183 : Crowned Lapwing

Crowned Lapwing - Vanellus coronatus

Back into the Ngorogoro Crater today for a look at a smart lapwing and lions. These are a bird of dry grasslands feeding on insects and termites. Their range is from East Africa/ the Somali coast all the way down to Southern Africa. They are the most numerous lapwing species in their range yet remain in the "Red List" for threatened birds.

The great thing about being into birds when you are on Safari is that there is always something to look at. We saw many different mammals obviously and in large numbers but in between the spectacular sitings (such as the ones below) we had a steady stream of a 100 birds species or more over the 6 days that we were actively in the bush in our truck(s).

I had never seen a Lion in the wild before we got to the Crater. On the descent down into the crater (from the lip to the floor is 600 m) Gregory our driver picked up on his radio that a pride of lions were very close to the track with an early morning kill. We weren't really prepared for the "scrum'' of trucks that awaited us when we got to the spot. The rule is supposed to be single file and no more than 5 minutes - try telling that to the "tank commander" types presurring their drivers to double or triple file along the road in order to push in rather than wait their turn. It was ghastly. All the drivers know the rules and some of the old ones like our Gregory obey the rules. Some other drivers don't and the whole thing breaks down. Like this !

You can see a lion has wondered out into the traffic jam. The lions decided that the shade in front of the vehicles was a good spot. We patiently waited our turn and eventually crept up to the main event.

What we soon learnt on safari is that the best things are the things you find yourself - I would even hesitate if I went again to go a big cat that had been called in on the radio - perhaps not in the Serengetti if we were a long way from the big camps and it was a few local trucks cooperating. In the Crater its a scrum of day trippers with all of the drivers all keen to earn the biggest tip.

So we sloped away and got stuck back into our birds and jackals and hyenas and so on and then our Karma paid off. We watch a fantastic lion stalking for a goodly while without crowds of trucks and so on.



Watching the interaction between animals is fantastic. You could feel the tension - look at the expression of these Zebra who know they are being watched from the grass.

This was one of my favourite moments - the Zebra's ears all pricked foward and every pair of eyes is watching the young male Lion that has been working its way towards them through the long grass. Eventually they spooked and ran.

The young Lion came out of hiding and then began the process all over again - magical.

I never knew that Lions had this pattern on their body.

When the excitement was over we could move on surrounded by birds without feeling that we were cheated of anything to look at until the next big cat or Elephant or Rhino showed up. Birds are the perfect compliment to the dozen or so animal "encounters'' that we would get on each game drive. If I put aside the irritation of the first scrum for the Lion kill the crater is on reflection magical - there is always something happening and a huge range of animals and birds are "on tap". A day is enough to see it and it is a beautiful spot. Nothing would prepare us for the Serengetti and the Mega-Herd though which was our next port of call after an hour's flights in a light plane.

Crowned Lapwing, Vanellus Coronatus

Ngorogoro Crater, Tanzania

July 2012

182 : Hildebrandt's Francolin

Hidlebrandt's Francolin - Francolinus Hildebrandti

Another species of Francolin associated with bushy grassland. I think this male bird was on display as we drove out of Manyara National Park saying goodbye - but with the Ngorogoro Crater and the wilds of the Serengetti all to come.

When I think about birding in the UK or even Dubai and I think about birding in places like Tanzania or Sri Lanka (e.g. the Yala national park) I wonder what Britain looked like when it was mostly covered in forest perhaps 1500 year's ago. When wetlands covered a third of the land and packs of wolves, bears, moose and beaver roamed the land. All of the big animals in the third world are hanging on by a thread granted - but they are still there. There just seems to be more birdlife in the National Parks in the third world I have seen as well. I am not an ecologist and I understand that there are only so many "biomes" in the UK. When I see a francolin in Africa or India (or any other kind of Quail, Partridge or Grouse type thing) it takes me a good twenty minutes to start to figure out what it is - if the driver hasn't already told me. The options in East Africa are Guineafowl (3 species), Forest Francolins (5 species), Red-winged Francolins (5 species), Other Francolins (6 species), Spurfowls (3), Quails (3), Button-Quails (3), Flufftails (6). In Britain I think I would be looking at Red and Black grouse, Pheasant, Grey and Red-Legged Partridge and Common Quail - possibly stick in a couple of other introduced Pheasant species like Lady Amherst's Pheasant. There are a bewildering number of alterantives in East Africa to any common ''form" of bird.

