Bulletin 357 - Uganda #1 - Plovers and Lapwings

After the week in the Capetown area, the guide Casper Badenhorst, and I flew to Uganda and met a local guide. We started at Entebbe Airport on the southeast corner of Uganda and made a diagonal trip to Murchison Falls NP in the northwest corner. From there, we proceeded south through a chain of nature preserves and parks to the southwest corner at Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. We finished along the southern border back to the airport.

Plovers and lapwings are a favorite bird family of mine ever since I first saw a Kildeer as a child in Canada. We saw a total of 10 species in Uganda, of which 5 were lifers for me. The first 4 lapwings were lifers. 

The 12" Long-toed Lapwing (Vanellus crassirostris) has a white face, black hood, red eye and red legs.

Long-toed Lapwing

The 10" Black-headed lapwing (Vanellus tectus) has a black head and thin crest with white stripe across face. He has a yellow eye.

Black-headed Lapwing

The 11" Spur-winged Lapwing (Vanellus spinosis) is similar to the Long-toed above but the entire top of the head is black. None of the photos I took showed the spurs on the wing.

Spur-winged Lapwing

The last lifer is the 10" Senegal Lapwing (Vanellus lugubris). It is the plainest as has a gray head and brown body. It has a yellow eye.

Senegal Lapwing

The 13.5" African Wattled Lapwing (Vanellus senegallus) is an easy ID with yellow, wattled, legs and bill. Notice this bird does have spurs on the wings.

African Wattled Lapwing

The 12" Crowned Lapwing (Vanellus coronatus) is a brown lapwing with black and white top of head.

Crowned Lapwing

Uganda has several lakes in the Rift Valley and the largest lake in Africa - Lake Victoria. We had the pleasure of 3 boat trips. One was on the White Nile River to the base of Murchison Falls. It is famous for having the largest volume of water of any falls in the world.

The 8" Common Ringed Plover (Charadrius hiaticula) was seen on the shore during one of the trips. It is a typical small plover and is a winter migrant here so the markings are muted.

Common Ringed Plover

We only saw a single 7" Three-banded Plover (Charadrius tricollaris). It seems poorly named as there are only 2 dark breast bands like our Killdeer. The red eye and bill are distinctive.

Three-banded Plover

We had the 6" Kittlitz's Plover (Charadrius pecuarius) again. But this was my closest photo of this bird. He is a beautiful little plover in breeding plumage and I love his name as well.

Kittlitz's Plover

The last was a real treat. The 8" Caspian Plover (Charadrius asiaticus) is another beautiful little plover. My luck is amazing as this bird can be difficult to find in Africa. The guide has a client in London who has come to Africa 4 times specifically to see this bird and missed it every time. We saw it on March 1st in non-breeding plumage. 

Caspian Plover - winter

Then a week later saw it in breeding plumage with the red chest.

Caspian Plover - breeding

And another bird was right beside the vehicle.

Caspian Plover - breeding

In all, we probably saw about 20 Caspian Plovers in several locations. Of course this was a lifer for me.

I put the different bird/mammal families in single folders for easy viewing


I have photos of 29 of the 67 species of  plovers and lapwings

I discovered a new book :"The World's Rarest Birds" by Hirschfeld, Swash and Still published in 2013. It lists all the 600 birds that are designated as Endangered or Critically Endangered or Extinct in Wild and only survive in captive breeding programs.

They have illustrations or photos of the birds, a brief description and reasons that they are endangered - pet trade, deforestation, logging, change in water areas, pollution, fishing, invasive species etc.

Also they have the estimated populations of each species at the time of publication.

I was delighted to see that I have photos of 42 of these birds already in my collection of photos. I knew some of them already, but the most surprising was the Chestnut-bellied Flowerpiercer in Colombia. It was rediscovered in 2003 after not been seen since 1965.

BirdLife International is an organizational of regional bird conservancy groups and works to protect these birds from extinction.

I put these 42 birds in a separate folder for your enjoyment.

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald

dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2006 - 2020 David McDonald

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