Birds of Africama 1

Birds of AFRICAMA House

Birds of Africama House. Stephen Buckland, SJ with Anastasia Makunu and Vincent Sylvester Wada, SJ Africama House, Nairobi, Kenya. December, 2022.

JCAM President Introduction & Acknowledgements Africama House is the headquaters of the Jesuit Conference of Africa and These 76 species were all seen in or over Africama, but our domestic boundaries Madagascar (JCAM) and home to a vibrant and rich collection of flora and signify nothing to them, and there were more I didn’t see or couldn’t identify. I’ve fauna. Fr. Stephen Buckland’s splendid booklet on the birds of Africa celebrates used Stevenson and Fanshawe’s Birds of East Africa (second edition) as my basic the wonderful gift of nature to the Society of Jesus in Africa and Madagascar guide. I am very grateful to Fr Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator for his invitation and reflects our mission to collaborate in the care of our Common Home. This to do this count and his support; to Fr John the Baptist Anyeh, superior, and collection illustrates the words of Pope Francis that “The very flowers of the Fr Paul Hamill, minister; to Bryan Galligan for his scientific advice (though all field and the birds which Jesus’ human eyes contemplated and admired are now mistakes are mine); and to the community for much fraternal hospitality and imbued with his radiant presence” (Laudato si’, no. 100). May you experience companionship. Anastasia Makunu and Vincent Sylvester Wada of JCAM God’s radiant presence in the melodious chirping, lively colours and fascinating communications gave their time and skill generously to produce this beautiful activities of the birds of Africama! book: I am grateful. Special thanks to Fr Mike Lewis whose list of Africama birds I built upon; and to Fr Peter Knox, whose sightings are also included, for our – Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator SJ (JCAM President) enjoyable birding trips during my stay. This part of Nairobi is still very rich in birdlife: how long, we must wonder, will we be blessed in such abundance? We pray to St Nathaniel, patron saint of ‘twitchers’ who, being an Israelite entirely without guile, was, as I believe, watching birds when Jesus saw him under the fig tree. – Stephen Buckland, SJ

1. Cattle Egret The dinosaurs, it is said, went extinct 65 million years ago. But that’s not the whole story. Birds, in fact, are the survivors of those great monsters of the past, and they are all around us. You can see their reptilian roots in their scaly legs and feet. To experience what it was like to be alive in the days of those monsters, imagine yourself the size of a grasshopper with these fearsome creatures stalking you through the grass with eagle eye and vicious beak. Breeding Cattle Egret males have an orange wash over the white feathers on the crown of the head, the back and the breast, and bright yellow legs. They are highly visible, around cattle and other grazers or in the wake of ploughs, poking about in drainage channels, or in the evening flying in rather untidy V-formation overhead to where they gather in large groups to roost. They can make a huge noise together – and a big mess under the tree. As you can see by their shape, they are a kind of heron (see No.2 and 3) and are very widespread across Africa south of the Sahara, except in the Congo basin. Birds of AFRICAMA House 6 Birds of AFRICAMA House 7

2. Black-headed Heron This is one of the largest birds to be seen at or over Africama, with its distinctive black head and long neck often in that characteristic and very attractive S-bend, with a small kink about half the way down, and a very elegant single wispy plume you can just see falling gently down from the back of their heads. They are also very widely distributed over sub-Saharan Africa. When they fly, they pull their heads back between their shoulders and bunch up the curves below. You often can see them in the evening, flying back to their roosts in the very tops of tall trees (called, unsurprisingly, ‘heronries’), uttering growling croaks as they go. In flight, they seem to row steadily across the sky, like elderly oarsmen across water. They are very patient feeders, standing stock still for hours (so it seems) in water, staring intently and ready to stab and grab with that dagger- like beak any unsuspecting fish or frog. But it’s not only in water that they hunt: there is one often in the vegetable garden at Africama; they use the same effective strategy there – just stand still and wait and the food will come to you. Birds of AFRICAMA House 8 Birds of AFRICAMA House 9

3. Grey Heron The Grey Heron is slightly larger than the Blackheaded Heron, but very much the same kind of shape; the body though is generally darker and the neck is white, with a broad bright black eyebrow-stripe over each eye that seems to turn into the thin black plume running off the back of the head and down the neck. The beak is a brighter yellow than that of the Black-necked, which is a more grey-green shade of yellow. They are more likely to be found in or near water, and use the same kind of hunting strategy as the Black-necked Heron, for they are after the same kinds of food. With the bill pointing straight into the sky like a reed, they can still look forward through both eyes horizontally under their ‘chins’, which is a strange trick. Like the Black-necked, they roost and breed in colonies, usually in the tops of tall trees. They have the same rowing motion when seen in flight from below; but their underwing pattern is distinctive. The underwings of the grey are a uniform grey, while the Black headed has a wide black band right across the trailing feathers of their broad wings. Birds of AFRICAMA House 10 Birds of AFRICAMA House 11

