The birds of Namuli, northern Mozambique: retracing Vincent's footsteps

by Peter Ryan, Claire Spottiswoode, Vincent Parker, John Graham, Callan Cohen and Carlos Bento, from Bulletin of the African Bird Club, volume 6.2, September 1999.

Mozambique has been off-limits to birders for much of the last two decades due to the civil war that wracked the country following independence. Even prior to this unrest, the poor infrastructure and reputation for diseases deterred all but the most intrepid explorers from venturing much into its interior. As a result, parts of Mozambique are among the ornithologically least known areas in Africa. This is especially true of the area between the Zambezi River and Tanzania, where most of our knowledge of the region's birds dates back to Jack Vincent's epic collecting trip of 1931-32 [5].

Vincent sought to establish the boundary between the avifaunas of southern and eastern Africa, and was especially keen to work in montane forests. The highlight of his trip was a visit to Mount Namuli, the highest mountain in northern Mozambique, where he collected two new bird species: Namuli Apalis Apalis lynesi and Dapplethroat Arcanator orostruthus. Dapplethroat has since been discovered in the East Usumbara and Udzungwa Mountains of Tanzania, but the apalis is unknown elsewhere and is Mozambique's only endemic bird. Both are classified as Vulnerable [1].

Namuli Apalis Apalis (thoracica) lynesi (Claire Spottiswoode & Callan Cohen)

Other species of global conservation concern found by Vincent at Namuli include Thyolo Alethe Alethe choloensis, restricted to 15 forests in southern Malawi and northern Mozambique, and the belcheri race of Green Barbet Stactolaema olivacea, found only at Thyolo and Namuli. As a result, the forest at Namuli was ranked =37th of 76 important forests in a review of the key forests for threatened birds in the Afrotropical and Malagasy regions [2]. Namuli scored higher than Uganda's Impenetrable Forest and Kenya's Kakamega Forest, both of which have been the subject of considerable study and conservation attention. It is thus amazing that no birders have visited Namuli since Vincent's expedition, to check on the status of the forests and their birds.

Moves to rectify this were initiated by Keith Barnes in 1997 but had to be shelved due to a lack of suitable vehicles. It was only in November 1998 that the expedition could finally take place, with Keith sadly left behind because of conflicting commitments. The joy of 'rediscovering' Namuli was left to the six authors of this article.

Getting to Namuli
Much of the interior of northern Mozambique consists of a relatively level plateau at 700-800 m. The extensive massif of Namuli rises to 1,600 m above the plateau; the area above 1,200 m measures 50 x 30 km. It lies c160 km east of Mulanje, a large montane block in south-east Malawi, and the easiest access is from that country. By road, it is just 180 km from the Mozambique border at Milanje to Gurué, at the southern edge of the Namuli massif. The road is gravel, but has been rebuilt recently and one could easily travel it in a few hours. Birders will have trouble concentrating on the road, however, as it passes through large tracts of near-pristine miombo woodland with occasional dambos. We were single-minded about reaching Namuli, but the one dambo we checked held 10 Blue Quail Coturnix adansonii as well as Harlequin Quail C. delegorguei, Kurrichane Button-Quail Turnix sylvatica, Dwarf Bittern Ixobrychus sturmii, Black Coucal Centropus grillii and African Grass Owl Tyto capensis. Imagine what they must hold once the rainy season starts!

Gurué is a regional centre, once famous for having the most extensive tea estates in the Southern Hemisphere. The town is slowly being rebuilt following the civil war, and the tea estates are being brought back into production. We visited the local administrator to present our credentials (CB had an impressive sheaf of official letters from Maputo to ease our way through the local bureaucracy), but we did not linger. Although the Serra Maifi, at the south edge of the Namuli massif, looms more than 1,000 m above the town, little natural vegetation remains on its slopes. Only a small, remnant forest patch clings to the near-vertical slopes above the town waterworks. This does support Namuli Apalis and many of the other forest birds, but it is not easy to work and entails a stiff climb to even reach it. Birders wanting to visit the area are better advised to concentrate on the much larger forests near the main peak.

Mt. Namuli, the highest point of the massif, at 2,412 m, is a spectacular granite dome c12 km north-east of Gurué. Vincent worked its southern slopes in 1932, and we targeted this area for study. Topographical maps marked a track leading east from Gurué and thence between the Serra Maifi and Serra Merrece. Our enquiries at the Monte Branco tea estate produced conflicting reports as to the state of this road, but it proved not to be as bad as feared, and was being upgraded during our visit. Beyond the pass, the road contours along the gentle slopes of the Malema river valley. Bearing left at the first fork brings one to a rickety bridge over the river (look for Half-collared Kingfisher Alcedo semitorquata here and a spectacular roost of fruit bats on the nearby cliffs). From here it's only a few kilometres to another bridge (even more precarious than the first) at the foot of the main peak. This is a fine camping spot, within an hour's walk of Ukalini Forest.

We couldn't help but compare our trip with that undertaken by Vincent. We had made the trip from the Malawi border to the base of Mt. Namuli in a single day. Vincent took weeks to manoeuvre his vehicles to within 50 miles of the mountain, and then set off with a team of 42 porters to walk the rest of the way. En route his camp was raided by man-eating Lions Panthera leo, which had killed 20 people in the preceding three weeks. When he finally reached the mountain, the porters went on strike, and Vincent faced the uncertain prospect of being marooned at Namuli [4]. His exploits made our trip appear simple, but we still experienced considerable satisfaction at having finally reached the goal of Vincent's travels.