is perpetually full of walkers holding newspapers, maps, rucksacks and even hats on walking sticks above their heads. And I thought the sight of a puffin coming in to land was funny!
If you have any sort of interest at all in birds, birding, the natural world or just looking at lovely things, visit Skomer Island. You'll leave with a huge smile on your face (and probably a bit of bird poo on your shoulder).
Saturday, 16 October 2010
Who has hijacked my blog?
Hello dear readers -
A plea to all of you - if anyone knows how to get rid of the twitter feed which seems, mysteriously, to have appeared at the top of my blog from someone called Dilly who is based in Singapore, please let me know.
And Dilly from Singapore, if you're reading this - remove your twitter feed from my blog!
Thank you.
A plea to all of you - if anyone knows how to get rid of the twitter feed which seems, mysteriously, to have appeared at the top of my blog from someone called Dilly who is based in Singapore, please let me know.
And Dilly from Singapore, if you're reading this - remove your twitter feed from my blog!
Thank you.
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