Birds of Bubye

Birding in Zimbabwe's Bubye Valley Conservancy

- By Wesley Gush

Northern Kruger. The name alone is enough to make many birders get that faraway look in their eyes. But what lies north of the north? If you were to cross the mighty Limpopo River you may come across one of its tributaries, the Bubye. This seasonal watercourse separates the provinces of Masvingo and Matabeleland South in South Africa's neighbour, Zimbabwe. Carry on up the Bubye and your path would take you under the road that runs from the Beit Bridge border post to the capital city of Harare. Here, the once-grand Lion & Elephant Hotel still stands. West of this, in the upper reaches of Zimbabwe's lowveld, is the largely pristine wilderness of the Bubye Valley Conservancy.

For the two years between 2017 and 2019 this was my office: a lowveld oasis of 340 000 hectares in southern Zimbabwe where I worked as a wildlife researcher. For a young birder from the Eastern Cape, it was a paradise of diversity I was unaccustomed to, in terms of both novelty and breadth. The unfamiliar soon became familiar: dawn choruses led stridently by Crested Francolins and Swainson’s Spurfowl, the local Whitebrowed Robin-chat delivering pitch- perfect mimicry of its neighbours…