I am reading a book about butterflys at the moment - Butterfly Isles where a guy sets out to see all of Britain's Butterflys in a single year. If diversity is built from the ground up then this tells a story. We don't have anywhere near as many butterflys as birds. Some of them depend on specific food plants and some of them are quite adapatable both in terms of food and climate. Take the Adonis Blue. It requires a specific length of cropped grass and a specific red ant that the caterpillar will rely on to get through the Winter (hiding itself as an ant grub in the nest by the specific use of pherenomes). We are losing these butterflys due to changes in grazing patterns etc. The fuss over the Winchester bypass was in part caused by the fact that it was one of these Southern grasslands or downs. There are a dozen or more highly specialised butterflys hanging on in remnant patches of habitat - ditto orchids - wild flowers - rare mushrooms - trees even - and birds. Nightingales require a specific type of woodland - a mess actually - a specific treatment of the understory in order to thrive. Other birds and plants well - they just do well for whatever reason when man's impact boosts their niche. Gulls, magpies etc - any bird that likes the detritus of the Western world. I think Britain is sorely impoverished. The pressure of 68 million people on such a tiny patch of land must just bludgeon diversity out to the very edge of every view.

Having said that I could travel for miles in India or Africa seeing only a few species. The explosion in diversity happens when we let the plants and insects thrive in a natural setting. Diveristy built from the bottom up.

I read that the man who owned Oz magazine is it - a hippy multi-millionaire has willed a vast tract of land by UK standards to be turned back into primordial English lowland woodland. Fantastic. There is a small copice near my parents home - I have walked around it in all seasons for 15 years. It has a "Millenium Green" abutting it which is managed for the wild grass and flowers. Clouds of Gold finches, Yellowhammer, Little owls, Spotted Flycatchers - butterflys (I started to notice them more recently). Its not just the numbers of different species but the ''weight'' of them. Nature should be threaded through every space we have - every garden, every wayside, every verge, every corner. Its a bit hard to see the big animals coming back (if we have stories about foxes attacking babies then god knows what wolves would do for the Daily Mail). We have to try though.

I am leaving a wood somewhere. Some of that c**py oil seed rape or linseed can be given over for something else. I have a fair idea now about what to do with myself when I grow up. I will start with a pond and we can go from there.

Hildebrandts Francolin, Francolinus Gildebranti
Lake Manyara National Park, Tanzania
July 2012

181 : Hamerkop

181 - Hamerkop - Scopus umbretta

This is a strange looking bird. Named "Hammer Head" in Africaans these birds form their own family with a single species. An oddity, a wierd offshot that doesn't know whether it is a duck, goose, stork or heron because it is none of the above. It is a Hamerkop. They lump it with the pelicans and storks so that it has somewhere to sit in the tree of life.

The nests of these birds are huge, reminiscent of an Ospreys or a Golden eagles but domed - not a flat platform. Great balls of sticks and twigs in the cleft of a tree that often get taken over by owls, kestrels or Egyptian goose. The birds are really into nest building - constructing 3-5 nests per couple all year round. These can then be decorated with any brightly coloured materials that they find about the place. The nests are roofed and look more like a small tribal lodge ! Reports on the net I have read suggest that a man can stand on the roof of one of the nests as they are so strongly built.

The Hamerkop are water birds and feed on fish, fogs and crustacea. While we are at the waters edge...

I promised as I posted up my safari pictures that I would tackle the odd mammal along the way. On the same game drive that I first exictedly encountered the "worlds smallest stork that isn't" I saw my first herd of African Buffalo. Magnificent great lumps of steak that form the diet of the tree climbing lions of Lake Manyara National Park.

Buffalo of course form part of the fabled "Big 5". People actually chase about to try and see all five in one game drive. A so called "safari slam". I can't see the point myself. We had fun coming up with alternative 5's - ugly 5's, cute 5's. and so on. The Big 5 were picked out because of the supposed danger factor in hunting them. I guess if you wounded a bull African Buffalo and it was still standing it might cause you a bit of damage.

