The Sao Tome Spinetail

Living near the airport now, we've developed the habit of going for late afternoon walks along the dirt roads near the airstrip. The sun sets consistently early on Principe it seems, around 5.30pm, so 5pm is a great time to watch the birds which feed in flight, swooping through the air and speeding along just above ground. Keeping to themselves the Grey Parrots fly up high, on their way home to Bom Bom Island.

An unusual thing about Principe is that the Little Swift and the Sao Tome Spinetail, sometimes called the Sao Tome Spine-tailed Swift, fly together in mixed groups while feeding. Both birds are black-brown with a white rump and for a novice birder the mixed groups had me stumped for while. Though with this information I'm starting to see the subtle differences between them, the smaller size of the Little Swift for one. The Sao Tome Spinetail itself only measures around 10cm, small for the boomerang winged species. As an aside, the name  Spinetail originates from the spine tipped ends of their wings.To confuse my identification skills a bit more, the Little Swift looks superficially similar to the Barn Swallow, which also occur here and their flying style is fluttery and similar.So the Sao Tome Spinetail has my interest at the moment, as I learn to distinguish it from other similar species in the air but one thing is for sure though, they are too swift for my camera.

Our new home

We've been in our 'park home' around one month now and having the extra space is wonderful. Zachary is back in his own room again and we have a lounge and diningroom to watch tv in and a table to eat at, which all feels much more civilised. It took nearly six months for our accomodation to get sorted out, which is a long, long time for a family to squash into one hotel room. Anyway, we are much happier now and are in the process of ironing out the difficulties in settling into our new home. With the heavy rains of late, water seems to be oozing out of our flooring and running in through unsealed little spaces around the aircon units, making us quite concerned. Thankfully, today and yesterday have been sunny.

I have just spoken to one of the guys in charge of sorting out the housing and have shown him the leaks and drips in the house, so hopefully we will see some solutions soon. Also Brian and Jeanette, Mark's colleagues, are waiting for various items and fittings for their house and I discussed those with him too. Their house is taking so long to get finished and they are as frustrated as we were before we moved in. Some fast solutions would be such a relief for both them and us

Tomatoes?

Now that it is raining again after the dry gravana season, the market is full of beautiful ripe tomatoes, which I have missed. Back home, any time of the year, I'd pop down to my local 'Spar' shop and pick up a tub of lovely ripe Rosa tomatoes or hand select some large tomatoes from the baskets. Here, tomatoes or anything for that matter, aren't always available when you want them. For a Durban city girl, this has inspired a subtle sense of some sort of panic around supplies and food. So, yesterday while in town waiting in the car for Mark, I saw a young girl, about age ten, walking with a big plastic container of ripe tomatoes on her head. In a mad moment I had gestured to her to come over to my side of the car and so the negation began, immediately I started having second thoughts. How was I going to communicate with her, my Portuguese is coming on, but it is very patchy and the other thing is the crazy money they have here (and the long total described in Portuguese is quite something). In the shops I get the cashier to show me the total of my shop on the computer or calculator screen (the two main shops have those!) or get the stalls to write on paper, but pen-less in my car, all we had to work with was language. The other complicating factor was that I only had a 100, 000 dobra note with me, which is about R50 and no other change or money for the negotiations. Since vegetables are extremely expensive here, I figured that wouldn't actually get me many tomatoes, maybe a kilogram or so, but I was wrong. With tomatoes now in season, the price has dropped. Anyway, so I tried to communicate with my large dobra note, asking how many tomatoes could I get for the note. The girl did not understand me, so she tried to explain how the tomatoes are sold - only in kilograms it turned out - but I didn't get it. Eventually, helpless and chuckling, we looked around and found a builder walking towards us on the pavement and gestured him over. He worked out what was going on and wrote in the mud on the side of the bakkie what he thought we could do. Anyway, in the end it was a case of either I buy three kilos of tomatoes or no tomatoes because the girl only had 40, 000 change. I went with the three kilos and today I have been making and bottling tomatoe chutney and tomatoe passata to preserve them for when there are none. I feel quite proud of my efforts.

