173: Eurasian Spoonbill

Eurasian Spoonbill - Platalea leucorodia

Another poor shot I know but I have to say this was about a kilometre away this time on the levels at Minsmere. I have not seen one of these birds in the UK for a good 14 years. The first time a stumbled on them was a party of 7 at Cley on the first trip I made up there I think in the Summer of 1999.

These birds were extinct as a breeding bird in the UK back then. Careful management at numerous sites led sporadic breeding in various places - the odd pair here and there. There is now a breeding colony of 10 pairs established on the North Norfolk coast from I think 2010 - the original pioneers having drifted over from a small stronghold in Holland. This is the far North of their range - they will migrate back to Southern Europe or Africa each Winter as far as I am aware.

This sideways view doesn't get a good look at the spatulate bill - just had to get that word in ! When they are in breeding plumage the male adults get some very fine yellow plumes on the neck which add to the overall effect. I will have to get a better shot and upgrade this posting at some point. I felt like a sniper lying on teh ground resting the lense and trying to keep still to photograph what was a white dot to naked eye !

Minsmere
August 2012

172 : Eurasian Bittern

Eurasian Bittern - Botaurus Stellari

No Summer is complete without a visit to Minsmere, the RSPB's flagship reserve on the Suffolk coast. The reserve has a huge reedbed that is home to several pairs of Bittern. There are only 40-50 pairs of breeding Bittern mostly concentrated in East Anglia, the Somerset Levels and Lancashire. Each pair requires a huge area of reedbed to support them. They mostly feed on frogs and fish.

The best chance you have to see the birds who are usually secreted away in the reeds is when they fly across the reeds to deliver food to young or to return to a roosting spot. At any point during the Summer if you are patient and sit in either the Island or Bitten hides at the reserve and watch carefully you will eventually be rewarded with the site of a Bittern in flight. All I could manage on this occasion was this long range shot. The photograph below gives you an idea of the range at which I was taking the pictures so the bird was probably the better part of 6-800m away.

Eurasian Bittern, Botaurus Stellarus
Minsmere, Suffolk
August 2012

171 : European Green Woodpecker

European Green Woodpecker- Picus Viridis

I grabbed a picture of this female bird on the lawn of  my parent's garden. Green Woodpeckers feed primarily on ants which they grub out from the lawn. This is a female bird.

One common name for this bird is the 'Yaffle' after its  laughing call. They are busy, noisy birds easily seen and heard unlike other woodpeckers which spend their time feeding in the treetops on grubs.

Suffolk, United Kingdom
August 2012   

170 : Purple-banded Sunbird

Purple-banded Sunbird - Cinnyris bifasciata

We started together on these sunbirds in earnest last year when I went to Sri Lanka. There are dozens of them but this is the only half-decent picture I got of a single species in Tanzania. This was taken near the Eagle owl rock on the same game drive as my last posting.

This is the male bird. Shining and metalic - they could be wrapped in chinese wallpaper or a posh chocolate paper. I think the birds came first and then the wallpaper. They are fabulous and oriental.

We were in slightly different habitathat day so were expecting to see different animals. This deer or antelope wanted to stay very secure behind his rock. Our driver explained that it was a Water Buck and that there was likely to be more nearby. Reading up they do favour the intimate little bushy areas on the edges of wide open spaces - they are not a creature of the open savanah.  

The one animal strode out from behind his rock and was joined by two more.

I quite like these duets of birds and mammals. I spent much longer looking at the bigger animals as it was really the reason we were there so I will post my mammals along with the closest bird if that's possible. These are the hornless females and are told as Waterbucks in particular by the white egding to the muzzle and orbits. I like the almost variagated pattern in the ears. We only had one siting of these animals in a week.

Purple-banded Sunbird, Cinnyris bifascatia

Serengetti, Camp Olikira, Tanzania

24 July 2012

169 : Spotted Eagle-Owl

Spotted Eagle Owl - Bubo Africanus

A Kopje is I think a large mass of rocks rising out of the Savanah. Where we were staying in the Northern Serengetti it was actually gently rolling country with little valleys with brooks dottted along their length with small copisces. The small streams all wend there way down to the Mara river which was stunning. Large boulders, sandy banks, shady areas but all topped off by this huge sky - like a Suffolk sky - except in Africa - its an African sky isn't it but I think Constable would have liked it. There was one area which was quite raised with little complexes and outcrops of rock and boulders - a little bit hilly. It was dotted with single beautiful trees like the ones you see Leopards lolling about in on the television (...or on holiday). This hilly upland reminded me of the Cotswolds in a strange way. We had a couple of drives around it and it turned up different things everytime we ventured into it.

