289 : Grey-headed Bush Shrike

Grey-headed Bush-Shrike - Malaconotus blanchoti

This does feel like cheating. Another bird that on  closer inspection turns out to be something that I didn't think it was. The bulky head, massive bill and yellow eye show this to be a Grey-headed and not a Suphur-breasted Bush-Shrike.

I seem to be in a bit of a birding wilderness at the moment - I am not actually birding. I haven't been out with my camera in a number of weeks - I have even travelled without it packed or if I have - not with the long lens. I have a trip to the UK in two weeks with a couple of days at a weekend first of all - in theory I could get a bit of birding done. There are numerous easy species that I should be able to pick up even just on  bird feeder. 2013 has not been a good year in retrospect given that 2011 was only part of a year it is my worst year of the 3 calendar periods I have spent on this site. If I conclude  100 birds in a year we are of course looking at 100 years to finish the task. The chances of me living to 150 are minimal so even 2 and half years in I am failing miserably. I wonder if I could take a sabbatical and just bird for 3 months !! That would be something.

I have been busy at work, and with rugby, time seems to be in short supply (but I still find time to lie around doing little at times). Its not a general malaise - I just need to invest in  morning or an afternoon with my camera and a patch of scrub and take it from there. Then I will feel guilty that  haven't hung a picture or done something "useful". It does just all seem to be work, the rugby club and flights to here and there and packing and unpacking at the moment. No time for birds - which feels like no time for myself. Thats not true though - its what you choose to spend time on. My parents are over at the moment so free time is spent with them.

Perhaps I will try to just get a couple of hours to myself at some time in the next week or so and go from there.

Grey-headed Bush-Shrike, Malaconotus blanchoti
Ruaha National Park, Tanzania
July 2015

288 : Sulphur-Breasted Bush-Shrike

Sulphur-Breasted Bush-Shrike - Malaconotus sulfureopectus

This is real blow up of a bird that you hear but don't see normally. Hidden in the canopy this beautiful Bush-shrike is a real birder's bird. That's a real tequila sunrise of a breast - orange juice and grenadine !

I think I connected with this bird on our last game drive down by the Great Ruaha River. A River I now read is in danger of drying up and the national park dying. A project to help people by irrigating rice paddies is taking away the water further upstream - in the dry season the water completely stopped flowing and the animals are being forced away from the river and out of the park. The situation is either changed now or the park dies.

I am not sure what the answer would be - you would have to compensate the farmers and find them a livelihood elsewhere.  We cannot let Tanzania's largest national park just die - starved of water that fuels the abundance of big game.

All these pictures were taken on a 2 or 3 hour drive where we didn't get more than a kilometre or two from the camp. There are two types of birders - stompers and a*sers. This game drive was an abject lesson in lazy birding - Take a much smaller patch and see what turns up. There were several birds that we couldn't get onto with the bins let alone the camera - a Klaas cuckoo for example that drove my assistant guide Tony nuts as it would have been a lifer and we barely got a peek at it. We just moved 10 yards at a time picking up birds but all the while surrounded by an abundance of game that would have been the main event on any other drive.

But looking back I was just soaking it up - not in hurry - not looking for Cheetahs, Lions or Leopards, just looking for birds and tripping over a whole ecosystem on the doorstep of my tent.

And to top it all a family of elusive Lesser Kudu - I have only just noticed the third animal in the left hand of the frame - Here at range and then blown up so that you can see the more pronounced barring. Perhaps half the size of the stately Greater Kudu we only came across these creatures on I think one or two other occasions.

And zoomed in a bit you can see the differences on these elusive Kudu. More stripes, much smaller.

I am not sure what needs to be done or can be done but I do know its a place that needs protecting. There are enough people on this planet and we need to be cleverer about where we build our rice paddies. The day we wipe out the last big wildernesses for these big animals I will probably be gone - but I hate to think of what we will have done in just 2 or 3 generations. Its easy for me - a safari going lawyer who lives in a villa in the Gulf fuelled by desalinated water to preach about protecting national parks - I have a carbon footprint the size of Mars. The only thing I do know might work is to get numbers of people paying large amounts to visit these places, do it in a sustainable way and then get the money to the people around the edge of the park - farming wildlife !

I see lots of good news stories as well based around wildlife tourism - 300 or 400 people at a time employed to support game reserves in Botswana that are being restored for example - but if the tap is turned off by mismanagement of a river system as it has been in Ruaha then its going to be hard to get people to visit a gameless dust bowl and people still need to be fed.

What to do. I am not Tanzanian.

Sulphur-breasted Bush-Shrike, Malaconotus sulfureopectus
Ruaha National Park, Tanzania
July 2013

287 : Green-winged Pytilia

Green-winged Pytilia - Pytilia melba

I really am scraping the barrel now from holiday. Half snapped shots of small birds lurking in bushes - its the real flavour of birding ! This from my only afternoon birding on my own in Tanzania. A grey head, green wings, red tail and a light barring on a pale front reduce the candidates considerably to the Pytilias. Of them Green-winged seems 95 % likely and this a female.

These are small brightly colourd waxtails found in pairs and small flocks in bush country and wooded grasslands. Whats the difference between bush and wooded grassland ? Oh dear I will have to go back to Africa to sort that one out ! These birds are often on the ground or low down in thick cover - on that basis I did well to get this shot in grass, bush and wood !!

287 - creeping in-inexoribly foward toward the 300 although I am not sure I have the gas in the tank. I'll keep keep going but at some point heaven forbid I will have to start birding again !!

Ruaha National Park, Tanzania
July 2013

286 : Long-tailed Cormorant

Long-tailed Cormorant - Phalacrocorax africanus

A common african version of the Cormorant present on a wide range of different waters. This solitary bird was the only one we saw and I am not sure if it was usual or not for the Ruaha river. As memory serves me our guide Lorenzo was surprised to see it there.

Ruaha National Park, Tanzania
July 2013