I thought they were quite placid animals - apparently they will fight to the bitter end against a pride of Lions. That's not something I'd really want to see. I saw the odd dead kill and I saw a cheetah hunting a Thompsons Gazelle from a distance. For the most part the rythym of the bush is just peaceful. That's the great thing about safari - for 99% of the time its just calm and placid - relaxing. There isn't a procession of creatures ripping eachother apart. Most of the views of animals are largely like the one above. On some occasions you can come across a lion hunting and then watching the animals around keeping one eye on it is fascinating. You can feel the tension mount. Most hunting though is done at night and during the day the bush is largely peaceful and undramatic on that score. As I have said before once the engine is turned off and the noise of the birds and the bush creeps in and the drowzy insects - the sound of the heat and the wind in the Acacias - well you could almost doze off with a Kilimanjaro beer in your paw. It is that good.

Hamerkop, Scopus Umbretta
Lake Manyara National Park, Tanzania
July 2012

180 : Southern Ground-Hornbill

Southern Ground Hornbill - Bucorvus leadbeateri

A pair of this strange birds photograohed promenading along the lake front at Lake Manyara in Tanzania. I took this picture over quite a distance in poor light so I am not sure how well it will "blow up".

The exposed skin around the eye and on the throat (wattle) is bright red on the male bird but with a violet-blue patch on the centre of the female's throat. Hornbills are fairly omniverous and will eat insects and small mammals and lizards etc. "A catholic diet from termites to hares (even young eaglets from nests !)" says the field guide. The birds spend their time hunting and foraging on the ground and only take to the trees for defence.

These are long-lived birds with life spans in the wild of up to thirty years and in captivity birds have lived up to seventy years ! Unfortunately these hornbills take a long time to reach breeding maturity and then only have one or two chicks (supported by an extended family of younger birds). The slow reproductive rate coupled with the destruction of their habitat for agricultural has placed them on the "vulnerable to extinction" for Birdlife international and "critically endangered" in South Africa where they have been studied closely. They are now restricted to the National Parks.

Lake Manyara NP, Tanzania

July 19 2012

179 : Kori Bustard

Kori Bustard - Ardeotis Kori

The worlds biggest flying bird. Think swan - swan in flight. Think bigger. That neck - the eye is bigger than one of those big marbles - more like a sheeps eye. Unlike an Ostrich that will kick you to death if you stray too close these birds - well they fly away. Huge deep soft wing beats barely lifting the frame of this enormous bird. A good four foot tall with an eight foot wingspan.

I will come back and add some words here when I have something other to say than big - I was just quite taken aback with the bigness.

Ngorogoro Crater, Tanzania

July 2012

178 : Greylag Goose

Greylag Goose - Anser anser

I realised this Summer that there were dozens of exotic foreign birds that I don't see that often any more right on my doorstep. Forced to stay in the UK for a short while due to my own stupidity with logistics I managed to hook up with my brother and take a trip down to Trimley Marshes on the Suffolk coast. To get down to this hotspot a bicycle is a recomended piece of kit as its a fair old schlep from the car park. The marshes are tucked up on the River Orwell next to the container port at Felixstowe. Thats one of the peculiarities of birding in the UK - Minsmere abuts a nuclear power station, Barn Elms has views of a football ground - nature is infilled in the UK. Its patchy. Nature happily dines on the small bits of the earth we leave behind - either because they are of no use (yet) or someone thankfully has placed them out of reach.

The Greylag Goose is also something we have left behind. This is the original farmed goose domestiacted somewhere near Babylon before history was recorded. My Birds Britannica gives an epic list of the intertwining of this goose and man - they save Rome from being sacked by the Gauls with their alarm calls and one of their wishbones is used to steer the ships of the first Crusade ! The goose was industrialised - meat of course but also the feathers were used for arrows and also for quills - goose down for pillows - Iam sure the list goes on. In Medieval Britain there were huge flocks of geese necessary for the economy - and of course they were placed on the table at Christmas.

The orginal domesticated bird bred with the UK's wild birds after they arrived with the Romans. There are just 1,000 truly wild Greylags left but these are supplemented by 80,000 visiting  Icelandic Geese each Winter.

