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Tanzania is without a doubt the quintessential African safari nation. Despite being a proud South African, my honest answer is Tanzania. For this post, I have selected what is in my opinion the three essential and must-visit sites in Tanzania and these all fall within the classic Northern Tanzania safari circuit.
A Marabou Stork arriving at its roost tree, Serengeti, Tanzania by Adam Riley We’ll start off with the largest and ugliest of them all (measuring up to 60in (152cm) in height, a weight of 20 lb (9 kg) and a wingspan of up to 12ft), the Marabou Stork. The Saddle-billed Stork has a similar Africa-wide distribution as the Marabou.
The bird-richest region of Africa is its equatorial East: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi (unlike the rest, the last one, Burundi, is politically unstable and not recommendable). Tanzania has 14 400+ hotspots, of which the top-5 have 500+ (the first one, Ngorongoro Conservation Area even with 600+ sp.). 4 Arusha NP 565 sp.
Africa’s pelicans can be a bit confusing on the identification front as Great White does show an overall pink blush in its plumage during breeding season whereas the pinkest part of Pink-backed Pelican is its lower back, which is only seen in flight! Great White Pelicans showing the pink flush of breeding plumage. Photo by Adam Riley.
Carmine bee-eaters occur throughout most of Subsaharan Africa, and many populations migrate widely post breeding. After breeding they also disperse over the rainforests and savannas of West and Central Africa, where they hunt for aerial insects.
Image by Adam Riley Of the 115 African species now listed as Endangered or Critically Endangered, nearly half occur on the islands surrounding Africa or are non-breeding migrants to Africa. A pair of Hooded Vultures in Selous Game Reserve, Tanzania by Adam Riley.
Replacing feathers is an energy intensive process and most birds try to get through it before migrating, and outside of the breeding season. Molt can be suspended if the energy is needed for other critical functions (I’ve seen this happen in breeding birds). I can’t imagine having another sustained encounter like that.
This book is essentially about those birds that breed on the continent south of the Sahara, a topic few birders are familiar with. And apart from local people, primate researchers sometimes spot it, but it is a species seen by fewer than ten living birders.
Flocks of cheerful birds frequent caves and cliffs where they breed. A two-week birding tour could expect around 400 species and up to 550 in 3 weeks, including sightings of most of Ethiopia’s endemic and near-endemic birds. White-billed Starling A beautiful starling belonging to the red-winged starling group.
The nearest population to them is several thousand miles north in Malawi and southern Tanzania. This bird breeds in the forests of the Transkei area and is only a winter visitor to KwaZulu-Natal. Several isolated populations exist, the most southern being Woodward’s, restricted to Ngoye Forest. Image by Hugh Chittenden.
Interestingly, the HBW gives different contact calls depending on the country in which the flycatcher lives: “Contact call a simple ‘zeet, zwayt’ (South Africa), ‘ti-twit tee-twit’ (Gabon), ‘zi’zk’zk’ (Tanzania).”
Each male builds numerous nests, most of which are rejected by the female, who will eventually select a nest she is happy with, allow the proud architect who usually hangs under his masterpiece to mate with her and then begins the breeding process. Image taken by Adam Riley in Tanzania. Image taken by Adam Riley in Tanzania.
Medicinal and commercial uses of ostrich products in Tanzania. The helper birds play an important role in the survival of the chicks as well as assisting in excavating a suitable cavity for the breeding pair. As the world’s largest living bird, the Ostrich is the topic of many weird and wonderful scientific papers.
This tiny passerine winters in Africa, places like Tanzania, Nigeria, Somalia. This population’s breeding range is covers much of the Eastern Arctic, from northern Labrador up to Ellesmere, in as far west as the Kivaliq region (Rankin Inlet, Arviat). From the Tundra to the African Steppes.
These include the first dedicated guidebooks to Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Malawi, Ghana, Mozambique and Rwanda, among others, all of which are regularly updated for new editions. In recent years he authored the first English-language guidebook to Suriname and an overhauled 600-page guidebook to Sri Lanka, both published by Bradt.
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