The mancut

My husband must be the world's most squirmy haircut victim and that means I'm comparing him to Zachary... We have been married for seven years and until this sunny afternoon, he has never let me near his hair with scissors or a shaver, but with no alternative and his hair like an untrimmed hedge, he relented and let me at it. Sitting on a small stool in the bathroom, he squirmed and complained as I attempted to negotiate the shaver, its length settings and his thick hair. Starting off with a number 1 at the neckline turned out to be a mistake, but as the haircut progressed it seemed to improve and he conceeded that it was actually a pretty good job in the end, which I agree with. It also beats the last one, which was in Sáo Tome at a local barber shop. That was an experience which included a shaver set on number 2, a very shabby, dirty shop, a crowd bantering in Portuguese and a barber who looked as nervous as I felt this afternoon, in his case at the prospect of cutting non-ethnic hair! Dispite Mark exclaiming, "I'm getting that same feeling that I do when I'm a passenger and you're driving", at some point during my trim, I reckon he'll opt for me next time and not the local barber's dirty shears!

Whale season

Gravana season or the dry season, is also Whale watching time. The water temperature drops attracting Marlin - and their wealthy fishermen - as well as Whales, which play and splash just off the coast lines of Bom Bom. Everyday when Zachary and I walk along the beaches I keep an eye on the horizon hoping to spot another Whale. Zachary has cottoned on to the fuss around spotting Whales and often shouts ,"Whales", when he looks up from drawing in the sand toward the sea.

This is our 5th month at Bom Bom and as lovely as it is, I'm now more than ready to make a home and move from our 4 star hotel room. I'm so looking forward to more space and settling into my own routine. Cooking is going to be a challenge due to the lack of a variety of ingredients, but, I have missed choosing our meals and cooking up something to look forward to. I think we might end up going a bit vegetarian, much to Marks dismay!

A novice's birding part two: Birding with a point and shoot digital camera

So far in my research about birding, I've picked up the distinction between bird watching in a garden environment and wild bird watching. Here at the resort I probably fall more into the second category and am finding it particularly tricky to successfully photograph the birds I'm seeing. Though a rambunctious 23 month old toddling behind me probably also adds to the wildness of the wild birds! Another interesting point about bird watching is that photographing the birds you spot is optional, but to me - the beginning birder, birding includes getting a picture. Funnily enough when reading a few birding blogs on the internet it seems this debate is just it. For the new generation of birders, photography is often the starting point and draw card to birding and then goes on to form an integral part of the hobby. Perhaps its the internet revolution and having something to share on facebook or your blog, which a tick on a list doesn't satisfy. A good link for more thoughts on that is: http://birdingblogs.com/2011/Gunnar/the-future-of-birding Further reading enlightened me to the notion that beginning birders are meant to start with binoculars, but with no particular guidance shaping my interest, I am just walking around and seeing what I see. Investing in binoculars doesn't appeal to me at this point as generally binoculars don't capture your bird sightings

At the moment I'm using a Cannon Powershot A610 to take a few snap shots and its high time for an upgrade. I'm hoping to get a bit more into my new hobby and so have been looking into cameras recommended for birding, as my husband and I are about to upgrade cameras anyway. I can suggest the following link http://birding.com.co/birding-with-a-point-shoot-camera/ for information on birding with a point and shoot (P&S) digital camera. This link shows some impressive photos with a P&S camera and gives me hope!

One of the main differences between a DSLR (Digital Single Lense Reflex, a camera body with interchangeable lenses) and a P&S, for the novice birder, is price. DSLR's offer better image quality making this one of the drawbacks of P&S cameras but, it seems that P&S's have come a long way in this area. Useful points I've come across to think about when buying a P&S to bird with, are: considering the length of zoom (this does not seem a problem for most good quality P&S's), fast-focus ability - as birds don't stick around for long and being able to take good photos in low light conditions. The convenience of a small sized P&S camera is a bonus. At this point in my research, Cannons often come out on top in various blogs and website discussions I've found, which sits well with my husband who is a Cannon fan! But that's as far as I've got with this, I will have to blog further when we have some Cannon candidates and prices.

Mark Shuttleworth's arrival

We've been here on Principe for more than 3 months now and are still living at the usually 'chilled' Bom Bom Island Resort. This weekend, however, there is quite a buzz around the resort. Mark Shuttleworth and his team are here for a few days to have a look at the various projects and developments he has initiated on the island. My husband is showing him around the airport construction site right now as I blog. Everything has been spruced up for his arrival and thankfully my husband's office has been finished this week and is usable. The main office structure has been there since we arrived, but installing air-conditioning, lighting, wifi, and painting and tiling has taken all of three months. Leve-leve (step by step/slowly, slowly) as the locals say.  Things happen at island pace here...