266 : White-headed Buffalo Weaver

White headed Buffalo Weaver - Dinemelia dinemelli

I am not paying enough attention to finches in Africa because they are too difficult. It is no surprise that I have g'dozens of Storks, Herons, Hornbills and even Pelicans but have bounced off the finches a touch. Four things I should do. Write down the names of what I photograph in a book in the field. Re-identifying a yellow and green bird or just brown bird  two weeks later amongst 4,000 photos is impossible. Also I could declare nothing larger than a pigeon day - my promises of walking the camp on safari for the small stuff never materialised as I was happily watching the view, editing photos or just drinking a beer every siesta time. It also would be useful to have a record of what I do have photos of with me - on at least two occasions I have given up on a photo in the belief I have a pre-existing record only to discover that I don't ! I should also be a bit tougher about stopping the van until I have the photo I want - even if it is a small brown bird. That would be hard on the kids though and they do very well.

These weavers escaped the purgatory of the "don't know" file or Misfits as its handily called by stepping up and adopting a very natty plumage altogether. Its smart, its unmistakeable - its the kind of small bird we like on Daily Bird. That great big finches bill must be for cracking quite tough seeds and nuts - they look almost Hornfinch like. They were generally  ground feeding and then swept away up into the Acacias as we approached.

Its Sunday and the start of a new work week so I am going to dip the longer post in view of just cranking out the numbers. I will try and post up a longer post about a bird and then do a piece on elephants this week. I am saving up some gorgeous big cat pictures and stories. I still haven't waded through the hundreds of pictures of some of the moments and wittled them down to the Ibook few.

I can see 300 approaching ! Another retrospective top 10 or perhaps even 15 now ?? A few broken promises about making 1,000 before I am 50. I have 3 more weekends before I am going back to the UK for 10 days to see family and to catch up with some stuff in our London office. I am wondering whether I can fit in a "Summer Special". A 48 hour silly flight with nothing but a change of pants and the long lens. It will soon be the rugby season and the family will back so I might have a think about a quick trip. The ideal is something an hours taxi drive away from an airport - that makes life doable with a overnight or late night flight. Is it still raining in India ?? I have my leach socks though. I have just come off Malarone ! The idea of sticky birding in 45 degree heat here just does not appeal. I will sort something out but in the meantime I have a fair few Ruaha pictures to post up - and of course the UK to look foward to which is an overseas birding destination for me although August is not the best unless you are on a wader scrape. Takes dedication this world birding lark. Sri Lanka appeals, Ethiopia appeals, Uganda, Burma - It would really be a 60 hour Summer Special though.

Time for the pool !

White-heaed Buffalo Weaver, Dinemellia dinemelli
Ruaha National Park, Tanzania
29 June - 5 July 2013

265 : Crowned Hornbill

 Crowned Hornbill - Tockus Albertoterminatus

Another Hornbill for the collection - please do type in Hornbill in search. I am not sure why these are crowned - perhaps the white feathers on the nape ?

I thought I'd combine my scenery with my mammal today with a fine shot or a yellow baboon on a palm. At dinner in camp one night Pietro the lead guide was holding court as per usual with the boys quizing him about dangerous animals, what to do when you see a lion etc. He gave the boys a nice lecture about predators explaining that most things in Africa are more afraid of men than anything else. It is hard wired into them that we are the super predator and it has been that way for a good 100,000 years. Lions will usually run and elephants will retreat if given a chance.

So why do baboons run up a tree when they see a lion to escape but down a tree when they see a man ?    Its true  - they shin down those palms and scurry off as soon as they see  safari vehicles.  For thousands of years we would cut down the tree or stone them or fire arrows at them. A tree is no safe haven for a baboon when they see a man and they know it deep down in their genes. 

It all makes for a very scenic picture though.

