Post by cabintom on Sept 11, 2016 15:11:02 GMT
In late July, my wife and I hopped onto a couple of moto-taxis with a week's worth of luggage and all of my butterfly gear in tow. We drove the 1.5hrs from Bunia to Nyankunde the day before our flight to Nebobongo (2°27'N, 27°37'E; 700-800m asl), mostly out of spite towards the Congolese government, but also because it ends up being cheaper and a whole lot less stressful flying out of the MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) airport than out of Bunia's airport. $20 for taxis + $20 for a night's stay at the Samaritan's Purse guesthouse + a half day's worth of great collecting in pristine savannah, far outweighs (and is cheaper than) dealing with unpredictable and greedy government officials and having to pay them $60 in "airport tax" just for the "privilege" of using their airport.
The flight, the following morning, left Nyankunde shortly after 7am and after a short 15min hop we landed in Bunia and were promptly told we needed to get off the plane and wait in the lobby. It seems that some important person had died and MAF had been commandeered to take the body up to the village for the funeral. We waited a few hours at the airport for the plane to return... almost exactly what we had been hoping to avoid. Once the plane had returned I helped load every available nook and cranny with medical aid supplies destined for South Sudanese refugees in the Faradje area... I didn't need to do this, but I don't mind being helpful and the sooner we got everything packed away, the sooner we could get up in the air.
Arriving at Faradje, it became apparent that a heavy storm had blown through the night before. The dirt airstrip was littered with puddles and there was no telling how soft the ground had become... after 3 low fly-bys/aborted landings we gingerly touched down and came to a stop with only a bit of hydroplaning. This was fortunate, because every kilo of baggage and body weight matters when you're flying these small planes, and we really needed to offload the medical supplies in order to not have any further major delays.
After a moment's scare, where the pilot worried that the plane might have sunk into the mud, we took off and headed for Dungu. In Dungu, we received more passengers and luggage than expected. Normally you'd think that airlines aren't supposed to act like city transit, picking up anyone and everyone they can at each stop, but when there's only a single flight every few weeks that's exactly what happens. Now, the next scheduled stop was ours, at Nebobongo, but with all the extra weight we wouldn't be able to safely land on the short 750m strip that's been slashed out of the dense forest. So, we quickly landed in Isiro (formerly known as Paulis) and made all the new folk disembark. Then, finally, the last 30 minute jump down to our vacation destination.
In the end, what should have taken a couple hours took us the better part of 9 hours... and yet, I've come to expect this sort of thing when traveling around this country.
The Nebobongo mission station was at first the site of a leper colony, but has since evolved into a full fledged general hospital. The area has long been inhabited by pygmies known as the Mbuti, but thanks to the presence of the hospital, and a perception of available employment, this particular town has seen a recent population explosion. It had been 2 years since my last visit and I was impressed by the amount of forest that had been cleared by people setting up their own family agricultural enterprises... some for basic daily sustenance, others to produce goods destined for local markets. There's no big international commerce in the area at the moment, and yet the environmental impact was disheartening... at the same time, people need to feed their families and we can't fault them for that. (Actually, malnutrition is a big problem in the area.)
Anyways, even though much of the week ended up being rainy, when the sun came out I would rush the couple kilometers out to where true primary forest is found and experience the great collecting the Congolese rainforest has to offer.
Fortunately for us, on 25/vii my wife insisted on joining me for one of these "hikes" and when she got bored of swinging a net, she pulled out the camera and started snapping pictures instead. Please excuse the quality, neither of us are photographers.
Cymothoe caenis
Was very common the week we were there. I collected a nice range of the female forms. This migratory species is a welcome sight when it stops by the area as it heralds the start of "caterpillar season", an important source of extra protein in the local diet.
Aterica galene
A common forest species. This is the typical position for a perched male.
Either Telchinia alciope (or) Telchinia aurivillii
These two species form a "dual species" and it would require a dissection to positively ID this individual.
Euphaedra (Euphaedrana) ueleana
Even though my wife didn't tell me she spotted this one, I did managed to snag a couple of them. (She started getting a bit competitive about snapping pictures before I could catch the insect.)
Bebearia sp.
At first, from a distance, I had mistaken it for the common Euphaedra harpylace spatiosa. Fortunately, it hung around for quite a while and I was able to rectify my mistake.
Some ants that took an interest in my backpack which I had set down alongside the trail. Surprisingly they were harmless.
Does anyone know what this might be?
