Friday, December 14, 2012

A Taste of Ruaha & Arusha National Parks


Forest birding. Photo by Pietro Luraschi.
Having won the tender to train rangers in Ruaha National Parks to conduct safe walking safaris, I headed down to Ruaha for a quick recce with friend, fellow birder, and fellow guide trainer Pietro Luraschi. The task of finding the site for the training camp distracted from birding but we managed to see over a 100 species adding the following to my list. 

276
White-crowned Lapwing
277
Spur-winged Lapwing
278
Spotted Thick-knee
279
Heuglin's Courser
280
Purple-crested Turaco
281
Square-tailed Nightjar
282
Broad-billed Roller
283
Ruaha Hornbill
284
Collared Palm-Thrush
285
Grey-capped Social Weaver
286
Gabar Goshawk
287
d'Arnaud's Barbet
288
Yellow-bellied Greenbul
289
Pale Flycatcher
290
Great Egret
291
Amur Falcon
292
Grey Kestrel
293
Red-necked Falcon
294
Common Cuckoo
295
Böhm's Spinetail
296
African Firefinch
297
African Golden-breasted Bunting


Ruaha is Tanzania's largest national park and has a phenomenal bird list that includes quite a few "new" species. During the training in January and after I hope to see some of the special Miombo species and Ruaha specialities.

Not only birds in the forest.
With Pietro in Arusha for only a couple days, we headed off to have a look at Hatari Lodge in Arusha National Park and to get up into the forest on Mt. Meru. Forest birding is a whole different story to savannah birding and I was pleased to add the following birds to the list including some we saw on the way in.

Hartlaub's Turacco

Dusky flycatcher

Starred robin

Cinnamon breasted bee-eater

Eastern double collared sunbird


298
Lesser Spotted Eagle
299
Peregrine Falcon
300
Alpine Swift
301
Sand Martin
302
Red-throated Tit
303
Avocet
304
Diederik Cuckoo
305
Slender-tailed Nightjar
306
Lesser Flamingo
307
Greater Flamingo
308
Southern Pochard
309
Lammergeyer
310
Grey Crowned Crane
311
Spot-flanked Barbet
312
White-naped Raven
313
Rüppell's Robin-Chat
314
White-starred Robin
315
Common Stonechat
316
Olive Thrush
317
Hunter's Cisticola
318
Blackcap
319
Grey Wagtail
320
Mountain Wagtail
321
Eastern Double-collared Sunbird
322
Abyssinian Crimsonwing
323
African Moustached Warbler
324
African Dusky Flycatche

Saturday, November 24, 2012

1/4 of a thousand +1

This morning Gina, Pietro and myself headed to Monduli to have a go at forest birds. Forest birding is difficult. Most of the time you hear the birds but you don't see them, and in my quest to be a better birder I really don't want to record a bird just by its call. Fortunately we found a fruiting fig tree and spent some time watching some really spectacular birds. I should note that the Brown-hooded kingfisher and Grey-Olive Greenbul were seen in the Burka forest.

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Grey-olive Greenbul
Brown-hooded Kingfisher
Mountain Buzzard
Hartlaub's Turaco
Cinnamon Bee-eater
Common Scimitarbill
Black Saw-wing
Mountain Greenbul
White-eyed Slaty Flycatcher
Bronze Sunbird
Montane White-eye
Speke's Weaver
Yellow-bellied Waxbill
Purple Grenadier














Friday, November 23, 2012

Revised total so far...

A very good friend and one of the top birders/ecologists/naturalists I know sent me an excel file with all the bird species for Tanzania listed so that I can check them off and avoid duplications. Checking through the list I discovered a couple omissions (African paradise flycatcher, Brown snake eagle) and a couple duplicates and questionables and fortunately the overall sum comes out at  
236 
 so far. The file is now in my dropbox folder and you can view it by clicking on the link at the top of the page.

Its the weekend again so I hope to add a few more species and enjoy some good birding.

Monday, November 19, 2012

Overnight in Tarangire


If you’ve read any of my other blogs, you’ll know that I love Tarangire. I’ve been travelling to Tarangire since I can’t remember and it’s just a classic savanna habitat with all sorts of cool stuff and tons of elephants. This weekend, I decided to boost my list to over 200 with a short overnight trip to a place I’m really comfortable with. We left Saturday morning stopping en-route at a dam with GPS points South 03.44465, East 36.38680. You have to be careful birding on the Arusha-Tarangire road because the land on the southern side is military land and they have a hard time understanding why you’re walking around with GPS, notebook, and binoculars.

We quickly racked up 33 species with the following 19 additions to the Big Year List. Admittedly, there are a few repetitions in my master list, but I should get time this week to sort through that. It’s only a couple, but it will be reflected in the next post.