Most are in the UK are termed "Feral" - which seems a bit wrong. They were domesticated and now they are not. I think squeezed in next to a container port they are entitled to a happy retirement next to the migrating waders and Winter shorebirds.

Grelag Goose, Anser anser

Trimely Marshes, Suffolk

August 2012

177 : Yellow-billed Stork

Yellow-billed Stork - Mycteria ibis

Back to the start of our Safari. If Safari was Disney World then ride one on our trip was the Hippo Pool at Manyara National Park - this was our Swiss Family Robinson Tree House. The whole trip was a gradual descent from the popular and crowded to the moment we found ourselves as the only human beings for a couple of kilometres with half a million Wildebeeste milling around us singing I'm a Gnu.

Hippo Pools rather than pool should be the right words for this popular spot. There is a car park and a metal fence (you know its not a zoo as it is just a rail to stop you wandering off into the "wilderness" and having a close encounter). On the left side is a small pool (see above) which is used as a wallow (I can count 5 animals in that small space). You get super views of the Hippos jostling for space or attention.

Off stage front is an amazing scene with so much going its hard to pick out everything. Hippos, gazelles, zebras, pelicans, storks, wagtails, hammerkops - it went on an on. I could have spent an hour there picking through but we had to check in at the Treehouse Lodge in time for lunch and Gregory our driver was anxious about the time.

You can see a Yellow-billed stork coming into land at this water hole farther out from the safety rail. What a busy spot !

Hippos will come out of the water in the early morning and evening. Its all about keeping their skin wet. Nothing prepares you for the realisation that the big ones are the size of a 4 x 4 !

If it was the UK it would be Cley or Barn Elms or Minsmere with Hippos, gazelles and giraffes all thrown in. I could spend a week at this spot just watching each animal and bird in turn. Manyara is Africa condensed.

Yellow-billed Stork, Mycteria Ibis
Hippo Pool, Lake Manyara NP, Tanzania
July 2012

176 : Red-necked Spurfowl

Red-necked Spurfowl - Francolinus afer

Its strange that birds will ignore a giant safari truck clattering through the bush. They just cannot see the people sat inside and I guess for all the world they think it is a giant noisy elephant. This seems to be the case early in the morning as well. Birds such as these Spurfowl will sit out on the track in full view and allow lovely close up shots leaning just over the edge of the truck with the camera and when the edges switches off the whole world stops. These are "shy birds" according to the field guides I have read. I've seen one before in India where they are very scarce but it was off through the understorey before I could get a shot. I think on that occasion all I saw was the head of the male stretching up from behind a log.

There are actually 3 birds in this shot - a young bird is nestled between the female (front) and her partner (red facial skin).

There is something about the early morning and light with birds - you do feel like you are intruding on a natural moment - a time that you are not supposed to see. Anyone that plays golf early, walks a dog, cycles to work or indeed birdwatches (when they are supposed to) knows the feeling. The rabbit in the back garden, the last fox crossing a road, a woodpecker on a lawn or a deer in a field. I wish I was a morning person but really I'm not. I enjoy sitting up and watching too much television and I hate napping during  the day. It does make your weekend feel longer and its probably why every day on safari is worth two as time slows down and the world grinds to a halt - the animals and birds just stop for a moment too. In fact they are never ''rushing" - they are just living. We should get up early - but not to work - simply to watch the world when it has stopped - when most of us are tucked away and quiet and not pushing on to get everything down yesterday.

I feel like sowing seeds this weekend and I will see if I can post up a few more pictures of the world when it has stopped. I might bake some bread - Saturday I will venture out early and see what is on the move across Arabia on its way back to Africa. The 100,000 th generation of corncrakes on its way back South or or Pallid Harrier or a Red-rumped Swallow. They are on the move but the are not rushing as they have an eternity. They were here before our houses, cars and noise.

Red-necked Spurfowl, Francolinus Afer
Olakira Camp, Northern Serengetti by Mara River, Tanzania
July 2012

175 : Bataleur

Bataleur - Terathopius ecaudatus

A Bataleur is a french tight-rope walker and this small member of the buzzard family takes its name from its habit of tipping its wings as if to balance on the air. "Ecaudatus" is latin for tailless - the tail is very very short and its probably the lack of a large fin for flight adjustment at the back that the leads to the characteristic wing action in flight.

