We're be ticking like Bustards

On arrival at Garoua we drove to Maroua and set about the task of ordering some baguettes to eat, a tried and tested French food product that requires little skill or indeed time to prepare. An executive decision was made to have plain Cheese baguettes made up some for now, some for later in the field plus someone who for reasons of security decided to have tomato as well!!!! A good hour and a half or so passed until eventually like a group of lost and tired long distance runners from a marathon , the historically ordered baguettes arrived, all 20 of them complete with tomato. Therein followed a ceremonial tomato de picking event that left the majority of their neatly placed tomato in the bin !!! Who wanted tomato !!!

Finally we set sail in the good ship minibus heading to ticksville and beyond. Within a few hours of birding the North one of the quarry species was found, a species I'd longed to see having missed them in Ethiopia, African Swallow-tailed Kite, and they were every bit as good as I expected them to be, both upper parts and underparts, a fantastic looking raptor. Once in position at the roadside stop we wandered as a group across the desert and scrub to an area where we were informed, the Holy Grail of North Cameroon lived........................ QUAIL PLOVER and within ten minutes or so of searching one was found, then another and following an individual to it's chosen spot of rest we papped it, 100's of shots must have been fired of this cracking little bird, a must see species that posed and wandered chameleon like around the area for a good 20 minutes or so. MEGA

Swallow-tailed Kite WOW

Quail Plover, a bird you HAVE to see

Cryptic and crippling

Black-headed Lapwing, another great bird but not in the same league as Mr QP