The second drive up in the "Kopjes" we came round the corner of one large outcrop and then Barraka abruptly stopped the car. Now on occasion I might spot the odd bird - Mrs C had a blinding spot that will have to have a post all of its own one morning - to order almost. I have to say though that the guys who do this day in and day out get onto things that you just cannot see for looking. I am sure as its their local patch they will be used to what birds with a very local range hang out where and that they might even have favourite spots or trees etc. That must be true for lions and leopards and so on. Reading in I know that Eagle Owls hold territories that they defend vigorously from other owls - to the death at times so this spot was probably owl HQ.

As the car stopped Barraka pointed out this magnificent Spotted Eagle-Owl sunning itself out on a shelf of a rock. You would think with the thing stood still that I could have got a crisper shot as the bird is a full 50 cm tall and was perhaps only 20 metres away. I really do need to have a chat to someone who has been taking pictures of birds for years. It was in the full sun and it was bright which might suggest that you turn down the stops - but I tried it every which way (I had two dozen shots no better).

This is one of the smaller Eagle Owl species - I remember scare stories about European Eagle-Owls escaping in the UK and snatching up dogs and cats ! This species however prefers small mammals, birds, lizards and frogs - even insects. These are widespread birds across Africa and parts of the Arabian Peninsular.

Seeing an owl you always feel lucky and I think apart from the smaller diurnal hunting owls such as Little Owls or the Spotted Owlet I saw in India this year all of my owl sightings in life have been of been of owls roosting in the day like this Brown Fish Owl in Sri Lanka. There are some beautiful owls in the world but short of learning night photography techniques or buying some very specialist equipment I am going have to keep scanning those trees and rocks for roosting spots. There is another issue - I am not going to spend hours in jungles in the night wandering around with a torch. Guys actually do this and I read a book recently where one birder tells another that he will be releived when he has seen his last owl because he sh*t scared in the rain forest at night. Too right !! Its bit more scary than an episode of scooby doo blundering into a tree snake in the dark. We'll have to cross that bridge (trying not to fall in a ditch) when we get to it. For now I am enjoying in a most lazy way expert guides pointing out owls in full daylight that perch nicely and can be photgraphed from the comfort of a big Toyota Safari truck.

I have one more owl up my sleeve from my recent holiday in Tanzania - and he or she is a corker. Before moving on from this owl I think he deserves a good look.

The furry feet, ear tufts and eye colour are all very fine. I am wondering now whether that red patch on the rock is a blood stain from its last small victim, dismembered on this kitchen table with the owl just dozing off after. Look at those eyes - I had a debate with my children as to how owls became associated with wisdom and so on. Man must have anthropomorphacised (you can check the spelling on that !) owls for eons and surely when choosing creatures for Gods (like the Egyptians or ancient Greeks) the very look of the bird must have been taken into account. You cannot discount that "knowing look" - of course the eyes are big to see in the dark ! A blackbird has little beady eyes without the same depth and consquently wise look about them as all they need to do at night is hide from Eagle-owls ! At some point a Neanderthal or an early modern man came back to his cave and said to his wife - "I am sure that that owl was looking at me - he gave me a funny look - as if he knew something I didn't -  best keep the fire burning this evening love as there is mischief about". Who knows. They are wise looking though. If Mrs Cave dweller then got taken off by a sabre tooth tiger while having a pee outside the cave early the next morning then that might have set the ball rolling for owls and wiseness. I dare you to look into this owls eyes discount the fact that he knows something you do not.

After being bothered by my camera for a couple of minutes while we chatted with Barraka about all things Eagle Owl (the philosophical debate about why Athene is the god of wisdom and all things owls came later) he looped down off the shelf and flew up behind some hanging down branches. If he had been tucked in there we never would have spotted him or her (who knows). But then he kenw we were just about to come round the corner and was feeling generous. This is one of my birds of the holiday I guess.

Spotted Eagle Owl, Bubo Africanus

Northern Serengetti, near the Mara River, Tanzania

24 July 2012

168 : Common Ostrich

168 - Common Ostrich - Struthio camelus

I would suggest that we all forget that ostriches are birds at times. Looking at an ostrich you get a sense of what a dinosaur used to be all about. They are of course the world's largest bird. I am 6 foot 2 inches tall if I pull my shoulders back yet I would still be dwarfed by an Ostrich which can get up to 7 1/2 feet tall ! That's a bird ! We have all heard the stories about Ostriches being able to kick a man to death and so on. There is no doubting their ability to defend a nest or a chick if tested.

