Namibia sand dunes at Sossusvlei

The "Namib Sand Sea" is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed 2013. The Namib Sand Sea lies along the arid African coast of the South Atlantic lying wholly within Namibia’s Namib-Naukluft Park. The UNESCO page says :

We were staying at the Sossusvlei Lodge. We had to leave early at 7.15 am to join the queue of vehicles to get a ticket to enter the Namib-Naukluft national park. The permit had been bought last evening. Then we drove into the park, past the airstrip and stopped to watch the sunrise.

There was a solitary hot air balloon flying. We saw some oryx and 2 black backed jackals by the road. The vegetation was tall dune grass,  and bushman short grass which is just trimmed by the grazers, they don’t pull up the grass. There was good rain last rainy season, unlike the previous 2-3 years, so the grass is still good.

The dunes here are the tallest in the world, in places rising more than 300 m above the desert floor. Dunes are formed from 5 million year old sand accumulated by the Orange River from the Kalahari Desert.  We stopped by a dry river and this tree for photos of Dune No 1. My legs grew in the early morning light!

Also stopped by Dune 58 for photos -

Saw Dune No 7 which is the highest in the neighbourhood at 388 m. Dune 45 is the most accessible and there were lots of people climbing. It is 45 km from the gate and is over 170 m tall -

We drove further to a car park where we transferred to 4WD having first queued for the non-flushable loo.

The 4WDs took us across the Sossusvlei sand, between Big Mama Dune on our right and Big Daddy Dune (800 m) on our left. We then split up, some of us chose to climb the dune. At the bottom we saw lots of tracks, some maybe springbok. 

Mesembryanthemum guerichianum, ice plant, native to Namibia and South Africa

The approach to the dune, over the white clay pan -

The dune with human ants crawling up the right hand side -

A hardy flower -

The climb up wasn’t too bad. It is 325 m but we went nowhere near the top. Good views down onto the pan.

We stopped here to allow everyone to catch up. 

It's a long way down this steep slope -

So when our guide said we were going down this steep slope, we all thought he was joking. But he wasn't. The idea was to just dig your heels in and go, allowing the shoes to completely fill with sand. It was a long way and initially didn’t seem to get shorter, but once committed you had to continue. After a while it was actually quite easy and fun.

Looking back up -

This photos gives a better perspective of the height and length of the slope we descended -

This video taken by Lynn shows a few of us coming down -

and this one shows our youngest member running down -

At the bottom, Deadvlei, we emptied our shoes, thankfully the sand was dry and not sticky like sand on the beach, so came out of the shoes and socks quite easily. We then went to see the salt pan, with the 100+ year old dead trees. They died when the water disappeared but don’t rot in the climate.

Sossusvlei is a salt and clay pan surrounded by high red dunes in the southern part of the Namib Desert. Sossus is no return or dead end, vlei is marsh, now clay pan.  We then made our way back, it was a bit of a slog, and nice when we could walk on the harder dry salt and clay.

Back at the car park, we had to wait for a vehicle, so I took photos of a weavers nest -

acacia pods

We were lucky and got on open jeep so it was a nice drive and we saw 2 ory,. The oryx is Namibia's national animal. 

We then made our way back the same way, saw a large group of Springbok. Stopped to take photos of the UNESCO World Heritage sign, for the salt sea.

Birds in Namibia

 I am not a birder and I have very limited knowledge of birds. On a trip to Namibia I was pleasantly surprised by the number of birds everywhere. It was really nice to see.

Here are a few that I managed to shoot with a compact digital camera.

We had an overnight stop at Lapa Lange Game Lodge in the Kalahari Basin. The watering hole had lots of birds around. The first birds I saw were these running around the lawn, they look just like mallards from home -

The water hole --

Grey heron

These also look like Aylesbury ducks from home -

Southern Red Bishops. I took lots of photos of the red males in the reeds but had to delete almost all as they were not good. Even the one I've included here doesn't show the bird clearly.

The red-knobbed coots had chicks. There was a lot of cheeping from the reeds and every so often the chicks would appear. Apparently the red knobs are only present in the breeding season. 

Birds sitting amongst the thorns -

Maybe a Marico flycatcher

From here we moved south. As we drove along, I saw lots of weaver nests in the trees and then the most impressive - the nest of the sociable weaver. This is like a village. 

From Wikipedia "The sociable weaver (Philetairus socius) is a species of bird in the weaver family, endemic to Southern Africa, found in South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana. The species builds large, compound, community nests, a rarity among birds. These nests are perhaps the most spectacular structure built by any bird. These nests are amongst the largest built by any bird, and are large enough to house over 100 pairs of birds, containing several generations at a time. The nests are highly structured and provide birds with a more advantageous temperature relative to the outside. The central chambers retain heat and are used for night time roosting. The outer rooms are used for daytime shade, with little temperature variation compared to outside. Each pair occupies a separate chamber."

