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Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Elusive bou-bous, pretty malachites and a juvenile stork

Since being in Tanzania, Grant and I have heard, followed and tried to photograph the elusive Slate-colored Bou-bou. We can hear its distinctive call of the male's bell-like "bop-bop" followed by the female's higher-pitched "boop". And although we stop and can see the skulking form in the undergrowth, I am never able to photograph it. On Saturday night, however, while at the club, I heard the call and followed it to a nearby tree. There I managed a photo of a young bou-bou sitting quietly on a branch.
 A young Slate-colored Bou-bou 

The following afternoon while driving through the bush we heard and subsequently saw a bou-bou climbing up a tree trunk nearby. It was actually exposed and I managed a couple of photos before it disappeared into the undergrowth.
 A Slate-colored Bou-bou clambering up a tree trunk and affording me a better photo - or not!

The same Slate-colored Bou-bou seconds before it flew down into the undergrowth   

On the way back to town, we stopped at a small body of water where an eclectic group of birds was enjoying the last of the evening's sun rays. 

 A Hamerkop, a Yellow-billed Stork and a Sacred Ibis with a Malachite Kingfisher in the background in between the stork and ibis

Grant and I noticed that the Yellow-billed Stork's bill wasn't very yellow. When I downloaded the photos and referenced the bird in the book, I saw that we'd photographed a Yellow-billed Stork Juvenile. 
The Juvenile Yellow-billed Stork is brownish above washed with grey-brown below. The neck and head are speckled grey and white
I panned in on the Malachite Kingfisher in the reeds behind and was thrilled to see two of these beauties there
 
I'm linking to Wild Bird Wednesday hosted by Stewart Monckton and which you can access by clicking here
 


 


12 comments:

  1. hi Jo You captured a lovely selection of birds for this post and I am glad you managed to get a shots of your elusive Bou Bou bird.

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  2. Oooo, nice sighting of the kingfishers

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  3. Jo, what an awesome collection of birds and sightings.. I love the stork and kingfishers.. Congrats on your sightings.. Have a happy day!

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  4. Wonderful the way you have caught the kingfishers in the reeds. Lovely set of birds Jo. Always interesting to see the birds from a different part of the world.

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  5. love those storks and the kingfisher. we have storks here but never seen a kingfisher...

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  6. After the Lord reminded me of His love through the early morning tweeting from the small birds from our backyard, now, I know, why I always enjoy your posts and pics about birds. Like the birds, your posts always encourage me and bring His love to mind. Thank you. God bless.

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  7. the stork would be thrilling enough, but those two kingfishers are wonderful! congrats on the bou-bou!

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  8. Lovely birds! I love the kingfishers.

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  9. Love that Slate coloured BouBou. I am working with endangered Wattled Cranes for a few months and find it very interesting.

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  10. Yay! Success! :-) Don't you love it?! And that kingfisher is great too. Nice post!

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  11. I so struggle getting good shots of birds. These are all wonderful, and I recognize several of them.

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Thank you for visiting my blog and taking the time to leave a comment. I appreciate your feedback. Jo