Bird watching Outing  *photo* Nov. 15 - details

Today a group of us went bird watching two different places:  down into the valley in the morning, then up the mountain in the afternoon. Johnny Walker identified nearly 40 bird species that we sighted on these two trips; I’ve reduced the list to the ones that I’m sure that I saw myself:

1. Black Kite (Yellow-billed)
2. Hooded Vulture
3. Dark Chanting Goshawk
4. African Harrier-Hawk
5. Augur Buzzard
6. Emerald-spotted Wood-Dove
7. Red-eyed Dove
8. Speckled Mousebird
9. Striped Kingfisher
10. Little Bee-eater
11. Lilac-breasted Roller
12. Silvery-cheeked Hornbill
13. Double-toothed Barbet
14. Banded Barbet

a type of Barbet
15. Black Saw-wing
16. Common Bulbul
17. Rattling Cisticola
18. Northern Black Flycatcher
19. African Paradise Flycatcher
20. White-rumped Babbler
21. Common (Northern) Fiscal
22. Gray-backed Fiscal
23. Northern White-crowned Shrike (White-rumped Shrike)
24. Fork-tailed Drongo
25. Greater Blue-eared Starling
26. Rüppel’s Starling
27. Superb Starling
28. Swainson’s Sparrow
29. White-browed Sparrow-Weaver
30. Vitelline Masked Weaver
31. Black-winged Red Bishop
32. Red-cheeked Cordon-bleu

photo of Vitelline Masked Weaver at its nest.

On our way back down the mountain, we saw a family/troop of colobus monkeys (big, furry, black and white) in a large tree. We were never able to get a very good look at them or photograph them, but we saw them well enough to be sure of what they were. I had not realized that these animals existed in this part of the world, so sighting them was amazing.

Kevin Warfel