Crowned Hornbill, Tockus Albertoterminatus
Ruaha National Park, Tanzania
29 June - 5 July 2013

264 : Greater Blue-eared Starling

Greater Blue-eared Starling - Lamprotornis chalybaeus

The glossy starlings of Africa really do get you back into starlings in general. These really are jewel birds straight out of a child's dressing up box. I had to take a view on whether these are Southern, Greater or Lesser Blue-eared starlings. The Southern variety takes over when the Miombi or Southern type woodland begins in the South of Tanzania. We were not actually up in the Miombi which was above the escarpment line and the domain of the dreaded Tse-tse fly.  Short of seeing an immature bird the best I can go on is that the Greater variety is more green and that we were not actually up in the Miombi. I can always adjust later if I fly to Northern Tanzania again and see a starling that is clearly greener and even bigger  ! For now I will go with Greater.

I thought rather than a piece of scenery I'd post a picture of an African "tree" that I hadn't seen or perhaps noticed before. The types of vegetation was very diverse at Ruaha - from Baobab forests right through to very arid sections of grassland, dense riverine forests and upland red willow bush. I am not sure what type of system the Candelabra Tree was associated with but Euphorbia Candelabra as its known in latin was dotted around the park and I thought they were quite striking. You can see a Baobab in the background.

These are related to the Euphorbias we buy at the garden centre ! They also have a highly poisonous sticky white sap that irritates the skin.

Finally today's mammal - I have come back to giraffe. A bit of behaviour. The male here is pursuing the female and checking to see if she is in season. Apparently the male will traipse after her for hours and days - the female will move on on each occasion to see if the male will tire of the pursuit. She literally "leads him on". If he gives up another male will soon take up the pursuit. There seemed to be a bit of bias against giraffes amongst the guides in camp. They don't do anything worth watching seemed to be the common complaint. Having seen the recent BBC Africa series with the bull giraffes in Namibia neck fighting to hold territory I would beg to differ. I also think that a giraffe running is "doing enough" in my book. There was also a strand of melanistic dark bull giraffes in Ruaha that were just striking. So they get my vote and this little bit of giraffe behaviour I viewed on our first afternoon's game drive opened up another little door in our understanding. They are fair game for the lions of Ruaha as we were to discover later in the week so good luck to them ! I like giraffes - they are Africa to me.

Greater Blue-eared Starling, Lamprotornis chalybaeus
Ruaha National Park, Tanzania
June 29 - July 5 2013

263 : Red-billed Firefinch

Red-billed Firefinch - Lagonosticta senegala

This beautiful little jewel of a bird was common in Ruaha National Park - I have a difference of opinion  with our fantastic guide Lorenzo here as he claimed them as "African" Firefinch or "rubricata". This shot was taken down by the river one afternoon in a messy fallen tree that also contained the nests of a number of herons and night-herons.

I am a bit short of time this morning - so my landscape shot is the truck and a huge sky - this pretty much sums up our time. Our mode of transport in Ruaha was a huge Toyota safari truck - when I grow up I want one !

Finally today on the mammal front I thought I'd leave this brief post with a picture of a vervet monkey. These were found down by the river in amongst the ficus and mahogany trees but not in the drier areas of the park.

Tony our trainee guide had a blood feud with them - they stole a piece of fruit from him as a child. Not this particular individual though was it !

Red-billed Firefinch, Lagonosticta senegala
Ruaha National Park, Tanzania
29 June-5 July 2013

262 : Red-billed Hornbill

Red-billed Hornbill - Tockus erythrorhynchus

I think I left my safari tales with the Crossley's arrived at Msembe airstrip. We were picked up by a small man called "Tony", a trainee guide and a drivers mate from Kwihala camp. Tony was all smiles and after completing our paperwork we off on the 45 minute/15 km drive to the camp. Kwihala is a semi-permanent camp located up towards the escarpment that runs along to the North of the Ruaha river and Mgwesi sand river. So typically we were straight off the plane and into a game drive.

