Video#11-; The Vangas ( Bias Musicus )

Although Vangas are rare  -  according to Newman’s ‘Birds of Southern Africa’ - we’re lucky enough to have a resident pair and see and hear them around our house almost every day.

This is probably because years ago a Frelimo co-operative who took over the old Magalhaes sawmill planted several eucalyptus trees and the taller the trees, the more the Vangas like them.  They seem to be the only birds we have that make their nests in these trees.

This, of course, makes them difficult to film and is a great strain on our neck muscles!

Since we’ve been watching the Vangas, we’ve noticed that they’ve only ever produced female offspring.  After the eggs have hatched (usually one egg, occasionally two) they fly around for a while with the little females and then they all disappear for a few weeks.  When they return, they return without their offspring and leave us wondering if they had taken them to Gorongosa to pair off with other Vangas there.

Although quite a small bird, the male Vanga can be very aggressive.  Once, when he felt threatened by a young hawk sitting on a nearby branch, he flew towards it with such terrific speed that the hawk actually fell off the branch with surprise.

This year in October, the Vangas attacked an African Emerald Cuckoo (Chrysococcyx caprius) that was visiting us for the summer.  As our pair of Forest weavers had also attacked the Cuckoo, it made a hasty departure and we haven’t seen it since.

We’ve never seen this particular Cuckoo before and at first O’D thought it was a Green-headed Oriole.  Wow!  How excited we were!  This Oriole is really, really rare.

Alas, closer scrutiny of the film in our camera showed us how wrong we were.

But, who knows?  Perhaps one day a Green-headed Oriole may well fly in to take advantage of the safety of our little forest …

Val.

To Watch Video Click the You Tube Link Below-:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFJiGCVn09M

Video#10-: A Visit To Mr Alberto

O’D and I have been growing indigenous trees for about eleven years now and have a project in mind of reforesting the Nhamacoa.

We recently formed a conservation association and one of our aims is to pay the local people to GROW indigenous trees instead of chopping them down and turning them into charcoal for money.

One of the people interested in growing indigenous trees (for money, of course) is Mr. Alberto, the local Frelimo Secretary and we spent a pleasant few hours visiting his home.  It was winter at the time and as the trees aren’t evergreen, the scenery was dry and rather bleak.

Some years back, Mr. Alberto had a rather scary experience with a woman called Nora Swete.  You’ll see her in our film about the local people.  She’s supposed to be possessed by a demon and has burnt down seven churches, as well as attacking our Gaz lorry with an enxada (hoe) and making a big hole in the windscreen. 

Well, anyway, apart from scaring the hell out of Sabao, our driver, Nora Swete also got hold of Mr. Alberto and, forcing him to kneel down in front of her, covered him from head to toe with salt in order to ‘purify’ him.  He ended up looking just like Lot’s wife, the one who turned into a pillar of salt in the Bible!  

Now back to forests.  In Mozambique, rural people only use firewood to cook their food.  They make charcoal to sell to people living in the towns and to supplement their incomes.  As there are very few trees left here in Manica Province, disaster appears to loom just around the corner.     

Although Mozambique has the Cahora Bassa hydroelectric dam on the Zambezi River, the majority of people do not and never will have electricity to cook their food or light up their homes at night.

Obviously, some other form of energy is urgently needed.  Unfortunately, our scientists are too busy writing books about why they think God doesn’t exist instead of trying to find a solution to what is going to be a very serious problem.

Val.

To Watch Video Click the You Tube Link Below-:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sQ0Eas8eIQ

Video#9-:The Queimadas

We have just come through that horrible and terrible time that the Mozambicans call the ‘Queimadas’ or the ‘Burnings’.

This is the time when the Mozambicans gleefully set fire to the entire countryside and burn everything to a crisp, and this often includes their fellow humans. Two years ago, they burnt fifty people to death. Young children were among the dead.

As these burnings take place at the end of winter and coincide with the breeding season, many young animals and birds too young to flee or fly are incinerated, leading to more extinction.

The excuse used for these burnings is that the fields are being cleared for planting. This, however, is not altogether true. Uncultivated areas of trees, grass and bush are often set alight in order to flush out animals and then to kill them with machetes or bows and arrows.

For the animals that do manage to survive, it’s a difficult time. Dislocated by the fires, they are also without food, as grass, leaves and seeds have all gone up in smoke.

The cost to the country must be enormous. In the past, I have seen several farm barns burnt down during the Queimadas, as well as a field of grazing for a herd of cattle. One of the houses we were renovating lost its roof during one of these fires and several of our workers’ huts were burnt down, along with their meagre possessions of sleeping mats, blankets, clothes and identity documents.

People involved in tourism lose their animals and the thick pall of smoke that hangs over us for weeks must surely be much more of a threat of lung cancer than smoking cigarettes.

There is never compensation for these losses.

This year, people set fire to our little forest three times.

One of the fires along our eastern boundary was particularly dangerous despite our firebreaks and it took Douglas and our workers over three hours to put out, using water from a little stream. If the stream had been dry, our trees would have turned into an inferno and during the ensuing chaos, our animals would have fled straight into the waiting machetes of the hunters.

As far as I’m concerned, the Queimadas are an abomination and should be regarded as a crime against nature.

Val.

To Watch Video; Please the click the You Tube Link Below-:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U2MY6LtKTM