The recycler by Tarique Sani (TariqueSani) on 500px.com
Not a very photogenic species today but a very important one ecologically. The African White-backed Vulture (Gyps africanus)
Tag Archives: birdlife
Red-billed Oxpeckers on a Giraffe
Purple Sunbird male
Purple Sunbirds usually don’t hover much but this one was hunting for spiders very intently by hovering at the tips of branches
Greater-Painted Snipe - Male
Greater-painted snipe is unusual in showing reversed sexual dimorphism; the female is larger and more brightly colored than the male, with the sides of the head, neck and throat a rich chestnut brown, and a distinct black band across the breast; the male is paler and greyer.
Johnny Johnny, Yes Papa...
The Kentish Plover, Charadrius alexandrinus, is a small wader in the plover bird family. Despite its name, this species no longer breeds in Kent, or even Great Britain. It breeds in a wide range, from southern Europe to Japan and in Ecuador, Peru, Chile, the southern United States and the Caribbean.
The North American Committee of the American Ornithologists’ Union and the IOC World Bird List have voted on or before July 2011 to split the American forms into a new species Snowy Plover, however, no other committee has voted to change taxonomy yet. In that light, the American forms can now be found under a separate species listing Snowy Plover,[2]however all forms can still be found here until further actions are taken.
Southern Carmine Bee-eater tosses a Cicada
The Southern Carmine Bee-eater (Merops nubicoides) (formerly Carmine Bee-eater) occurs across sub-equatorial Africa, ranging from KwaZulu-Natal and Namibia to Gabon, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kenya.
This species, like other bee-eaters, is a richly coloured,striking bird, predominantly carmine in colouration, but with the crown and undertail coverts blue.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Carmine_Bee-eater
Spur-winged Goose, (Plectropterus gambensis)
The Spur-winged Goose (Plectropterus gambensis) is a large bird in the family Anatidae, related to the geese and the shelducks, but distinct from both of these in a number of anatomical features, and therefore treated in its own subfamily, the Plectropterinae. It occurs in wetlands throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
Black Francolin - Francolinus francolinus
There are six recognized subspecies of Black Francolin:
F. f. francolinus (Linnaeus, 1766) – Western Black Francolin – Cyprus, southern Turkey to Iraq and Iran
F. f. arabistanicus (Zarudny and Harms, 1913) – Iranian Black Francolin – southern Iraq and western Iran
F. f. asiae (Bonaparte, 1856) – Indian Black Francolin – northern India
F. f. henrici (Bonaparte, 1856) – South Persian Black Francolin – southern Pakistan to western India
F. f. bogdanovi (Zarudny, 1906) – southern Iran and Afghanistan to southern Pakistan
F. f. melanonotus (Hume, 1888) – eastern India to Sikkim and Bangladesh.
Blacksmith Lapwing - Adult
The Blacksmith Lapwing or Blacksmith Plover (Vanellus armatus) occurs commonly from Kenya through central Tanzania to southern and southwestern Africa. The vernacular name derives from the repeated metallic ‘tink, tink, tink’ alarm call, which suggests a blacksmith’s hammer striking an anvil.
Purple-rumped Sunbird - Male
A Purple-rumped Sunbird Male in a territorial mood