The first option given to us involved a leopard that had been sighted by one of the guides from our camp - it was about a 20 minute drive away. Mrs C and I have discussed this type of thing at length and take a fairly balanced approach. Yes on some occasions you might opt to drive to a sighting - especially for something like a leopard or lion or cheetah that are active. You are always losing something when you do that though in the strangest of ways. We thought we might regret the decision but the boys had been up since the early morning and the call of lunch and the excitement of seeing out billets for the first time were just too much for us ! Storing up karma is another belief - we would see a leopard later in the week - or that's what we thought.

So off we pottered or "bimbled" as one guest letter described safari drives where you do not go on a mission. I have to say it is my preferred modus operandi. Just let the bush unfold, trust your own eyes and the Park will give itself up. We had 6 nights and basically 12 or 13 game drives (if you count the trip to the airstrip at the end) so lots of opportunity and blessed time to see what we could see. I had a nagging doubt as to whether we had made the right decision - but it was the right decision for us given that the boys needed to eat and it was good also just to spend our first hour in the park taking in the scenery and topography.

The sports tension soon cranked up a notch though as a small hornbill flew across the road and I had not managed to get unpacked and get the big canon 100-400 mm lens attached to my new camera body. My theory having thought about last year's photos was that I did not have enough shots of scenery or of the family - the reason - I would have the telephoto on most of the time for obvious reasons and did not want to continually change lenses. The solution was to upgrade my camera body and attach that to the long lens and use the entry level 550 D with a normal 15-55 mm lens for everyday work around the van and in camp. It was a good choice and made the whole process of recording the trip 3000 % better. I actually have a record that we have been to Ruaha and I have some great big panoramas that will remind us what the place looked like.

Back to the Hornbill, I was told it was a Red-billed Hornbill and my next worry was that we might not bump into one again - I needn't have worried - they were everywhere and sometimes in huge flocks of hundreds of birds. The scrub is sometimes burned in a controlled fashion by the park rangers in order to  keep up some open areas to support a diversity of game. One area in particular that had been recently burned seemed to attract these small hornbills in huge numbers.

So these birds became a constant companion - I need to check to see whether there is a race that is particular to Ruaha national park as there was some talk from the guides throughout the week of an endemic hornbill. I haven't found that in my Helm field guide so I will have to check the Birdlife world list to see what's what. We have talked about lumpers and splitters before - but basically as DNA analysis and other studies advance more and more seperate species are emerging - even by analysis of voice where calls are distinctly seperate. The key is that two groups of birds do not typically interbreed and over time with slight adaptations a new species emerges. For now though lets describe these as red-billed Hornbill - a small ground feeding hornbill about the size of a small pigeon with a clear red decurved bill and spotted flanks that tell it apart from Von der Deckons Hornbill that we ran into in the Serengetti last year.  In fact tap in Hornbill into the search box on my site and I have small collection to be proud of now. They are noisy and obvious birds once you are in the right habitat. I can honestly say that having seen 1000's of them last week I did not grow tired of them. The tiring thing was checking every single hornbill at times as there were other species on offer if you bothered or were lucky.