Looks like bees are living here as well -

Another sociable weaver nest - 

At the next lodge we stayed, Sossusvlei Lodge, Sossusvlei, these helmeted guineafowl were wandering around, although we did see others elsewhere.

The nearby Sesriem Canyon has a lot of conglomerate rock with lots of holes and these are used by speckled pigeon and rock martins. 

Saw these nests and bird sitting amongst the thorns at Solitaire. It may be a scaly weaver.

Finally saw some ostriches, although they were quite far away. Ostriches are the heaviest and largest living birds, they lay the largest eggs of any living land animal and when running are the fastest birds on land. In Namibia they are the Common Ostrich. 

From Swakopmund, we went on a cruise from Walvis Bay. There were hundreds of cape cormorants flying overhead. 

We saw lots of Cape fur seals and we were lucky as humpback whales also made an appearance. After a while the guide appeared with a bucket of fish and started whistling to attract Kelp gulls.

We had a delicious lunch onboard and then the highlight for me was when a great white pelican arrived on the deck. It was a gorgeous bird and hopped around hoping for some fish. I was surprised how soft its feathers were.

Cape cormorants

As we drove back to Swakopmund, we saw this area of the sand that was cordoned off as the Damara terns breed here. The single egg in the nest in the sand is preyed on by jackals and circling kestrels and crows. Also human visitors doing off road driving and riding horses are also threats.

From Swakopmund we headed up the coast and stopped at the Zeila wreck. She was a seafood trawler, then decommissioned and was being towed to India for scrap in 2008, but the tow rope broke. As the engine had been removed the wreck was left in place. Now White breasted and Cape cormorants are living on it.

We went onto the Cape Cross seal colony where an estimated 200,000 cape fur seals live. I absolutely loved this place and took dozens of photos. There were quite a few gulls amongst the seals. Kelp gulls  are known to peck out the eyes of seal pups.

Other birds seen -

Pale winged starling -

The ostrich colours blend into the landscape of the dry grass -

A zoom in of a cape crow on its nest -

Pied crows -

Kori bustards in the grass. They are the national bird of neighbouring Botswana. They are also the heaviest and largest flying bird native to Africa.

Black korhaan -

Double-banded courser

Weaver & nest -

Marabou stork by a water hole -

There are some chicks in the grass to the right of the parents, just 2 little heads are visible in this photo -

Another sociable weaver nest -

Flamingos, pelicans, egrets at Mount Etjo Safari Lodge -

Looking into the sun at a Southern pale chanting goshawk. We saw a lot of these birds during our stay but this was the only photo I got -

The lappet-faced vulture -

Egyptian geese hurriedly swimming away from the jeep -

I particularly wanted a photo of the southern yellow-billed hornbill , but I think these photos are of the red-billed hornbills -

Burchell's starling is beautiful when the sun catches its iridescent blue-green to purple feathers -

yellow billed stork

southern masked weaver nest

A list of some of the birds I saw. There are 13 near endemic birds in Namibia, and 1 true endemic, the Dune lark.

Bustards Kori - heaviest flying bird in SA

Cape Crows 

Pied crows

Red bishop

Weavers

Sociable weaver nests

White collar sparrow weaver nests, have 2 entrances, 1 for emergency

Southern masked weaver – a type of snake climbs for its eggs

scaly-feathered-weaver

red knobbed coots

grey herons

Northern black korhaan

Rüppell's korhaan aka Rüppell's bustard – native to Namibia, / near endemic 

Sand grouse

White faced duck

Fiscal shrike – common fiscal

Southern pale chanting goshawk - SPCG

Rock martins

Familiar chat

Mountain chat or mountain wheatear

speckled pigeon

Lappet-faced vulture

White faced vulture

Pale-winged starling

Southern grey-backed sparrow-lark aka grey-backed finch lark

Cape cormorant

Kelp Atlantic gulls

Eastern White Pelican aka Great White Pelican

Damara tern nests – near endemic

Grey back sparrows lark

Ostrich 

Yellow hornbill

African grey billed hornbill

Red billed hornbill

Lapwing

Double banded Courser

Ground plover

Fork tailed drongo

Lilac crested roller

red billed quelea

Marico flycatcher

Marabou stork

African short tailed eagle

yellow backed babbler

Arrow marked babblers

Cape turtle dove

Helmeted guinea fowl aka Gov’t chickens

Grey go away bird, grey louri

African spoonbill

Egyptian goose 

Burchell’s starling

flamingo

Red billed francolin

Yellow billed stork

Long tailed shrike

 

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