Abyssinian Ground Hornbill action
Abyssinian Ground Hornbill: Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — There was more than one group of Abyssinian Ground Hornbills near the Hippo Pools at Murchison Falls National Park when we visited in August. I thought at first that I was seeing a female and a chick…with some begging going on, but looking at the photos both female birds appear to be full grown adults, and I took the picture of the two males walking in a line only a few yards away, so this is more likely two pairs, and the females are just having a little spat. 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 100 @ f4 @ 1/800th and 1/1000th.
Thick-knees
Water and Senegal Thick-knees: Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — These photos were taken a few miles, and a few hours, apart, one from the shore of the Nile at the Hippo Pools in Murchison Falls National Park in late morning, and one from the tour boat to the base on Murchison Falls on the Nile in the afternoon. I am pretty sure I have both possible Thick-knees here, the Water Thick-knee on the shore, and the Senegal Thick-knee from the boat. (The AI engine in Merlin agrees, for what it is worth 🙂 They are easy to tell apart in the East African Birds guide, but neither bird here looks like the illustration of the Water Thick-knee in the book. (In fact, I can not find a photo of the Water Thick-knee anywhere that looks like the bird in the book. The ones in Merlin certainly do not???) I am totally willing to be corrected by anyone who knows better. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 100 @ f4 @ 1/1000th and 1/800th.
Hadada and Sacred Ibis
Partly because I was with two avid birders, and partly because that is just how it worked out, I took a lot of photos of birds and not as many as of big game on my trip to Uganda this year. I will be doubling up on my bird posts for next few days to keep my posts mostly in order as the encounters happened. 🙂 Two more birds from the Hippo Pools area of Murchison Falls National Park…where the Albert and the Victoria Niles join. This was our first good view of a Sacred Ibis, which happened to be feeding with a Hadada Ibis at the time. The black head and neck on the Sacred Ibis is actually bare skin…not black plumage, and evidently there is a bare patch of red skin under the wings that can be seen in flight. Of course, I had to google the bird to see why it is called the Sacred Ibis, and found that it is one of those birds with a still active controversy over its species status…one, four, or more? Some suspect that it is actually the same species as the Asian Sacred Ibis and the Australian White Ibis. The Sacred part though comes from the ritual of offering a mummified Ibis to the god Thoth…the Egyptian god of knowledge and truth. Historians estimate that up to 8 million Sacred Ibis were mummified and entombed over the course of the worship of Thoth, and, ironically, there are today no Sacred Ibis left in Egypt. Sony Rx10iv at 573mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 100 @ 4 @ 1/800th.
African Open-bill Stork
African Open-bill Stork: (or just African Open-bill) Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — Another bird from our visit to the Hippo Pools area of Murchison Falls National Park. in Uganda. The African Open-billed Stork is unmistakable in any view close enough to see the bill. Otherwise it is just a dark stork. In the right light, there is apparently a green screen to the uniquely structured display feathers on the chest, but I have yet to see that in the wild. According to the latest theories, the gap in the bill allows the Open-bill to extract snails and small mollusk from their shells…very like the bill on the unrelated Limpkin, which has a similar specialized diet. They work like a tweezer. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 100 @ f4.5 @ 1/1000th.
African Wildlife edition: Hippos again…
We might as well catch another Hippopotamus mood while we are here on the Nile River in Murchison Falls National Park (or at least while I am going through photos from our visit). Hippos are indeed among the oddest looking mammals, with that huge sardonic smile, stuck-up nose, eyes that do not fit in their skulls…and with their ears tucked back in sockets. Odd indeed…but then we probably look just as funny to them. 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 595mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 160 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Saddle-billed Stork
Saddle-billed Stork: Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — Near the Hippo Pools on the banks of the Nile in Murchison Falls National Park we came up on a pair of Saddle-billed Storks. It was only this morning, when doing a bit of research for this post, that I realized that I had a photo of both the male and the female. The differences are subtle. The yellow iris of the female stands out boldly against the black face…while the brown iris of the male trends to blend in with the black. The female is also slightly smaller, but both are big birds (with their necks stretched out, the tallest of the storks of Africa) and the size difference is really hard to see. Sony Rx10iv at 573mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 100 @ f4 @ 1/640th.
Wildlife edition: The placid side of Hippos
This is a more typical “action” shot of Hippocampus. The youngster here is yawning. A frequent behavior and often photographed as it is about as much action as you are likely to see in a bloat of hippos at mid-day. When an adult does it, with the full grown tusks, it is, of course, much more impressive. 🙂 Again, these hippos will send the daylight hours hiding from the sun in the shallows, kneeling on the bottom to keep as much of their skin underwater as possible, and taking frequent dips to completely submerge. This bloat (or school, or pod) was along the shores of the Victoria Nile between its junction with the Albert and Murchison Falls in Murchison Falls National Park…taken from the tour boat to the base of the falls. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 160 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Shorebirds on the Nile
Spur-winged and Black-headed Lapwings, and African Jacana: Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — There is a rest stop on the game drive trails of Murchison Falls National Park (complete with toilets) on the banks of the Victoria Nile, just above where it joins the Albert Nile at the head of Lake Albert. It is called, variously, the Delta or the Hippo Pools area, and it is a good place for shorebirds (as well as hippos, as the name suggests). Three that posed nicely for us were the Spur-winged Lapwing and the African Jacana (which we had already seen in the marshes at Mabamba, though not on the shore) and the Black-headed Lapwing (which was new at that point for us). Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 100 @ f4 @ 1/640th.
Hippo edition: Fight!
Hippopotamuses live, you might think, fairly placid lives…grazing during the hours of darkness, sometimes wandering miles from water, and spending the days kneeling in the shallows of lakes and larger rivers to protect their somewhat delicate hides from the equatorial sun. Plaid, except when they aren’t! This is mock battle between two (probably young) males at the edge of one of the big bloats of hippos that we saw from the tour boat on the Nile below Murchison Falls, in Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda. “Bloat”, “crash”, “school”, or “pod”…all are used to describe a group of hippos. Our guide on the boat called them schools…but bloat is, according to internet sources, the more common and perhaps more correct term. I have heard it said that more people are killed by hippos each year, than by all of the big five taken together. Anywhere between a hippo and the water is a very dangerous place to be. You definitely do not want to be bitten by a hippo, as it only takes one bite. Still, the impression of a placid life is probably correct, 90% of the time. These two quickly settled back into the water once whatever point needed making was made to their satisfaction. Sony Rx10iv at 164mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed (cropped and enlarged) in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 100 @ f4 @ 1/800th.
Northern Carmine Bee-eater
Northern Carmine Bee-eater: Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — I have mentioned my fascination with Bee-eaters before. They are one of 3 families of birds that I am always on the look-out for in Africa…along with Sunbirds and Kingfishers. Of course, I am happy to see any African bird, but there is something about those three families that captures my imagination…or at least my attention. And this is one of my favorites. The Northern Carmine Bee-eater’s range in Uganda is limited to the area right around Murchison Fall National Park. There has been a suggestion that the range is limited by the availability of secondary loess deposits in which they build their tunnel nests. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 100 @ f4 @ 1/1000th. Plus .3EV. (For those of you who follow my images on my blog, this is my second post on the Northern Carmine Bee-eater…though Facebook was giving me fits posting from Uganda, so this is the bee-eater’s first appearance in my Facebook posts. 🙂