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