They have a large range across the middle part of Africa across woodland and more arid areas. This is a male bird - identified by the thicker black trailing edge on the flight feathers on the underside  of the bird.

The birds spend 8-9 hours each day on the wing searching for food which includes carrion but also live prey including birds, snakes, rodents and even small antelopes - I suspect its the young they target that are hidden by the parents in the long grass. You can even see the sun's reflection catching in the bird's eye. The exposed facial skin and legs are red so overall the appearance is beautiful for a bird of prey.

I got the shots of this bird circling over the edge of lake Manara.In the pictue above I think you can see the reflection of either sunset or sunrise off the water - the colours projected onto the white feathers of the underwing. I think we could do with a few more birds named after french circus artists.

I'll leave you with a picture of my first giraffe in the wild from the same day. At the same time that I was seeing these birds for the first time we were also seeing things like warthogs, impala, zebras, for the first time outside of a zoo or safari park. A running giraffe has to be one of natures most elegant things. You pinch yourself really - they just feel like entirely different animals. They are obviously familiar but they do seem more vital. I am spending my lunchtimes dreaming of Botswana, Zambia and even Madagascar at the moment - that bush bug is well and truly caught. If you didnt feel that you had to move on to see what was around the corner I would happily watch a giraffe for an hour or two. In the Serengetti I could see giraffe from my tent flap off in the distance loping in family parties through the acacias - that was something.

I really loved Manyara as a park - it was small, intimate, close up, beautiful. Lots of people miss it out or they just dip in for a day before pushing on toward the Ngorogoro crater and the Serengetti. The lake gives it a lovely aspect and the scarp behind. The widllife and the park are hemmed in in a ribbon between the lake edge and the scarp of the Great Rift Valley. It helped that we had stunning accomodation in the form of individual treehouses as well. At night the lions could be heard roaring down by the lake. The woodland hummed with noise. It goes straight onto my list of places to go back to and sit and read a book ! We were in the park for just 24 hours and it deserved more. I would happily stay in the park for 3 or 4 days and just watch the pelicans fly up and down the lake.

A Bataleur above - probably the same bird circling over the scarp at Manyara. Don't leave Lake Manyara off the itenary if you going to Tanzania - it deserves more than the quick drive in to the Hippo pool that many safari trips give it. I didn't see Bataleur anywhere else from memory on the trip - or at least I didn't get any decent shots.

African wildlife is a collection of moments - serenaded mostly by silence  (unless you ar ein teh middle of the mega-herd !) - the engine vehicle is switched off and you are in the vista. Its Stunning.

Bataleur, Terathopius ecaudatus
Lake Manyara National Park, Tanzania
July 2012

174 : Nubian Woodpecker

Nubian Woodpecker - Campethera nubica

Sometimes birds come to you. Granted I had to travel to Tanzania and then 3 planes later end up next to the Mara River in the Serengetti National Park. I think we had finished a game drive, perhaps had finished lunch and were loafing in the library or front room tent - the family would write up journals, look at books and so on... and then onto a tree perhaps 5 yards away this fellow turns up.

I did get a bit excite but I managed to steady my nerves, fevered brain and camera shake and get the settings about right for a nice serious of shots as he went about his business oblivious to me crawling about no more than 3 or 4 yards away. The words of the Great Master Dillon from Bangalore started to pour into my head - take at head height - get down. Its does make for a better shot.



Then the acrobatics start. I think have got the book out by now and identified it as a Nubian Woodpecker - no mean feat as it is on a page with 6 distinctly similar "Woodland Woodpeckers". Every marking counts here - this is a male birds from the majority red crown.

Show over I returned to my library tent - Some of the best bird shots of my life and I had to walk 5 yards from where I had just finished a nice boozy lunch. Sets you up for an afternoon of big game !

The camp at Olikira - I walked from the left hand greener tent to the first tree to the left for these shots.

Nubian Woodpecker , Campathera nubica

Olakira Camp, Northern Serengetti, Tanzania

July 2012