Green Crombec: Bigodi Community Birding Project, Bigodi, Uganda, August 2022 — The Crombecs are the unfinished birds. No one gave them a tail. (They do however seem to get along just fine without one.) There are several possible Crombecs in Uganda. We saw three species, but I only got photos of this one. 🙂 (And maybe another…the jury is still out on that one.) They can be hard to photograph as they are more often heard than seen…and they are not very big. Sony Rx10iv at 573mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. With foliage background: ISO 100 @ f4 @ 1/640th. Silhouetted: ISO 100 @ f4.5 @ 1/1000th. Plus 1.7EV for backlight.

Brown-throated Wattle-eye: Bigodi Community Birding Project, Bigodi, Uganda, August 2022 — I posted another image of this bird in August while I was still in Uganda, but it deserves another post! This is the male of the species, which is named for the brown throat on the female bird…and that bright red wattle on both sexes. For a supposedly very common bird, I don’t see many in Uganda. One sighting in 2019 and just the one pair in 2022. Always happy to see one, of course. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 500 @ f4 @ 1/500th.

Grey-green Bushshrike: Bigodi Community Birding Project, Bigodi, Uganda, August 2022 — This is the smallest and oddest looking of the African Bushshrikes…so much so that you would be forgiven for thinking it is not a Bushshrike. 🙂 Also these photos are more about the bird than the photos. The bird was distant, the light was bad…I had to enlarge the images considerably to get usable scale. Still, it is a good bird! It was, until recently, called Bocage’s Bushshrike. (There also seems to be some debate whether it is Bush-shrike or Bushshrike? I am going with eBird here.) The Grey-green Bushshrike is found mostly in Uganda with isolated populations further west in central Africa, and one small population just into Kenya. (This is a bird that Wikipedia has practically no information on??) Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos.

Lizard-Buzzard: Bigodi Community Birding Project, Bigodi, Uganda, August 2022 — Again, not great light, but this little Lizard Buzzard sat nicely for us in a window in the foliage. In North America, a buzzard is something quite different, of course, in Europe it is the name given to Buteo Hawks (our Red-tailed Hawk would be Red-tailed Buzzard in Europe). The Lizard Buzzard is totally misnamed, as it is actually an Accipiter (like our Cooper’s or Sharp-shinned Hawks)…and, while lizards are on the menu, it eats way more grasshoppers and terminates by bulk, and small rodents by mass, than it does lizards. Ah well, it is still an interesting little raptor. Sony Rx10iv at 526mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 100 @ f4 @ 1/500th. Plus 1.7EV for the heavy backlight.

Black-headed Paradise-Flycatcher: Bigodi Community Birding Project, Bigodi, Uganda, August 2022 — There are two Paradise-Flycatchers in Uganda, the Black-headed and the African. The African can be seen pretty much everywhere in Uganda but the Black-headed is only in the south-west corner. This Black Headed played hard-to-get for a half hour in the little patch of remnant forest along the trail at the Bigodi Community Birding Project. It was dark under the canopy and the bird just would not sit still! The Black-headed was, until recently, called the Red-bellied, and it does have a solid rufous breast, without the white of the African, not that you can see that in this shot. Only some males have the long tails, though never as long as a long-tailed African, and it is a regional thing. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications and Multi-frame Noise Reduction. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. Equivalent ISO 6400 @ f4 @ 1/400th. Plus .3EV.

Yellow White-eye: Chimpanzee Forest Lodge, Kibale National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — One last bird from the Chimpanzee Forest Lodge outside Kibale National Park in Uganda. This is the Yellow White-eye, a bird that I only saw once on my 2019 trip, but that appeared to be everywhere in 2022??? Sony Rx10iv at 554mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 125 @ f4 @ 1/500th.

Brown-backed Scrub-Robin: Bogodi Birding Project, Bogodi, Uganda, August 2022 — I had arranged this year to do the Bogodi Swamp Walk in the morning to, possibly, see more birds, and the Chimpanzee Trek in the afternoon. I figured the Chimps would be there all day, and the birds, maybe not so much. As it turns out our tour company does not do the actual Bogodi Swamp Walk, with is at one end of the village. We do the Bogodi Birding Project, a community run and sponsored endeavor, with is at the other end of the village, and takes us out into a patch of remnant forest and some agricultural openings. In my thinking I did not figure in that we would also have lower light levels to deal with in the early morning…not a problem so much for birding, but a problem for my photography. The photos I have from Bogodi are not that great, but the birds are interesting. This is, I think, a Brown-backed Scrub-Robin. It got recorded on the checklist for the trip as a Forest Scrub-Robin but that bird would be unlikely in Bogodi and had a very different wing pattern, and Merlin identifies these photos as either Brown-backed or Red-backed (White-browed)…and I am going with Brown-backed due to the lack of bold streaking on the breast. Again, anyone who knows better should correct me 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 160 and 125 @ f4 @ 1/500th. Backlit shot plus 1.7EV exposure compensation.

Black-crowned Tchagra: Chimpanzee Forest Lodge, Kibale National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — Tchagras are bushshrikes that spend a lot of time foraging low to or on the ground. We found this one on the grassy lawn at Chimpanzee Forest Lodge. It emerged from the brush at one edge and litterally ran across a few yards to the brush on the other side, so, while not perfect, I am happy with this shot. 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 595mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 125 @ f4 @ 1/500th.

Copper Sunbird: Chimpanzee Lodge, Kibale National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — This is the last of the sunbird species we saw at Chimpanzee Lodge on our afternoon walk around the grounds. One shot in the sun and two in the shade show off the full range of subtle rich colors on the bird. In coloration it is similar, of course, the the Bronzy Sunbird, but the extra long tail on the Bronzy is unmistakable. Sony Rx10iv at 600 and 540mm equivalents. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. Sun shot ISO 160 @ f4 @ 1/500th. Shade ISO 640 @ f4 @ 1/500th.

Violet-backed Starling: Chimpanzee Forest Lodge, Kibale National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — The inset photo here of the Violet-backed Starling got more notice than any other recent post. I made it part of this image to show the extreme contrast between the female (main photo) and the male (inset). It would be easy to assume these are two different species…somewhat like the difference between our North American male and female Red-winged Blackbirds…only even more striking. Main shot: Sony Rx10iv at 517mm equivalent (heavily cropped and enlarged). Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 160 @ f4 @ 1/500th.