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

Birding 101


The 101st bird of my big year snuck into the backyard on the 11th of November to feed on alates of termites that were erupting from the lawn.

101
Nightingale

Sunday, November 11, 2012

1st Century...


Most birders in East Africa won’t find this figure too impressive, but there it is, a small milestone.

Nov 8th started off slower than Nov 7th, thanks to a few of my favorite drink (Serengeti lager) celebrating with friends. A few work commitments took me into town so I only managed to add another 6 birds on the list.

55
Bronze mannikin
56
Cardinal woodpecker
57
Common house martin
58
Lesser striped swallow
59
Egyptian goose
60
European bee-eater

Pretty content with this as a start and with too much to do, I waited until Saturday morning before heading off on a long birding walk in the hills behind Gina’s place. My walk took me through a few different micro-habitats and I was quite happy to add these 23 birds to the list.

61
African grey hornbill
62
Black crowned tchagra
63
Dark capped warbler
64
Eastern pale chanting goshawk
65
Flappet lark
66
Green wood hoopoe
67
Grey heron
68
Lizard buzzard
69
Long crested eagle
70
Marabou stork
71
Mosque swallow
72
Pallid harrier
73
Pearl spotted owlet
74
Red backed shrike
75
Red billed quelea
76
Red faced crombec
77
Red headed weaver
78
Ring-necked dove
79
Singing cisticola
80
Slate colored boubou
81
Streaky seedeater
82
Willow warbler
83
Yellow bishop
84
Yellow fronted canary

The weather turned wet in the afternoon so I only added a few in the afternoon.

85
Black chested snake eagle
86
Cattle egret
87
Little grebe
88
Sacred ibis

Planning to get some good birding in this morning, we woke up at 5 a.m. planning to meet my Dad at 6 and head off for a few hours birding in different habitat. As Murphy’s Law would have it, it started raining a few minutes after we left the house. Plans changed and we ended up having pancakes with maple syrup at my Dad’s house waiting for the rain to stop. When the rain ended briefly we managed to see some good garden birds including a surprising Golden-winged sunbird that was spectacular.

89
Cape robin chat
90
Chestnut weaver
91
Golden winged sunbird
92
Hildebrant's francolin
93
Tree pipit
94
Vitelline's masked weaver

The rate at which you add new species to a bird list gets significantly harder unless you change habitats, and I haven’t left Arusha yet. It took some effort to get the last 6 species. I found it quite interesting how I was having trouble finding some really common birds, but then, I’m hoping I’ll add them this week.

95
Common buzzard
96
Grey headed bush-shrike
97
Long tailed fiscal
98
Red-cheeked cordon bleu
99
Yellow-billed kite
100
House sparrow