Arusha to Tarangire

After 2 nights at Hatari we were headed to Tarangire National Park, our second longest stop of the trip and a key birding location in Tanzania.  On the way we stopped from time-to-time, seeing the fairly common White-headed Buffalo Weaver:

And the now scarce Fischer's Lovebird:

Outside of the park the landscape is dry and hot and the land farmed and dry:

On arrival at Tarangire late morning we had to wait an hour for the paperwork queue to be worked through.  It was baking hot.  Most people stood under a large Boabab tree.  We wandered about looking for birds, though frankly we could have stood in the shade too, these Ashy Starlings are everywhere around the park entrance:

The landscape in the park is stunning:

And majestic trees and grasslands:

The birding is very good too.   Here a well-lit African Hoopoe:

A White-faced Go-Away-Bird:

An African White-headed Vulture:

Brown-crowned Tchagra:

Grassland Pipit:

Crested Francolin, them of the early morning wake-up call:

Like every park it's not all about the birds, I adore these Dwarf Mongooses and their habit of taking over termite mounds:

Emerald-spotted Wood-Dove, their wings are very dark brown when they fly, often that's how you know what just flew away from you:

A soaring Egyptian Vulture:

The small but brightly coloured Green-winged Pytillia, this a female without the red-face:

Grey-headed Kingfisher:

There are lots of antelopes of various species, all living in this jaw-dropping landscape:

Together with Masai Giraffe:

The start of the short-rain/wet season triggers breeding for some species, here a Moustached Warbler is gathering nesting material:

Red-billed Buffalo Weaver, one of the 'small five':

Rufous-tailed Weavers:

A Schallow's Wheatear:

And in a flock of Cordon-bleus, we also saw Speckle-fronted Weavers, feeding on the ground:

We also saw a number of elephants, this being a major home for them in Tanzania, this one had just finished covering itself in red mud:

And all of this was before lunch, a buffet at Tarangire Safari Lodge.  We were booked into one of the concrete rooms, in a wild camp, which means no fences.   We regularly had impala outside our room, and we also found a scorpion in our sink but that's another story!

The food was very good and the lodge itself has amazing views being perched on the lip of an escarpment, overlooking a river:

We spent a few hours around the lodge in the heat of the day, and saw a lot more wildlife including the common and gregarious Northern White-crowned Shrike:

A Sulphur-breasted Bush-Shrike, one species of an extremely colourful family of birds:

We really enjoyed watching a pair of Von der Decken's Hornbills feeding, first the female with the black bill:

Then she took watch while the male fed:

The cloud built through our afternoon game drive, giving some interesting light to work with, as you can see here with this Grey Go-Away bird:

Two-banded Courser, we've only seen these in the late afternoon, no idea why:

The sky, the cloud, the sun, the landscape:

And sunset:

We'd arrived in an amazing place.

A quiet winter for us, partly weather, partly a family Christmas in Cornwall and partly getting the garden ready for Spring after a very wet nine months.

Another winter of heavy snow, the third in a row now, led to some unusual garden visitors for us, especially this Fieldfare.  This single bird stayed for around two weeks, taking advantage of the fresh fruit we put out every day:

As well as the garden bird we've been conducting winter thrush surveys for the BTO.  The summary is farmland is mostly a desert whereas land not farmed contains lots of bird food and therefore birds.  I wonder where the missing 44 million nesting birds were lost from?!?

Once the snow melted, the Nene tributary flooded again:

This is about the worst we've seen it, and this is the third flood of this level in the last nine months.  With all the preparation we've done to the hedge, the vegetable area, under the trees, in the orchard, hopefully we'll have a really good growing year this year.  Can't wait!

Birding in Britain - the novelty

It really had been too long since we managed to get out birding around our home. What with all my flying and the work on the garden filling our spare time it must have been six months since we ventured out. We decided to put that right with a trip up to south Lincolnshire so set off on Friday night after work, settling into a Premier Inn for dinner and an early night ahead of an equally early start.

Saturday morning we were out at dawn and drove the 40 minutes to Frampton Marsh, our first destination. The weather forecast was for clear skies, however a ground mist lay over the land leading to some beautiful effects from the rising sun:

At Frampton Marsh some Swans took off in the morning light:

A pair of Kestrels emerged from the Barn Owl box they've apparently taken over:

A Grey Heron fished:

A flock of Brent Geese took off from the wash and headed inland looking for food:

I think I prefer this one of the three it has more depth and indeed birds. The yellows and white in the first two were indicative of just how close to the sun they were when I took the images:

From Frampton we headed South-East to Welney in Cambridgeshire passing a group of men waving their arms to scare birds out of trees and shooting them... the nadir of our species.

Welney was its usual welcoming self, an oasis of conservation and life. We enjoyed seeing the migrant Whooper Swans, Pochard and other ducks and geese and were chuffed when a pair of Common Cranes dropped in. We'd only just been talking about whether the birds in Spring may have stayed or if they'd have moved on. These were the first Cranes at Welney in some time apparently...

They didn't hang about long though:

From Welney we visited a new RSPB reserve, Drayton Lakes. It was very busy with people dog walking, fishing and surrounded by gunfire and actually proved a real disappointment, so we decided to head back to Northampton to try and catch sight of some Short-eared Owls which had been seen recently. We arrived literally as the sun dipped below the hills, so while we enjoyed watching the owls I only managed a record shot:

We decided to head back again therefore on Sunday afternoon. The weather was against us though and as we approached it was apparent the area was wreathed in fog. We still saw half a dozen Owls including a pair fighting:

And one bird kindly flew close enough for me to get some (mostly) in focus images:

I'm going to take a late lunch break this week if there's a sunny afternoon and try again with better light, fingers crossed. We did enjoy our birding in the UK again.