4. Hamerkop This extraordinary-looking bird is the only member of its ‘family’; and you have to say it looks prehistoric, something like a modern day pterodactyl. The name means ‘hammer-head’ in Afrikaans, and you can see why: it is unmistakeable. They are only found in Africa, Mozambique and the south-west Arabian peninsula. Because their bill and habits are rather stork-like, they are grouped near the storks in bird books. They are pretty well always standing near or in different kinds of water, from streams to the edges of lakes and dam walls; but also decimating fishponds in suburban gardens. They stand at or in the edge of the water, looking quizzically from one eye tilted over, and then the other eye, looking for frogs or fish. They, too, can often be seen overhead flying home after a long day’s fishing. It is hard to describe their loud call, often emitted in flight: one book speaks of “a dominant yip pruurr sound”, and that is quite reminiscent but only after you have heard it. They build large and untidy nests out of sticks, adding to it year after year: sometimes the nests can become as big as the tree and heavy enough to break branches. Birds of AFRICAMA House 13

5. Marabou Stork Here is another truly marvellous bird: unashamedly ugly on the ground, with its bare neck of pink, scabby skin around the face and massive, horny bill. Most wonderful are the two inflatable skin sacks: one bright red behind at the base of the neck and another pink pendulous balloon which wobbles below the neck. What is this for, you may ask? During courtship, it becomes bright pink and, being linked to the bird’s left nostril, it can act as a resonator for its growling calls: a wide range, the book says, of “bleating, grunting and squeaking noises”. The bird’s legs appear white, but that, unfortunately, is not what it seems. Its feeding habits are also, some might think, unattractive: they can be seen even in the city of Nairobi, rooting around rubbish tips and eating scraps of all kinds, but also on the plains, picking at carcases, gulping past that enormous gullet great lumps of meat. In flight, of course, they are majestic, soaring on their tremendous wings high overhead. They also make good pets; at least, there is somewhere a YouTube video of one stepping ever so lovingly onto its proud and prone owner’s stomach. Birds of AFRICAMA House 15

6. Hadada Ibis The sound of this bird – a loud, penetrating and panicky-sounding ‘ha-da-da’ – is heard over most of sub-Saharan Africa, with the exceptions of Botswana, Namibia, the northern part of Kenya and Zimbabwe. It is more or less the aural signature of Johannesburg, especially at dawn and dusk, as anyone who has spent time there can attest. That strong and down-curved bill is perfect for digging worms out of marshy areas and suburban lawns: but it also works on rubbish dumps. It is a rather dull looking bird at a distance, though at close range even the brown is subtly patterned and variegated; you can see a red ‘culmen’ or upper part of its bill and a striking sheen of greenish-purple gloss or ‘iridescence’ on its wings. Iridescence, which many birds have, is not itself a colour, an actual pigment, at all: it is the effect of light passing through the translucent keratin of birds’ feathers, which acts as a prism. What we see as colour, then, changes depending on the angle of light that strikes the bird and is reflected into our eyes: the Hadada Ibis is not really ‘greenish-purple’ at all. Birds of AFRICAMA House 16 Birds of AFRICAMA House 17

7. Sacred Ibis The Sacred Ibis is larger and much quieter than its cousin, the Hadada, and also widely distributed over sub-Saharan Africa. With black head, neck, and legs, it is a distinctive and unmistakable bird. What is sacred about it? Well, it has a noble posture and a pleasing silhouette. And like another bird we shall mention, it was venerated by the ancient Egyptians. The Egyptian god Thoth, the deity of wisdom and (interestingly) writing, was depicted in paintings, and in the Book of the Dead, as having the head and beak of an ibis. Did that black head and neck remind them of a pen dipped in ink and poised to write? They were seen as clever, patient and peaceful animals, and emblematic of balance justice and integrity (few would be tempted to say the same of the Hadada). Egyptians mummified them and buried them in tombs along with the dead, prompting speculation that the special relationship they had with Egyptians led to them being kept as pets and allowed to wander over the fields. According to the distribution map, they are no longer to be found in Egypt, which seems strange. Perhaps they are still there as pets. Birds of AFRICAMA House 18 Birds of AFRICAMA House 19

