Bulletin 361 - Uganda #5 - Raptors - part 2

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.

Raptors are a popular group of birds to see due to their size and the power they project. Many countries have hawks or eagles or vultures as national birds. In Africa their are an amazing number of raptors to be seen compared to North America. Omitting the falcons, the East Africa Guide Book for Kenya, Uganda Tanzania list 63 species. Sibley has just 24 in North America. In addition, many live in protected parks and they can be approached in a vehicle rather closely for great photos.

Three harrier species were photographed including 2 migrants from Europe. The 18" immature Pallid Harrier (Circus macrourus) is dark brown above and rust below. He also has a white rump like many harriers.

Pallid Harrier - immature

The other migrant was the 18" Montagu's Harrier (Circus pygargus). The male is gray with a black line along the top of the wings.

Montagu's Harrier - male

The 20" African Marsh Harrier (Circus ranivorus) was frequently seen along lake shores. He is a dark brown hawk with a long tail and beige head.

African Marsh Harrier

The 24" Black Kite (Milvus migrans) was often seen flying, but seldom perched. He is actually brown in color and in the morning light had a reddish color in the photo.

Black Kite

The 20" Common Buzzard (Buteo buteo) is a nondescript brown hawk.

Common Buzzard

The 24" Augur Buzzard (Buteo augur) comes in a dark morph and a light morph. he has a red tail like our Red-tailed Hawk. Here is an adult dark phase bird. The red in the taill is best seen when the bird is flying.

Augur Buzzard - dark morph

We aslo had a juvenile light morph with a streaked breast.

Augur Buzzard - juvenile light morph

The 14" Lizard Buzzard (Kaupifalco monogrammicus) is a pearly gray hawk with a red bill and red feet.

Lizard Buzzard

The 17" Grasshopper Buzzard (Butastur rufipennis) is a brown hawk with reddish  belly.

Grasshopper Buzzard

The 22" Dark Chanting Goshawk (Melierax metabates) is a dark gray hawk with red beak and legs.

Dark Chanting Goshawk

Accipiters are a group of hawks that hunt birds on the wing. So they have to be very quick to maneuver. Thus they have short wings and long tails. I have on ly seen 2 of the 3 accipiters in North America. But in Uganda I also saw 2 of them. 

The 12" Shikra (Accipiter badius) I had seen in China but did not get a photo. This bird let me walk right up to her. This is a female with the orange eyes. The male has red eyes. The name Shikra is unusual and it comes from Indian - meaning hunter

Shikra - female

The other was the beautiful 22" Black Sparrowhawk (Accipiter melanoleucus). This beautiful bird was in a tree across a field, but he let us walk to within 10 meters from the tree.

Black Sparrowhawk

One thing that has interested me for a long time are national birds. Now that I have done photography on several continents, I decided to look up national or official territorial birds. Some places do not have designated birds, so if they have the bird on their coat-of-arms, I used that bird. Despite the fact I have I have photographed in just a dozen countries, I have photos of the birds of 83 countries or territories. 

I did the same for the USA states and territories as well as the Canadian provinces. You can see them here.

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

I have photos of 72 of the 254 species of  hawks, eagles, kites

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald

dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2006 - 2020 David McDonald

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