Daily Archives: September 27, 2022
Elephant edition: Two more.
African Elephant, Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — A couple of other sots of the most cooperative, and most photogenic, of the elephants we encountered on our way back to the lodge from the Nile River Murchison Falls tour boat. You might think the Piapiac birds riding the elephant are like Oxpeckers…but they are quite different. Oxpeckers do not ride elephants because the elephant’s hide is too thick to host ticks…and too thick for the Oxpeckers to open wounds to attract other insects…which they do, for instance, on the tender hides of giraffes. The Piapiacs are strictly hunting from the handy perch of the elephant’s back…and are aided by the fact that the elephant moving through the grass stirs up a lot of insects. It is an opportunistic relationship as opposed to the symbiotic (or parasitic in the case of the giraffes) relationship of the Oxpeckers. 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 351mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 1600 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Yellow-billed Stork
Yellow-billed Stork: Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — A very wet and bedraggled Yellow-billed Stork on the banks of the Nile from the tour boat to the base of Murchison Falls…showing the pink blush on the wing coverts and pink legs of breeding plumage very nicely. The Yellow-storks must breed in Uganda, since Murchison Falls NP is pretty far from major breeding areas in Kenya, but there are actually no known breeding sites in Uganda. The Yellow-billed Stork is one of four storks in a closely related group…which includes the American Wood Stork and the Milky and Painted Storks of Asia. Yellow-billed, Milky, and Painted all look very alike, while the Wood Stork lacks the bright colors. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 200 @ f4 @ 1/500th.