Usambiro Barbet - Trachyphonus darnaudii
This is an "endemic" for the Serengetti region and treated in many text books as a seperate species from D'Arnaud's Barbet. It is seperated by being a little larger, having a more greyish bill and a "suffused greenish tone to the head". I am not going to engage in scientific debate over whether it is a true sub-species or race - I will just take it while it is there with a seperate piece in Stevenson's (Helm) Birds of East Africa.
These are one of the ground Barbets - they nest in holes in the ground rather than holes in trees and forage on the ground. You may recall that the Barbets are one of my new families (along with probably Hornbills and Sunbirds) that have really grabbed my attention since I started focusing on more exotic birds.
I do have a problem now in that I will need to justify why the next picture that goes up is in fact a D'Arnaud's Barbet. It was never going to be easy when I got down to some of the finer detail. Imagine if I did make it all the way and then some Bird Geek cried "foul" and indicated that my Barbets were misidentified. I think I would be long past caring and would ask them how many pictures of Barbets they had - put up or shut up sunshine. Yeah ! I was snapping Barbets when you were eating Farleys Rusks mate.
Serengetti, Tanzania
July 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment