Sunday, July 26, 2020

Bulletin 363 - Uganda #7 - Storks, Shoebill, Hamerkop, Buffalo

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.

One of the target birds in Uganda is the 48" tall Shoebill (Balaeniceps rex). This gray stork-like bird with a massive bill is unique in its own family. It is found in large swamps from South Sudan to Zambia. Uganda is the usual place where birders go to see this bird as there is a great location about 2 hours from the airport at Entebbe and guides to take out on a boat to see them. It is also #23 on the top 100 birds to see.


Shoebill
We were able to slowly approach the bird by quietly pushing the boat with poles.


Shoebill
Eventually, he took off and instead of landing back in the swamp, he landed on top of a tree. The guide was amazed. He said he has been taking people to see the bird daily for 10 years and never before saw one land in the tree. My amazing luck comes once again.


Shoebill
A close relative of the Shoebill and another bird in its own family is the 22" Hamerkop (Scopus umbretta). This brown heron like bird has a long crest giving it a hammer-head appearance.


Hamerkop
There was one new stork of the 5 photographed in Uganda. The 32" Abdim's Stork (Ciconia abdimi) is a glossy black backed stork with a white belly and blue facial skin. He was the lifer for me.


Abdim's Stork
The 32" African Openbill (Anastomus lamelligerus) is a black stork with a gap in his closed mandible. Their main food is mollusks. I have no idea when they have this peculiar mandible


African Openbill

The 42" Yellow-billed Stork (Mycteria ibis) is white with black wings, red face and a yellow bill.


Yellow-billed Stork
The 57" male Saddle-billed Stork (Ephippiorhynchus senegalensis) is a black and white stork with a multi-colored bill.


Saddle-billed Stork - male
The huge 60" Marabou Stork (Leptoptilos crumenifer) is amazingly ugly. It has a bare pink head and neck, as it feeds on carrion along with vultures. The big throat pouch is distinctive.


Marabou Stork
The African Buffalo (Syncerus caffer) weighs up to 1800 pounds. Here is one with a Cattle Egret on his back.


African Buffalo
We have all seen photos of mammals rolling in dust or mud to protect themselves from biting insects. Well this buffalo has taken matters to the extreme. This was perhaps the funniest photo of the whole trip. He was right beside the road and just looked at us - seeming to say 'Mind your own business'


African Buffalo

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald


dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2006 - 2020 David McDonald

To have these trip reports sent to your email, please email me at the above address and ask to subscribe.

Sunday, July 12, 2020

Bulletin 362 - Uganda #6 - Bushshrikes and Elephants

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.

Bushshrikes are an African family of 50 species, some of which have spectacular colors. I photographed 7 new species in Uganda. All these birds have heavy bills with a hook tipped upper mandible.

The 8" Albertine Sooty Boubou (Laniarius holomelas) is a recent split (2010) and is found only in the mountains of Eastern Congo, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. It is all black with a black eye.


Albertine Sooty Boubou
The 7" Marsh Tchagra (Bocagia minuta) is brown with a black and white head and  a black tail.


Marsh Tchagra
The 7" Northern Puffback (Dryoscopus gambensis) is black and white with a red eye.


Northern Puffback
The 7" male Lüdher's Bushshrike (Laniaruis luedheri) is a black and white bird with burnt orange crown, throat and breast.

Lüdher's Bushshrike - male
The 7" male Doherty's Bushshrike (Telophorus dohertyi) is multicolored with an olive back, yellow belly, red forehead and breast and a black ring around the red on face and breast.

Doherty's Bushshrike - male
The 7.5" male Papyrus Gonolek (Laniarius mufumbiri) inhabits papyrus reed beds. He is black above with a yellow crown and orange red below. Here are a couple of photos of this beautiful bird. This was also my first time to see papyrus reeds which are famous, as the ancient Egyptians used them to make a form of paper.

Papyrus Gonolek - male
Papyrus Gonolek - male
Lastly is the 8" male Black-headed Gonolek (Laniarius erythrogaster). He is an easy ID.

Black-headed Gonolek - male
One surprise on the trip was with elephants!. I always assumed that there were 2 species of elephant - African and Indian. But in Uganda we saw the 2 species of African elephants and I did not even realize when they said 'there is a Forest Elephant' that it was a separate species until I arrived home and was processing the pictures from the trip.

So the one usually seen by tourists in game parks is the African Bush Elephant (Loxodonta africana). Here is a family group, taken from the boat on the White Nile River.

African Bush Elephant
A couple of days later in another park of dense forest, an elephant crossed the road and the guide shouted Forest Elephant. This was my first and only sighting of this animal. The African Forest Elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis). It is the smallest of the 3 species of elephant. The shoulder height is about 3 feet shorter than the bush elephant.

African Forest Elephant

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

I have photos of 15 of the 50 species of bushshrikes

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald


dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2006 - 2020 David McDonald

To have these trip reports sent to your email, please email me at the above address and ask to subscribe.