Sandgrouse in the Seventies
TO ME, THERE are few more stirring sounds in the African veld than he far-off call of a Namaqua sandgrouse reaching my ears long before the birds come into view over the distant horizon. This nigh-inaudible, three-noted dove-like coo holds the prom f the most exciting wing-shooting experience I have known. It is a sound so faint, initially, that unless you know it w you won’t even hear it. When I lived in South West Africa (SWA) during the 1970s, my ears became so finely attuned to this sound that people accompanying me for the first time, when warned to get ready as the birds were on their way, refused to believe I could hear anything.
The first person I introduced to sandgrouse shooting was my brother-in-law, Mark Mayson, who was visiting from Rhodesia. I took him to the farm of my good friend Walter Kirsten, near Maltahöhe in the semi-desert southwestern region. Its dry riverbed had a dam which usually retained storm-water year-round. SWA had experienced three phenomenal rainy seasons in succession, and the sandgrouse populations were scarcely believable.
We sat near the dam early one August morning, waiting for the flights to start. Namaqua sandgrouse occur in