8. Egyptian Goose Clearly, the ancient Egyptians were lovers of animals: ibises, hawks and herons, as well as baboons, cats, cobras and frogs appear in their paintings and hieroglyphics (writing, again); and also geese. These were linked to fertility – they are very good breeders – and were thought to be messengers of the gods. But they were also kept for their ornamental value, for they are certainly handsome and justly popular birds: the dark ‘shadow’ over each eye – said to be reminiscent of foxes – gives them an especially alluring image, perhaps, and they are often seen depicted in ancient Egyptian paintings. A good many must have escaped, for they are now established in Western Europe, the USA and New Zealand. There’s an argument over whether they are really ducks rather than geese. One thing I read claimed that the criterion for goose-ness is the number of vertebrae in the neck, which would make this goose a duck, for its neck is shorter than other geese. I was interested to notice that the Egyptians painted them has having noticeably long and goose-like necks, so perhaps they thought of geese, as we do, as somehow more noble than your more common or garden duck. Birds of AFRICAMA House 20 Birds of AFRICAMA House 21

9. Black Kite The first thing to note here is that the Black Kite is not black; it’s actually many different shades, and individuals and populations vary in plumage colour. But, at a distance and especially when silhouetted against a bright sky, they do look quite dark. Elsewhere they are called Yellow-billed Kites, which seems more sensible (they also have yellow feet). They inhabit open country with trees near water, but are very present and visible in cities and towns. They are common in Nairobi, and I am pretty sure but not certain that a couple are roosting, or perhaps even nesting, in some of the tall trees in Africama garden. Cities are good for them, though, for they are accustomed to living among humans and can scavenge from rubbish tips; some of them, indeed, have become accomplished aerial acrobats. I have seen them snatch food out of the hands of small children and the experienced ones will swoop to catch food thrown up into the air in their presence. According to the distribution map, they are omnipresent south of the Sahara. They are a common sight, wheeling and mewing, navigating with their forked tails, keen eyes raking the ground for anything edible. Birds of AFRICAMA House 22 Birds of AFRICAMA House 23

10. African Goshawk This bird illustrates one difficulty in identifying birds. Books, generally, give you a nice picture, and that’s how you expect it to look. But the immature African Goshawk, for example, has a dark eye and dark spots on its breast arranged in longitudinal rows from chin to tail, while the adult has a yellow eye-ring and narrow dark lines across its breast, this time horizontally. And what’s more, there is a dark ‘morph’ of this bird which is just like the picture in size and shape but is entirely black (except for the yellow eyes). Morphism occurs in a number of birds. It is not, as you might think, a kind of reversed ‘albinism’, which is a genetically caused lack of any pigment and which does occur in birds as in other animals. Dark morphism, or ‘melanism’ to give it its proper name, is caused by an excess of the pigment, melanin, which causes the feathers to have a dark or even black colour. You notice that most birds’ wings have large dark or black feathers along the back edge of the wing; this is because melanin also makes the feathers stronger under strain in flight. Birds of AFRICAMA House 24 Birds of AFRICAMA House 25

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12. African Harrier-Hawk This interesting bird is also called, and more commonly perhaps, a ‘Gymnogene’. The dictionary is not very helpful on this: “name used for an African Harrier-Hawk; etymology unknown.” Taxonomically, it is somewhat out on a limb of its own: a bit like a harrier and a bit like a hawk. But it’s African all right, a resident and pretty widespread south of the Sahara. The smallish head and bare yellow skin around the eyes and large bill give it a vulturine look. They like forests and woodland, but also grasslands: they’re not much into mountains and deserts. It cruises around on its broad wings, low and looking for food. But it also hunts on its feet on the ground, looking loosely put together and rather floppy, as if wearing pyjamas some sizes too big. Unusually, they have long double-jointed legs allowing them to bend both ways, useful for grabbing small creatures hiding in rock crevices or young birds cowering in nests. They will hang from the thin branch below the weavers’ nests, reaching deep inside the tubular entrance tunnels which are meant to keep such predators out, calmly scooping out nestlings, while the agitated parents scream ineffectually. Birds of AFRICAMA House 29

13. Augur Buzzard This is one of a number of buzzards distinguished by a rufous (reddish- brown) tail. With its black back and forehead, and its white breast and underwings, it is a good-looking middle-seized raptor. They are fairly common residents in open country and rocky outcrops, but they can also be seen, evidently, in suburban gardens – especially if the owners are kind enough to keep chickens! (Which, I am glad to say, they are at Africama.) The one I saw here was in a tree overlooking the chicken run: it perched alone and silently contemplating, like stout Cortez on a peak in Darien, the witless fowls. There is a dark morph which can have confusing amounts of black on the breast: the one I saw was mostly black but had irregular white patches on the breast: an immature bird, I think. This is one it is nice to see from below: their broad and pure white underwings are edged with black, and the red tail fans out prettily over their tucked-in yellow feet. Many birds also have a black parenthesis mark or bracket towards the end of each wing, making them seem a bit like a quotation from the bible (Isaiah 40:31, perhaps). Birds of AFRICAMA House 30 Birds of AFRICAMA House 31

14. Common Buzzard Unsurprisingly, most of the birds on this list are residents: they stay all year round and breed here, though they may move locally to find food and breeding sites. But this one is a ‘palearctic migrant’, which means it is only to be seen in this part of Africa on its way from Eurasia in September to November (presumably on its way south) and February to March (presumably on its way back north). It is uncommon in West Africa, so I’m guessing that the main route takes is down one or other side of the Red Sea and the eastern side of our continent. It is also called the Steppe Buzzard, which figures, or the Eurasian Buzzard, which is not so helpful. Bird migration is a wonder of our world: their sense of timing and, even more, of navigation, bringing them back in some cases to exactly the same breeding spot or nest year after year, is astounding. Many birds, including these buzzards, travel in large groups: do they find their way by the stars? Or by the magnetic field generated by the earth’s molten core? Or have they just got very good memories? Perhaps all of the above? Birds of AFRICAMA House 32 Birds of AFRICAMA House 33

15. Long-crested Eagle The only eagle on our list is one of the smallest but commonest and most easily identified eagles in East Africa. Perched prominently on the top of a tree, usually the same tree, with its floppy crest blowing in the wind, it looks entirely black. In fact, though, its yellow legs are sheathed in smart white leggings and the wings have white patches, or ‘windows’ visible in flight. These are good for identification when you are looking from underneath and without sight of the crest: white windows in black wings. Like most eagles and large soaring birds, such as Marabou storks and vultures, this bird has at the end of the wings individual feathers protruding outwards like fingers. They perform an important function, which has been imitated by aircraft designers. Wings work, of course, because the aerofoil shape, whether on birds or planes, pushes the air above the wing upwards, creating a vacuum which pulls the wing, and the bird or plane, upwards. But that happens all along the wing and at the end, where there is no wing, this results in turbulence which creates drag. The ‘fingers’ disrupt that turbulence, as do those upturned fins at the end of aeroplane wings. Birds of AFRICAMA House 34 Birds of AFRICAMA House 35

16. Montane Nightjar Nightjars are among the most difficult birds to see and identify. For one thing they are nocturnal: they fly about in the dark catching insects, though I have seen them fluttering around outdoor lights which draw moths and other creatures. Usually it is the call that alerts you to their presence but does not give away their exact location. During the day they are almost equally invisible, for they are exceedingly well camouflaged, hunkering down with closed eyes among dry leaves under trees. It is possible to be feet away with clear sight and still not be able to make them out – until you get too close: then they explode upwards from under your feet like an anti-personal land-mine. That’s how you will see them – usually with heart palpitating from the fright – a few nano- seconds of blurry-brown wings. To make it worse, the different species are very similar. Though this part of Kenya and the central part of Ethiopia are the only places in Africa that these Montane Nightjars are to be found, they are said to be quite common. I didn’t see this bird myself: someone else heard the call and managed to track it down. Birds of AFRICAMA House 36 Birds of AFRICAMA House 37

17. Grey-crowned Crane This is a truly ‘iconic’ bird, the national bird of Uganda. It’s certainly there in Uganda but also most of Kenya except the far north and north-east, and the south-east. The strong colours are beautifully combined: black forehead and belly, bright red eyebrow and wattle, grey neck, breast and back, gold and white wing panels and brown tail, and that fabulous gold crown on the back of their heads. The best thing of all, however, is that they dance. Part of their courtship ritual involves bowing their crowned heads gracefully to each other, exchanging the quickest of ‘kisses’, and spreading their huge wings – white edged with black – flapping and leaping up, seeming to float up off the ground like ballerinas and then float gently down to earth, all the time singing. Of course, courtship is always a serious business: it is all partly about deterring other males, I imagine, but also about demonstrating strength and agility. It’s good strong genes that the female wants to see. For reproducing those genes is the number one priority for these and all birds, most especially at breeding times of the year. It is literally a matter of life and death. Birds of AFRICAMA House 38 Birds of AFRICAMA House 39