Our drive into the camp turned up elephant and giraffe and more of those later. We had a fantastic lunch that augured well for the week's dining and settled in before being introduced to Lorenzo who would be our assigned guide for the week. I had taken the option to pay a supplement to have a private vehicle. As things stands it probably was not necessary as the camp was never full in the week we were there. I am not sure that the camp did normally just put out 2 vehicles rather than 3 where it could so it was probably the right choice. The issue is that we really wanted to go at your own pace - another couple might be bemused by us stopping for a lecture on a plant or a butterfly. Equally a small brown bird that no one else can see is not everyone's cup of tea. We spent a small fortune to stay at & Beyond's Tree House lodge at Manyara last year and then on our evening game drive were put with an Australian couple who on their last night on a 3 week trip of a lifetime "ordered" up a leopard. I can understand that but it meant that we spent a good 3 hours returning again and again to a baboon kill that I had managed to spot hanging in a tree. As things stood the noisy van crammed with a dozen dutch people saw a leopard walk across the road briefly and we did not. I was quite clear in my head that in future I will always try and secure us a private vehicle. My attitude is that you are invested already in the whole thing so why compromise. Perhaps I am spoilt but there is also the option of cutting a game drive short for the boys if after 4 hours they got a bit restless.  So we had Lorenzo to ourselves for the week with the adorable and hobbit like (as far as the boys were concerned) Tony. Perfect. On a future drive we would not be "denying" anyone else a siting of an animal if we chose because of our bimbling tendencies not to crash across the park at 50 km an hour to try and spot some lion cubs. The vehicles we did not share with saw probably far more leopards and spent more time with cats an so on. We probably saw a much more diverse range of things - each to their own. All good things come to those who wait. We are not cat fever people and in fairness neither was anyone in the camp that week. There was a good attitude around the camp fire each evening and everyone was pleased for everyone elses sitings which were shared in the main in any event if within range and so on.  Some of the most magical moments on safari are with cats and we did on occasion divert or even drive out of the camp at the speed of a firetruck without having been to the loo to connect with something special. That was a long diatribe justifying my monopolisation of a vehicle and guide for ourselves when in Africa - I think its good for us and for other people not to have to share with us (as we are off the deep end at times) so I will stop feeling guilty about the whole thing.

So that afternoon at 4 pm we got into the rhythm of our week's safari with a first 3 hour game drive until the sun went down. We were rewarded with a fantastic view of Kirk's Dik Dik - a family favourite.

One thing that I had not noticed about these tiny deer before was the proboscis ! This is a female I believe from the lack of horns - but look at that tiny furry trunk bending to sniff for danger. The large eyes are not because they are nocturnal but because they spend a lot of time in dense bush in the dark. I will save a picture of the comical male for a later post - but for now I think I have my portrait of a female Kirk's Dik Dik to last me a lifetime. I can't top it and gave up photographing them after that afternoon and enjoyed just being able to watch them. Lorenzo would have turned off the engine and we rolled in perfectly still and quiet to get this close to what is a naturally shy animal. This is where time with our boys in nature reserves from the age of dot pays dividends. They intrinsically understand that there are times when you need to sit still and be quiet. They did very well through the week with the odd lapse but actually being asked to sit still in a safari van for upwards of 50 hours through a week for a 9 and 11 year old was pretty good going.

I took the laptop with me and everything I needed to sort my photos in the evening. By that evening I was drooling over this little proboscis ! I had never really noticed it before. To say that I am pleased with this photo is an understatement. I am retired from having to take a picture of a Kirk's Dik Dik in future unless it is doing something spectacular like mating, being chased or being eaten by an eagle owl.

Red-billed Hornbill, Tockus erythrorhynchus
Ruaha National Park, Tanzania
29 June 2013

261 : Namaqua Dove

Namaqua Dove - Oena capensis

The Daily Bird has been a bit quiet for the last month or two  whether as a result of fatigue or simply  lack of birds. All the promises I made to myself at the beginning of the year or publicly on my site about plunging on toward 500 have gone by the wayside.

One thing that is bound to fill you with  a renewed sense of purpose though is a jolly good holiday and I am just back from the holiday of a lifetime - although as I have said before holidays like that deserve to be repeated ! This year we went to Ruaha National Park. The largest park in Tanzania and possibly the continent dependant on how you look at it. It consists of an area the size of Wales, 23,000 square kilometres and gets less than 5,000 visitors a year. It takes an investment to get there and is off the normal circuit for the big draw parks such as the Serengetti. The lack of visitors belies its importance, beauty and well just staggering depth and amount of game. It is home to 12,000 Elephant, large numbers of all the great cats which we can cover in my posts, Impala, Zebra, Giraffe, Roan and Sable Antelope, Greater and Lesser Kudu, Bushbuck, Waterbuck, Grants Gazelles and is also one of the last strongholds of the wild dog... the list goes on. It is known as the best kept secret in Africa to hardened safari goers. In the usual Daily Bird post safari style I will try and mix in a few animals with my birds and describe the park itself over the next couple of weeks.