We asked Barrakka, our driver, to stop the van to spend a moment with this big male and to tell us some stuff about ostriches. I think we were on our last afternoon's game drive and I realised we had not really stopped to pay any attention to these big birds. Granted I do not think we had had a bird that close to the vehicle at that point. I think I am as guilty as the next bird watcher for not even registering the moment when this became a proper life tick for me. Such is their association with Whipsanade safari park or wildlife films. I grew up with the Walt Disney film with drunk ostriches after eating fermented fruit. We seem to take the fun out of them. We grow up with these birds as part of our childhoods but we don't know them in the same way as we might know a robin or blackbird as a wild creature.

Lions will prey on these creatures which consequently can get up to speeds of 60 kph in a straight pursuit. Thats almost 40 miles an hour in old money. The female ostriches pool the eggs in a communal nest with up to 25 eggs and then multiple nests will be gathered in a loose flock. The females incubate the eggs in the long grass at night - the brown plumage serving as camouflage. The males take their turn at night and the black plumage serves a dual purpose. It offers night time camouflage and it keeps the eggs warm as black retains the heat in the feathers which has been gathered during the day - genuis. As well as the bigger cats vultures and hyenas will predate on the eggs in the nest.

So thats my few facts on Ostriches. I have decided not to take them for granted anymore. They do not belong in zoos, or indeed on the Tesco's meat counter but we seem to have turned them into livestock. They are a plains grazing, sprinting, wild creature of the savannah.

They really do form part of the scenery and you have to make the effort to really look.

These ostriches were out on the edge of the salt-pan and Lake at Manyara. Our first driver Gregory had no idea why they would be on the edge of the water like this.

Ostriches punctuating the savannah inside the Ngorogoro. You can see the crater wall rising some 4-600 m over the crater depression. You can see the scale from the small herd of Wildebeest in the background.

Look again is all I say. Its a bird ! Huge  - I am glad I was in the van.

I leave you with a view of Olakira camp close to the Mara river in the Northern Serengetti under a huge African sky. On longer vistas there would often be a solitary ostrich in sight. Magnificent.

Ostrich, Struthio camelus
July 19 2012
Tanzania

167 : African Fish Eagle

African Fish Eagle - Haliaeetus vocifer

I expected to see a lot of these birds on the wing and doing their thing but all I managed was a fairly typical shot of an eagle perched on a lake side tree. They are clearly out of the same box as the bald eagle in terms of looks or families.

Reading up I learn that this shot is of an African Fish Eagle hunting as they perch and then swoop down to snatch their prey which is usually fish. They also take baby crocodiles, water birds including flamingos, lizards, monkeys and Hyraxes (more of them in a later post). You probably cannot judge but this is a very big bird, taken with a 400mm zoom and this is subsequently blown up. I will leave how big for later.

They are widespread across Sub-Saharan Africa whereever there are large bodies of water so the Great Rift Valley must suit them well. I need to go back and just watch one of these birds hunting properly to really appreciate them. I was conscious all the time that I was in a truck with the family and I wanted to keep a balance. There was always the times back in camp when I could watch birds rather than catching them on the way past. There is so much to see on Safari and you are conscious of the time that sometimes you forget to just stop and watch the world go by. The next time I go to Africa I am going to blow whole game drives on one spot by a river and just watch what comes along - "Arsing'' rather than ''Chasing"' in birding terms. There is also something magical about what you hear when the engine is turned off. Just the quiet sounds of the bush - usually !  

I will make-weight this post then with another animal from the same drive. Kirk's Dikdik - Africa's smallest Antelope. I never imagined that we would see one of these shy creatures. As we turned the corner the driver turned off the engine and we coasted foward trying not to be too excited although its hard.

I have to say hitting the books (in this case the Kingdon Field Guide to African Mammals) its clear that our guides must have been refering to Dikdiks generally as there is an even smaller Dikdik (and dare I say cuter Dikdik) - a Silver Dikdik (Not to be confused with a Salts Dikdik) that is good 3-5 cm smaller at the shoulder. Its hard to see again but this Kirks variety stands no more than 45 cm at the shoulder at most- so could probably constitute a small meal for a big Fish Eagle which in comparison stands more like 70 cm at the shoulder.

Disney must have seen one of these before sending instructions for the size of Bambi's eyes.

Habit wise a Dikdik will add its own droppings to those of any other creature that leaves a mess in its territory - a joke in Africa revolves around the Dikdik that keeps adding its very small efforts to the pile left an elephant but eventually wins the day by tripping over the invading Pachiderm. I watched a National geographic programme set in the Congo with Pygmies net trapping these - they really can shift.