162
Coot, Red-knobed
163
Dove, Namaqua
164
Eagle, Bateleur
165
Egret, Intermediate
166
Fiscal, Long-tailed
167
Goose, Spur-winged
168
Harrier, Marsh
169
Jacana, African
170
Lark, Fischer's sparrow
171
Plover, Blacksmith
172
Plover, Common ringed
173
Plover, Three-banded
174
Sandpiper, Common
175
Shrike, Magpie
176
Spoonbill, African
177
Starling, Wattled
178
Swift, Mottled
179
Teal, Red-billed
180
Weaver, Red-billed buffalo


Without wasting too much time, we headed on to the park. Tarangire is a special park and deserves a lot more birding time than an overnight. It has hills with forests that have forest birds, its got dry Commiphora woodlands with specials like Vulturine guinea fowl, and it’s a hotspot for endemics like Ashy starling and Yellow-collared lovebirds. Its early in the wet season so I was a little disappointed not to get any whydahs, widow-birds, and some other very common birds just seemed to elude us. That said, we managed to list over 100 species just in the park with highlights like great viewing of African quail finches drinking.

200
Hornbill, Red-billed
201
Hornbill, Southern ground
202
Hornbill, Von der Deckens
203
Kingfisher, Striped
204
Kingfisher, Woodland
205
Lovebird, Yellow-collared
206
Ostrich, Common
207
Owl, African scops
208
Owl, Barn
209
Parrot, Brown
210
Plover, Senegal
211
Pytilia, Green-winged
212
Roller, European
213
Roller, Rufous-crowned
214
Ruff
215
Sandgrouse, Chestnut-bellied
216
Sandgrouse, Yellow-throated
217
Shrike, Northern white-crowned
218
Silverbird
219
Snipe, Common
220
Sparrow, Swahili
221
Spurfowl, Red-necked
222
Starling, Ashy
223
Stilt, Black-winged
224
Stint, Little
225
Sunbird, Marico
226
Swift, European
227
Swift, Little
228
Swift, Palm
229
Thick-knee, Water
230
Vulture, Lappet-faced
231
Vulture, Ruppels griffon
232
Vulture, White-backed
233
Weaver, Rufous-tailed
234
Woodpecker, Bearded
235
Woodpecker, Grey

Tarangire wasn’t only about birds- we also saw the following mammals and we’ll add a mammal and reptile page to this blog soon.

Friday, November 16, 2012

15th November- A 112-Bird day


My brother is heading to South Africa to study for a few months and we wanted to spend some quality time together. Niether of us had commitments this morning so we set off on our motorbikes on a bird trip. Convening at my Dad’s house for breakfast we quickly checked off 22 species of birds that are already on the big year list. Hopping onto our bikes we headed up just beyond Oldonyo Sambu where we pulled up near a cattle trough to bird for a while. 35 species later we moved on, with the following additions to the master list.

102
African grey flycatcher
103
African hoopoe
104
Banded parisoma
105
Brubru
106
Capped wheater
107
Chin-spot batis
108
Cinnamon-breasted rock bunting
109
Common kestrel
110
Common rock thrush
111
Common scimitarbill
112
Grey wren warbler
113
Hildebrandt's starling
114
Isabeline shrike
115
Nubian woodpecker
116
Pygmy falcon
117
Red-fronted barbet
118
Red-fronted warbler
119
Schalow's wheater
120
Speckle-fronted weaver
121
Steppe eagle
122
White-bellied canary
123
White-bellied go-away bird
124
White-browed scrub robin
125
White-browed sparrow weaver
126
Speckled pigeon
127
Yellow-breasted apalis

The lark plains have turned green, but neither of us had the patience to tackle cryptic larks, so we headed across them to the Acacia-commiphora scrub to their east. Stopping a couple times we walked around and managed to get some highlights like the Rosy-patched bush shrike, white-headed mousebird, and northern wheater. Did you know that some of the northern wheaters that come to these plains migrate here all the way from Canada.

128
Beautiful sunbird
129
Black-faced waxbill
130
Black-necked weaver
131
Black-throated barbet
132
Brown snake eagle
133
Buff-crested bustard
134
Chestnut sparrow
135
Fishers sparrowlark
136
Isabeline wheater
137
Lesser masked weaver
138
Little bee-eater
139
Northern wheater
140
Rosy-patched bushshrike
141
Rufous sparrow
142
Temminck's courser
143
Violet-backed sunbird
144
White-headed buffalo weaver
145
White-headed mousebird
146
Yellow-bellied eremomela
147
Yellow-necked spurfowl
148
Yellow-spotted petronia

By this time the sun was pretty high and our stomachs started grumbling so we headed back for lunch before heading into a beautiful little forest on Burka coffee estate. Our walk took us up to a small dam for the following additions to the master list:

149
Ashy flycatcher
150
Black-backed puffback
151
Green sandpiper
152
Grosbeak weaver
153
Hammerkop
154
Holub's golden weaver
155
Palmnut vulture
156
Pied kingfisher
157
Rock martin
158
Scarce swift
159
Tambourine dove
160
White-browed robin chat
161
White-eared barbet