Bulletin 359 - Uganda #3 - Raptors - part 1

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.

I will start with the 29" African Fish Eagle (Haliaeetus vocifer). This cousin of our Bald Eagle has a white head and chest and tail making him an easy bird to ID.He can be readily found along lakes and rivers.

African Fish Eagle - adult

The juveniles are mostly brown color and gradually molt to adult plumage in 5 years. This is a sub-adult bird with some remaining brown streaking on the breast.

African Fish Eagle - sub-adult

The 23" Long-crested Eagle (Lophaetus ocipitalis) is a black eagle with a long wispy crest.

Long-crested Eagle

Nest we have a pair of beige eagles. The 29" Tawny Eagle (Aquila rapax) is cousin to our Golden eagle. He is beige bodied with darker wings.

Tawny Eagle

The 24" Wahlberg's Eagle (Hieraaetus wahlbergi) is a brown eagle who has a flat top to his head and a slightly crested appearance when seen from the side.

Wahlberg's Eagle

Next is a bird in the same genus, the 22" Ayre's Hawk-Eagle (Hieraaetus ayersii). This eagle has a black back and black-and-white streaked underside. The wings are lined black and white aloft.

Ayre's Hawk-Eagle

The 24" Western Banded Snake Eagle (Circaetus cinerascens) is a dark brown eagle with a white tail and terminal black band.

Western Banded Snake Eagle

His cousin is the larger 27" Black-chested Snake Eagle (Circaetus pectoralis). This bird is black above with a black chest and light belly.

Black-chested Snake Eagle

The 30" Hooded Vulture (Necrosyrtes monachus). He is IDed by the wispy white feathers from the top of his head down his neck.The adult has a red face, so this is the immature with the dark face.

Hooded Vulture

The last for this bulletin is the 24" Palm-nut Vulture (Gypohierax angolensis). The adult has white head, breast and shoulders, with black back and wings. The facial skin is red.

Palm-nut Vulture - adult

The immature has a lot of beige in place of the white..

Palm-nut Vulture - sub-adult

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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Bulletin 340 - South Africa #17 - Part 1 - Vultures, Cuckoos, Secretarybird, Mousebirds

I had an amazing 2 week trip to South Africa and scored almost 280 new species of birds as well as fantastic mammals and a few reptiles. My guide Casper Badenhorst was outstanding. You can see his web site here. He can be contacted through the web site or if you want his email it is info@birdingandwildlifesafaris.com. I recommend him highly as he showed me so many rare birds and animals. I will use him again when I go to Southern Africa.

The 55" Secretarybird (Sagittarius serpentarius) is a unique long-legged raptor in its own family. It has long plumes on the back of the head and very long tail feathers.

Secretarybird

Secretarybird

The Old Word vultures are included in the same family as hawks and eagles, unlike the New World vultures which are a separate family. I saw 6 species for the trip. The smallest is the 24" Palm-nut Vulture (Gypohierax angolensis). It is always associated with raphia palms as about 2/3 of its diet is the nuts of this tree. It is very rare in South Africa because that tree is not native there, but has been planted. The birds have followed.  This was another stroke of luck to see this bird. The guides 17 year old son, who is also a birder, has never seen this species. Here he is on top of that palm tree.

Palm-nut Vulture

The next larger is the 30" Hooded Vulture (Necrosyrtes monachus) It is a brown vulture with a white face, that turns red when excited.

Hooded Vulture

The 38" White-headed Vulture (Trigonoceps occipitalis) is black above, white below and a white head. This one has his crop full after gorging on a carcass, we will see later.

White-headed Vulture

The next larger is the 40" White-backed Vulture (Gyps africanus). It is beige or brown backed with a gray neck and black face and bill.

White-backed Vulture

The 46" Cape Vulture (Gyps coprotheres) is a huge white headed vulture that I only saw overhead.

Cape Vulture

 The 46" Lappet-faced Vulture (Torgos tracheliotus) is a huge brown vulture with a pink head. Because of its size, it is able to tear open some larger carcasses when the smaller vultures cannot. The locals call it the 'can opener'.

Lappet-faced Vulture

I am sure everyone has seen nature shows of vultures fighting over a carcass. We saw this spectacle once. Here is a dead hyena and the vultures are swarming around trying to get at it.

Vultures

And in this one, some jackals are trying to get in as well.

 Vultures and jackal

Most cuckoos in the Old World are parasitic which means they lay their eggs in other birds nests (like our cowbirds here in Americas). 

The 12" Red-chested Cuckoo (Cuculus solitarius) has a gray head and back and a brick red chest.

Red-chested Cuckoo

The 7" male Klaas's Cuckoo (Chrysococcyx klaas) is bright green above and white below.

Klaas's Cuckoo - male

The 8" male Diederik Cuckoo (Chrysococcyx caprius) is dark green on the back and wings with white spots on the wings and tail. It is snow white below and has a red eye.

Diederik Cuckoo - male

But the most beautiful is the 8" male African Emerald Cuckoo (Chrysococcyx cupreus) It is glossy green with a bright yellow breast and belly.

African Emerald Cuckoo - male

Continued on Part 2