We are now into the Summer season in Dubai so wives and children will soon be off to the UK to visit relatives and I will tough out the 40 + degree Summer here which will give me plenty of time to catch up with my posts. Who knows ? I may even wander out with my camera to see if I can find some Dubai birds cowering from the heat. So plenty of time to catch up on my posts and thanks to Ruaha I have a good stock of interesting birds, other wildlife and a few adventures to post about.

To get to Ruaha we flew down to Dar Es Salaam from Dubai on the daily scheduled Emirates flight - about 5 and a bit hours for us. The connection with Coastal, the little bunny hopping safari planes down  to Dar wasn't until the next morning so we stayed at the Serena Hotel, soon to the be the residence of Barak Obama during his trip to Africa. So it was an early start from the internal Dar airport - the first hurdle was getting weighed in as you are restricted to 15 kg of luggage per person on a small plane. Luckily I have a family and was able to lean on their allowance to pack in two camera bodies, 5 lenses, a tripod, bird books and the odd piece of clothing. The four of us weighed in at 59 kg (one kg to spare in case we purchased anything) and 28 kg of that was mine ! If I ever safari without children some hard equipment choices will be necessary.

As ever if you click on my photos they enlarge - I had a camera course for my birthday so by increments I am hoping that I can take a slightly better photo - certainly landscapes have improved now that I understand what "f" means.

An early start at Dar then for the 2 1/2 hour flight by Cessna Caravan down to Mesembe airstrip.

Ruaha itself is named after its river which holds water all year round. The park has a much different feel to it than the grasslands of the North, taking in riverine and Baobab forests, Miombi, uplands with rocky Kopjes and in particular sand rivers that concentrate the game during the dry season beginning in June. A real diverse patchwork of habitats.

I will never tire of the little safari planes that dot to dot around the country. We stopped at airstrips serving one other park (Selous) and another airstrip on the edge of Ruaha (Jongamera) before touching down at Mesembe.

We arrived then at 11 am - a real 24 hour investment at the beginning of the holiday to get us down into  the bottom left hand corner of Tanzania and hopefully in a Park where we were promised to have some peace and quiet and to avoid the scrum that we found in places like the Ngorogoro Crater last year whenever there is an animal sighting. I will pick up my description of our week in the Park next time - I guess I need to say something about Namaqua Doves and then post a picture of an animal to keep up the safari tradition. 

Namaqua Doves are tiny, sparrow sized Doves that sit in their own genus, Oena. Only the long tail does anything to make them appear bigger. They spend their time foraging on the ground for tiny seeds from grasses, and can be seen on the road. They were not the most plentiful Dove in the Park and consequently I didn't get bored of seeing them explode from under the wheels (at least it felt like that) of our big Toyota Safari truck showing off their chestnut primary wing feathers. The males (photo at top and below) have a smart black face mask to set off their grey and brown business atire. 

They are not endangered and have a large range extending across sub-saharan Africa and parts of the Middle East (although I have never seen one locally). They are a bird of dry areas.

Finally then an animal shot - I think my animal of the holiday even if it wasn't the rarest or most dangerous. It certainly has the wow factor for me. Greater Kudu.

This is a great big hunk of an Ungulate ! Despite its size it can melt away into the dry forest with its clever camouflage. The males with their fantastic spiral horns stand taller than a man and can easily jump over a safari truck if push comes to shove. We saw Kudu in small numbers each day - they were a new animal for us and like the Namaqua Dove a part of the beautiful flora and fauna that now sets Ruaha apart for us as a very special corner of Tanzania. I'll come back and post more about Kudu when I have learned about them. They are the epitomy of a stately deer.

Namaqua Dove, Oenis Capensis

Ruaha National Park, Tanzania 

June 29-July 5 2013