Going off trail is not generally recommended, but I seem to have caught something interesting. Also, my net handle, which had become jammed with 2 sections no longer extending, miraculously began working perfectly after the flight. Maybe all that vibration knocked the mechanisms loose?
It's a male Acraea (Bematistes) umbra/macaria macarioides! Strangely, I'm fairly certain about the subspecies ID, but it's the species ID that's got me confused. I usually rely on Bernaud's acraea.com for IDing these species, but in some places he's got it under umbra and in others under macaria.
The flight, the following morning, left Nyankunde shortly after 7am and after a short 15min hop we landed in Bunia and were promptly told we needed to get off the plane and wait in the lobby. It seems that some important person had died and MAF had been commandeered to take the body up to the village for the funeral. We waited a few hours at the airport for the plane to return... almost exactly what we had been hoping to avoid. Once the plane had returned I helped load every available nook and cranny with medical aid supplies destined for South Sudanese refugees in the Faradje area... I didn't need to do this, but I don't mind being helpful and the sooner we got everything packed away, the sooner we could get up in the air.
Arriving at Faradje, it became apparent that a heavy storm had blown through the night before. The dirt airstrip was littered with puddles and there was no telling how soft the ground had become... after 3 low fly-bys/aborted landings we gingerly touched down and came to a stop with only a bit of hydroplaning. This was fortunate, because every kilo of baggage and body weight matters when you're flying these small planes, and we really needed to offload the medical supplies in order to not have any further major delays.
After a moment's scare, where the pilot worried that the plane might have sunk into the mud, we took off and headed for Dungu. In Dungu, we received more passengers and luggage than expected. Normally you'd think that airlines aren't supposed to act like city transit, picking up anyone and everyone they can at each stop, but when there's only a single flight every few weeks that's exactly what happens. Now, the next scheduled stop was ours, at Nebobongo, but with all the extra weight we wouldn't be able to safely land on the short 750m strip that's been slashed out of the dense forest. So, we quickly landed in Isiro (formerly known as Paulis) and made all the new folk disembark. Then, finally, the last 30 minute jump down to our vacation destination.
In the end, what should have taken a couple hours took us the better part of 9 hours... and yet, I've come to expect this sort of thing when traveling around this country.
The Nebobongo mission station was at first the site of a leper colony, but has since evolved into a full fledged general hospital. The area has long been inhabited by pygmies known as the Mbuti, but thanks to the presence of the hospital, and a perception of available employment, this particular town has seen a recent population explosion. It had been 2 years since my last visit and I was impressed by the amount of forest that had been cleared by people setting up their own family agricultural enterprises... some for basic daily sustenance, others to produce goods destined for local markets. There's no big international commerce in the area at the moment, and yet the environmental impact was disheartening... at the same time, people need to feed their families and we can't fault them for that. (Actually, malnutrition is a big problem in the area.)
Anyways, even though much of the week ended up being rainy, when the sun came out I would rush the couple kilometers out to where true primary forest is found and experience the great collecting the Congolese rainforest has to offer.
Fortunately for us, on 25/vii my wife insisted on joining me for one of these "hikes" and when she got bored of swinging a net, she pulled out the camera and started snapping pictures instead. Please excuse the quality, neither of us are photographers.
Cymothoe caenis
Was very common the week we were there. I collected a nice range of the female forms. This migratory species is a welcome sight when it stops by the area as it heralds the start of "caterpillar season", an important source of extra protein in the local diet.
Aterica galene
A common forest species. This is the typical position for a perched male.
Either Telchinia alciope (or) Telchinia aurivillii
These two species form a "dual species" and it would require a dissection to positively ID this individual.
Euphaedra (Euphaedrana) ueleana
Even though my wife didn't tell me she spotted this one, I did managed to snag a couple of them. (She started getting a bit competitive about snapping pictures before I could catch the insect.)
Bebearia sp.
At first, from a distance, I had mistaken it for the common Euphaedra harpylace spatiosa. Fortunately, it hung around for quite a while and I was able to rectify my mistake.
Some ants that took an interest in my backpack which I had set down alongside the trail. Surprisingly they were harmless.
Does anyone know what this might be?
Going off trail is not generally recommended, but I seem to have caught something interesting. Also, my net handle, which had become jammed with 2 sections no longer extending, miraculously began working perfectly after the flight. Maybe all that vibration knocked the mechanisms loose?
It's a male Acraea (Bematistes) umbra/macaria macarioides! Strangely, I'm fairly certain about the subspecies ID, but it's the species ID that's got me confused. I usually rely on Bernaud's acraea.com for IDing these species, but in some places he's got it under umbra and in others under macaria.