18. Rock Dove Interestingly, one of my books tells me that this bird is found all over Kenya, while another indicates only smallish areas in Sudan, northern Chad and into Niger and Mali: Kenya is blank. That they have been in Nairobi, and at least one at Africama might sound rather strange and even, for a serious birdwatcher, exciting. They are always on the look-out for unusual sightings. But this bird is not one of those. In fact, what is called a ‘Rock Pigeon’, which now sounds rather hip and ‘swinging-sixties’, used to be called a ‘Feral Pigeon’, which carries less kudos, I fear. For a feral species is an introduced species (introduced by humans) that has escaped and is now “widespread in cities and towns throughout the region… No wild Rock Doves occur in the region,” only feral ones, the book states rather sternly. Much the same, it must be admitted, could be said of Africama’s chickens, ducks and turkeys which I decided should not feature in this book. Birds of AFRICAMA House 41

19. Tambourine Dove Doves are usually thought of as symbols of peace: I suppose it’s from the biblical story of Noah’s ark and the dove that brought back an olive branch as a sign that the flood was over. But, to their own kind, they can be aggressive and intimidating. It’s all about sex, of course, or rather about reproduction and access to females. I doubt, in fact, that they’re much worse than other doves or even many humans. But the Tambourine Dove has a particularly diffident and unassuming air about it, at least to look at. Perhaps, though, the misleading idea of their peacefulness comes not from their appearance or even their behaviour, but from their calls. Dove calls are usually gentle and lulling, especially in the evening as the sun goes down: like an avian lullaby. This is how one bird book describes the call of the Emerald-Spotted Wood Dove, whose call is much like that of the Tambourine: “Long slow call of muffled poo notes lasting up to 10 seconds: first two or three are hesitant upslurs, then three seesawing notes, and a long slow series of 15 descending poo notes which accelerate as they fade.” Someone worked very hard to produce that description: respect. Birds of AFRICAMA House 42 Birds of AFRICAMA House 43

20. Red-Eyed Dove The call of this dove is usually described as sounding like someone saying, over and over again, “I am a Red-Eyed Dove, I am a Red-Eyed Dove, I am…(etc.)” which is very helpful if you’re having trouble distinguishing the calls of different doves. It’s only partly true, of course, since the Red-Eyed Dove’s eye is not very red, at least when seen from far: much less red, anyway, or at least less obviously red, in my experience, than that of the Mourning Collared Dove which is otherwise rather confusingly similar in appearance. A number of doves seem to tell us their own names in their calls: the Ring-Necked Dove is said to say “Ring- Necked Dove, Ring-Necked Dove…(etc.), though some claim that what it says is “work harder, work harder”, which perhaps tells us more about the listener than the bird itself. The call of the Mourning Collared Dove, by the way, is described as being a “cheerful descending rolling churr rrrrrooooo...”, which sounds rather cheerfully unlike actual mourning (though allowance must always be made for cultural differences in these matters). Birds of AFRICAMA House 44 Birds of AFRICAMA House 45

21. Hartlaub’s Turaco This very pretty bird is one of the nicest to be seen here in the Africama garden. With those beautiful bright red wings opening, they fly swiftly between trees: a swooping flight-path, with a quick burst of quick flapping to get up speed and then a long smoothly dipping glide to the next tree in a dazzling display of those lovely red wings. It’s an interesting energy-saving flying strategy that they have developed. Once they have landed in a tree, which they do very neatly, they usually start immediately to clamber quickly up the tree, hopping and bobbing a bit like a large parrot from branch to branch as they get higher. They are probably looking for fruit, of course, for they are fructivores (fruit-eaters), but they are also heading for the highest convenient point from which they can easily launch themselves into a glide to the next tree. Flying is an energy intensive process for birds, especially birds of any weight, and turacos are not small. Gaining the height they need by climbing the tree saves the energy of flapping those gorgeous wings. And check out the stunning make-up around the eyes! Birds of AFRICAMA House 46 Birds of AFRICAMA House 47

22. Red-chested Cuckoo The name ‘cuckoo’ is onomatopoeic: it imitates the bird’s call. In fact, only one of this bird’s many cousins make that classic cuck ooo! The Red-chested Cuckoo makes a sound people have heard as “it will rain”, although what I hear is “Piet my vrou”: that’s Afrikaans for “Peter my wife”. The best known thing about cuckoos, although it’s not only them that do this, is that they ‘parasitise’ the nests of other birds. Female cuckoos about to lay find a suitable nesting bird of another species and, when there is an opportunity, quickly nip in and lay their cuckoo egg among those of the unknowing host, which incubates the extra egg with her own and feeds the foreigner, even though will become bigger than she is. So the cuckoo outsources to strangers the hard labour of rearing young, and frees herself to lay again. The foreigner usually hatches first and, in some cases, immediately ejects the other eggs or kills the chicks. Some host species have elaborately-marked eggs, or even special marks inside their own chick’s mouths, to make it more difficult for cuckoos to get away with. But cuckoos have evolved to imitate both. The competition goes on. Birds of AFRICAMA House 48 Birds of AFRICAMA House 49