My eldest son and I shared a tent later in the trip and decided that as a counter measure to any animal that got into the tent we would put up a picture of Dikdik a little smaller than life size proportions in the hope of distracting it. They do look as if they need to live by their wits to survive. Bush cannon fodder. I saw this animal as we came round a bend and had a moment or two to get the shot. Really enigmatic little things - the size of a smaller dog really.

And I managed to get through that without any obvious jokes. I had no idea why they are called a Dikdik and had no desire to add further fuel to fire that was my sons disdain at the name. Apparently it is eponomous with the females shrill alarm call - Dikdik they cry when startled.

African Fish Eagle

Lake Manyra National Park, Tanzania

19 July 2012

166 : Grey-headed Kingfisher

Grey-headed Kingfisher - Halcyon leucocephala

This was a common Kingfisher at both Lake Manyara and along the banks of the Mara river in the North Serengetti which was our final destination on Safari. They were certainly a Kingfisher that associated with water rather than roadside telegraph wires or woods. Reading up on the bird though it is not an aquatic specialist, feeding on large insects and small reptiles in the main. They do however nest in a hole in the riverbank.

T

his chap handily perched on a roadside boulder next to the great Lake Manyara itself.

Above - a picture so that you can get a sense of the backdrop.

Manyara is a long thin park with the entrance at the Northern end of the Lake itself. Many people enter the park on the way to somewhere else - Ngorogoro for example and ultimately they are on their way to the Serengetti to track down the ''spectaculars" (more of that in later posts). There is plenty of tourist spots including the Hippo pool at the Northern end of the park so many visitors never make it as far as the Southern end of the park which is consequently quite peaceful and free of other Safari trucks. It is one way in and one way out. We stayed at the Treelodge which was a real treat at the very Southern end of the Park and by staying a little over 24 hours were able to have 4 decent game drives (One on the way in, a late afternoon drive on the first day and a drive at 6.30 am the next day (with a slight headache after a night of Lions roaring and little sleep) and a fairly long  drive through the second afternoon on the way out of the park.

I was a little naughty and hired a specialist private bird guide at the lodge giving Gregory the day off. My thoughts were, having done a mini-Safari in the Yala in Sri Lanka is that there is nothing worse for anyone else sharing with us than being forced to stop for every bird on a twig. I could hear the couple in Sri Lanka we were forced upon audibly sighing every time I stopped the truck for a small brown bird they couldn't see anyway. The plan didn't quite work out as we were forced to share the first afternoon with an Australian couple however they were perfectly jolly and were very appreciative of everything we saw. We spent a good afternoon tracking down leopard with them (Greg I think it was had not seen a leopard). Off to great start on that quest - I managed to spot a kill in a tree.

Above - scooby snack for a leopard. You can see why the Baboons "roost" on the smallest branches they can manage in the canopy at night !

A leopard had killed this baboon quite recently so we were backwards in coming fowards and drove away to give the leopard a chance to come back. Impala were going bonkers in the trees, barking out alarm signals so the animal was about.

The zebras were skittish - something was about - the tension was palable.



Of course we came back later only to find that the kill had been moved altogether. Later on at our sundowner we learnt that a large dutch family who had been on the same mission had seen the leopard walk across the track in front of their truck. Poor Greg was gutted.

So we missed a leopard in Manyara - I really do not care though - across the space of a week we saw everything animal wise that you would expect to see. I think its good to expect nothing and to enjoy everything. We heard odd a tales and bumped into odd people that confirmed to us that some people are just hell bent on seeing the big 5 and tearing around the bush. Not Greg the Australian, after a couple of weeks in Africa he just wanted to see a Leopard but he was very sanguine about missing out. (he'd seen gorillas in Rwanda and cheetahs and all sorts) - we had been really were close to seeing something special, and on our own which is the main thing. We labelled the Dutch family leopard theifs as they had staked out my kill and consequently I expect the leopard decided to move his half eaten baboon.

Finally came one of my favourite moments of the whole trip.

Rounding the corner we saw a bar set up in the bush manned by one of the guys from the Tree Lodge. The kids were straight down and had extracted a Fanta before the van had hardly come to a stop.



Now I am used to a beer after a hard days birdwatching - but not in the reserve with the birds still flying past served by a butler !

This is looking more like Trip Advisor than a birding blog but its hard to seperate the birds from the whole Safari experience. They even layed on some entertainment for the boys in the form of childrens archery game.

All in all a magical 24 hours.

Grey-headed Kingfisher, Halcyon Leucocephala

Lake Manyara National Park, Tanzania

19 July 2012