Birds of Eastern Africa

     I love to watch birds, and Eastern Africa was a wonderful place to do just that. The birds are absolutely beautiful and they are everywhere. Over the years my birdwatching on all of our trips has turned my husband into an excellent bird photographer. I am thinking of sending some of these photos to birding magazines because I think some of the photos could earn a little money.  I have posted a few of my husband's photos here to just wet your appetite. Remember these photos are copyright protected. I have reduced their pixels for this purpose.  It will take more than one post to show all these nice photos. I am also in the process of counting the lifers that I added on this trip. I have to look through my journal from the trip, also identify all the photos my husband took of birds, and I also need to go through my bird book and remind myself if I forgot to note any bird that I did see down in my journal. My memory is pretty good for the birds I have seen, immediately the day of the sightings. But sometimes I need the bird book to jog my memory when some days have passed from the sighting.



African pied crow: A common bird especially in areas of human habitation, as you can tell from its perch.

 

     The above photo is just to wet your appetite for bird photos. Hit "Read More" and view many more.



Crowned plover or Crowned lapwing; it is called both names.



  

Two marabou storks striding into a pond. These birds are big. Have you heard of the African Big Five of animals: The lion, leopard, rhino, elephant and buffalo? Well, there is also The African Ugly Five. On of these Ugly Five is the marabou stork. Can you guess what the other 4 Uglies are?

  

 

Above is the black winged lapwing. We who live in North America are not familiar with this bird. Lapwings do no live here. Below is Ruppell's blue eared starling. Even the starlings in Africa are beautiful. 





 



     The photo above is an African wattled lapwing, another of those grassland birds by that name. Below is a photo of the Fisher's sparrow lark, a female.

 

 



                                                                                           Why is she putting us in amongst the bird?

                   I don't know. She must be confused. She's getting older, you know.

The magnificent tawny eagle.

 

 

Grey headed vulture.

 

Another bird we do not have in this hemisphere.

The yellow necked longclaw. 

 

 

White browed robin-chat.

 

 

Arrow marked babbler. Both of these birds do not exist in this hemisphere.

 

 

"I AM NOT A BIRD." Maybe she's confused again.

The male topi often stands on anthills like this. He must be chosen by a female. Therefore he is demonstrating how big he is and what a wonderful specimen he would be to mate with.



 



White browed coucal.

Black necked heron.



An immature black winged kite on his kill.



Female ostrich displaying to the nearby male.

The nearby male. He still is not very excited about her. If her were, his neck and legs would look much more purple or pink.

 

The African fish eagle. This bird is a very close cousin to our American bald eagle. As you can see, it just has more white on its chest and upper back and it has a deep brown tail, not a white tail. Otherwise, it's behavior is very much like our  well known national bird.



     Well, that is all for this post. This number of photos makes the post fairly unwieldy to handle and download. Put some comments in here if you would like to see another post of African birds. I am also working on a post about the Masai tribe and our visit to their traditional village. And finally I would like to do a post on the wildebeest and zebra migration, one of the natural Wonders of the World. So stay tuned!!