23. White-browed Coucal The name ‘coucal’ sounds like ‘cuckoo’ and, in fact, coucals are a type of “cumbersome non-parasitic cuckoo”. ‘Cumbersome’ is unfair, I’d say: they’re just significantly bigger than cuckoos and so heavier. Perhaps, though, the suggestion is that they are too ‘cumbersome’ to be parasitic: well, maybe. They are, in my experience, handsome but rather shy birds, liking to stay deep within thick vegetation, bushed or wooded grassland, often near to water. One usually hears the call first: it is described as being like the sound water makes when poured out of a wine bottle, which is both a lovely sound and an enticing thought, especially in the early evening before supper. The adult male of this species has a prominent white stripe above its eye – the ‘white-brow’ of its name – which is called in Latin the supercilium; and so the official scientific name is Centropus superciliosus. The English word ‘supercilious’ means ‘behaving or looking as though one thinks (falsely) that one is superior to others’, perhaps by raising one’s eyebrows in a certain way. Well, this lovely supercilious bird is, in fact, actually superior to quite a lot of others. Birds of AFRICAMA House 51

24. Barn Owl Many people, and even some peoples, don’t like owls. No doubt they play unbecoming roles in legends; but are they really like that, or do people just think they are? They’re nocturnal, or crepuscular, and some people find that in itself suspicious. When you look at them, they do look right back at you in a rather accusing or even angry manner, or they seem to. Some can turn their heads nearly O 360 , which is unnerving. They can fly without making the slightest sound: evolution has fitted their wings with ‘silencers’, very light fluffy feathers that break up the air coming off their wings and prevent it from making noise. Some of their calls at night, including the screeching call of this Barn Owl, are eerie and mysterious, I admit. And if you’re a mouse or a spider large enough to make a meal, they are terrifyingly efficient hunters. On the other hand, in some other cultures, owls are said to be wise: when Hegel said, “The owl of Minerva flies only at night”, he meant philosophy. In reality like all other birds and animals, they are what they are, and the way that they are, because that’s what they do. Birds of AFRICAMA House 52 Birds of AFRICAMA House 53

25. African Wood Owl An owl’s large eyes capture as much light as possible when hunting at night for food for themselves and, when breeding, for their chicks. Those eyes set right in the front of their heads give them good binocular vision, useful for judging distances accurately: they do have very good vision. But in fact owls hunt as much or more by sound than by sight. As well as effective eyes they also have very good hearing. Some appear to have ears sticking up out of the tops of their heads, as in the standard image of an owl. In fact, though, these are not ears at all, just feathers sticking up: their real ears are holes hidden under feathers in the sides of their heads (having wide-apart ears also helps with estimating direction). The false ‘ears’ presumably are for communicating aggression or other attitudes to fellow owls or other creatures. All owls have distinct ‘facial disks’, fetchingly heart-shaped in the case of the Barn Owl but more circular in this Wood Owl. A ridge of small feathers around the edge of the face funnels the sound into the ears, like the parabola around a microphone. Birds of AFRICAMA House 54 Birds of AFRICAMA House 55

26. Little Swift Swifts pose serious identification problems. They’re small, swift and difficult to keep sight of with binoculars or cameras. Even if you get a photo, you might still struggle to identify precisely what kind of swift it is. They are very similar-looking: a stoutish body with a sharpened tail, sometimes forked or divided into two, and narrow-pointed wings in a clean curve like a scythe or a scimitar. The colour is uniform dark grey: some have white patches. The Little Swift is most obliging in this regard: the white rump (lower back just above the beginning of the tail) and white throat are shared by only two other species around here: the House Swift and the White-Rumped Swift. But it can be distinguished from both by size and the square rather than forked or pointed tail. They are also jolly noisy in large groups, twittering loudly as they zing across the sky. Swifts do have legs and feet, of course, though you don’t see them much, tucked away out of sight. They’re not much good for walking, but spending so much time in the air, they don’t need to do much of that. They are dazzlingly good fliers, though. Birds of AFRICAMA House 56 Birds of AFRICAMA House 57

