So, to take over where Danie left off....
As the more scientific half of the couple, I'm always the more interested in the numbers of any project we pursue. And as with any collection of data on sightings of different species, you would expect our sightings to follow a pretty predictable pattern: specifically, you'd expect the most sightings on the first few days, as you cross off the more common species, with the numbers of species seen per day dwindling pretty steadily after that.
As a result, if you plot the total numbers of birds seen to date on each day (a cumulative sightings graph), you'd expect to see a nice curved line that increases sharply at first, before gradually slowing down, until it almost become a horizontal line (an asymptote).
And that's exactly what our numbers do, albeit with a rather sharp bend in the curve as we approached the 100-mark...
But soon it'll be the summer, and the rainy season, and with that comes a swathe of new species to be seen: seasonal migrants from Europe, as well as waders, ducks and geese.
Day 4 sightings were fairly numerous still, and included a couple of shy residents from our garden (the two owls) as well as a real surprise in Etosha (the stork!).
19 July 2014
53. White stork (Etosha)
54. Dusky sunbird (Etosha)
56. Red-capped lark (Etosha)
57. Red-crested korhaan (Etosha)
58. Chestnut-backed sparrow lark (Etosha)
59. Little Grebe (Etosha)
60. Southern White-faced Owl (Vreugde)
61. African Scops Owl (Vreugde)
More tomorrow...
Rachel
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