27. African Palm Swift The African Palm Swift comes in the standard swift shape – scimitar wings, sharply-pointed tail, a mousey-brown kind of grey, with a patch under the throat of a slightly paler grey. In the air and silhouetted against the evening sky, swirling around like tea-leaves in a tea-cup, catching unseeably small flying insects – which is almost always where you’ll see it – they look plain black. It is a bit bigger than the Little Swift, but may look smaller because its body and wings are a bit thinner. They are invariably associated with palm trees: that’s where they roost and breed. It is not easy, sleeping while clinging to a vertically hanging frond of palm. Their nests are untidy little shelves of feathers glued with a specially regurgitated swift-glue to the fronds, and the chicks must learn to cling on with their tiny claws very soon after hatching. Their legs are not much use for anything else: if they fall from the palm tree before they can fly, they are doomed. I have found chicks who have fallen: you can’t do much except try to get it to hang onto a frond where it is at least possible it might be fed. Birds of AFRICAMA House 58 Birds of AFRICAMA House 59

28. Speckled Mousebird Once you know it, you can recognise this bird by its flight: whirring wings, often quite low, the tail long out behind, and often an untidy crash-landing. They’re mousey in colour, about the size of a large mouse, and move along the branches like mice. Untidiness is a word that springs to mind with these birds: the rough brown crest often looks uncombed and the tail bedraggled and scruffy, the feathers lying every which way. They live on eating leaves. Leaves, in fact, are not easy to digest unless, like ruminant animals, you can grind them up with good strong teeth and a set of good strong jaws. But teeth and jaws are just what birds gave up, long ago, when some smaller dinosaurs took to the air. Teeth and jaws are heavy, and birds’ bones are hollow, given what strength they have by the intricate latticing structure inside: they’ve got to be as light as possible. These mousebird guys, though, know a trick or two: they sit on a branch, bellies exposed to the warm sun, allowing it to hasten the process of fermentation that breaks down the fibrous substance of their food – solar-powered digestion. Birds of AFRICAMA House 60 Birds of AFRICAMA House 61

29. Cinnamon-chested Bee-eater It’s impossible to know what kind of mood a bird is in – except perhaps when they are feeling amorous or frightened: they don’t smile (as dogs can), as far we can see, nor frown or shed tears. But some birds seem at least to be of a cheerful disposition. That’s what I would say about these Cinnamon-breasted Bee-eaters. Though they nest in tunnels in the earth, they are neat, well-dressed birds with a splendidly gorgeous get- up: green back, wings and crown; dark black eye-liner and collar (for the males), and a beautiful cinnamon-coloured (there is no other word for it) breast. They are well-behaved too, sitting in neat rows, sometimes touchingly close together as if they like being together, hanging out together and looking for bees. They will suddenly leave their perch, dash off and return with a bee in the beak, sitting down again with a look of satisfaction in the same place they left – somehow, they just seem to be basically happy little creatures. Eating bees, though, has to be done with care, as you can imagine: these birds rub them carefully on the branch until the venom is ejected from their stings and then – down they go. Birds of AFRICAMA House 62 Birds of AFRICAMA House 63

30. European Bee-eater The European (or Eurasian) Bee-eater is quite a bit larger than its African cousin, the Cinnamon-breasted, and a foreign visitor. For me, the sound of the large flocks of these community-minded birds, constantly calling to each other – prrup prrupp – to keep in touch as they fly overhead, is an unmistakable sign that the summer has come. Summer rains prompt huge quantities of insects to come out of holes in the ground and fly in swarms: bees, too, I guess become more active when it warms up. That’s what these seasoned globe-trotters, and many others like them, come for every year: they’re on the move southwards from Europe to Africa south of the Sahara during September and November, and northwards back again from March to May. They are, in the months between, very widely-spread in sub-Saharan Africa. Birds of AFRICAMA House 65

31. Silvery-cheeked Hornbill The Silvery-cheeked Hornbill is one of the biggest of the hornbills in this part of Africa, though they are not widely-distributed: mostly in the east of the continent, in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. The giants of the tribe are the Ground-Hornbills, particularly the monster Abyssinian: they are basically pedestrians, flying only when absolutely necessary. The Silvery-cheeked, however, is a good if rather heavy flier, and, as a forest dweller, surprisingly able to manoeuver through the trees. Like the Ground-hornbills, they are communal birds, living and feeding in family parties. The massive bill – like a pair of cattle horns set one on top of the other – and, on top of that, the extraordinary structure known as the ‘casque’ (which can grow to be longer than the bill itself) are the most striking features, of course. It gives them their slightly intimidating appearance as well as providing (I presume) a resonator for their “loud goat-like braying”. But by all accounts they are generally mannered (excepting the braying); and their attractive family values, together with the delicate silvery wash on the cheeks, though usually visible only from close range, must offer at least some mitigation. Birds of AFRICAMA House 66 Birds of AFRICAMA House 67

32. Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird A tinker, of course, is someone who mends pots and pans: at least, they were in the long-gone days when people mended pots and pans. They did it by some form of soldering or welding, I suppose, and by hammering. The call of the tinkerbird – at least around here – is a regularly repeated tink tink tink, rather like someone hammering a pot with a light hammer. Though it is a small bird, the sound carries a long way and, curiously, its source can be quite hard to locate by ear. Disappointingly, the sound is sometimes described as ‘poop’ or ‘ponk’ rather than tink but it seems to be true that the same bird calls in significantly different ways in different places where it is found, i.e. central and west Africa as well as Kenya and down the east coast to the Eastern Cape. You’d think, wouldn’t you, that each kind of bird calls the same wherever it is: but it is not necessarily so. The Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird is a common bird in Africama’s garden, heard more often than seen. I have seen one looking intently into a small hole in a tree, and my guess is that it was nesting. Birds of AFRICAMA House 68 Birds of AFRICAMA House 69

33. Cardinal Woodpecker Here is another bird more often heard than seen; not so much by its call but by the tap-tap-tapping it makes drilling into trees, usually resonating dead branches that offer accommodation to many different kinds of boring insects. Some wood-peckers actually communicate by their drumming on trees, largely I imagine to warn off any other woodpecker encroaching on their territory. I don’t know how developed this is in the case of our Cardinal, but I am sure that his tapping must alert other woodpeckers to his presence. Their bills are sharp and robust, but you can get a headache just watching them going at a tree with that chisel-like bill aimed and angled with wonderfully business-like precision; you can see the energy and muscular thrust in its whole body to get maximum power into neck and head and thence into each blow. Their skulls are specially reinforced to protect the brain, the equivalent of a workman’s helmet worn beneath the skin. Their toes are arranged two facing forward and two facing back, to enable them to get a good grip, which they also need; and the stiff feathers of their tail provide a third leg for the tripod. Birds of AFRICAMA House 70 Birds of AFRICAMA House 71

34. Barn Swallow Like swifts, these Barn Swallows are on the wing a lot of the time, but you are perhaps more likely to see them perched on power- or phone-lines. In outline against the sky, they show the same pleasingly clean, economic curves and straight lines, arranged ‘just so’, as all swifts and swallows. The back is blue- black and the crown and throat a handsome chestnut brown. From below the breast is a snowy-white, the tail edged with a single tail feather on each side to make a deep fork. They are summer visitors to pretty well all of Africa, mostly from October to April, coming from Europe, sometimes in large flocks: they are also known as European Swallows, a mere two of which, Europeans say, make a summer. One has to wonder, though, what the effect of climate change and weather patterns will make on these and other birds, especially the many migrants we see here. Warmer temperatures in the north may encourage some to stay in Europe and forego the arduous and energy-expensive flight all the way here. Or perhaps some will make the sensible decision to stay here. Birds of AFRICAMA House 72 Birds of AFRICAMA House 73

35. Black Saw-wing Saw-wings are a type of swallow. If you are expecting to see a serrated edge of ‘teeth’ on the wings of these birds, you will be disappointed. It has the standard neat swallow shape to it, with a deep V-shaped fork in the tail. Here, we get two types: the Black and the White-headed, but only the Black has been recorded in Africama. Black is, indeed, what it is all over, though its underwing covert feathers – in what you might think of as its armpits – are a silvery-grey just visible from below. Unlike the Barn Swallow, it is a resident in Africa: especially in Congo and neighbouring countries, as well as Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa. Birds of AFRICAMA House 74 Birds of AFRICAMA House 75

36. African Pied Wagtail It’s “wagtail by name, wagtail by nature”, for this friendly, inquisitive and instantly recognisable bird. It spends a lot of time on the ground, often near water such as streams or pools, including suburban swimming pools: they are regular visitors to Africama’s pool, sometimes coming right up the edge but – like some other Africama residents – never actually getting in. Some wagtails are migratory from the north, but this African Pied is resident and very widely distributed across West, Equatorial, Central, Easter and Southern Africa. The tail-wagging is impossible to miss. Why do they do it? Though it looks like what we might call a ‘nervous tic’ in a human being, all the wagtails do it and it’s more like a behavioural mannerism. Perhaps it helps them to identify one another. It would be interesting to know if males and females bob and wag in distinct ways. There are other birds with distinctive tail or wing-flicks: Groundscraper Thrushes frequently raise one wing (usually the left, as it has seemed to me) to display an ‘armpit’. Much more generally, all the different kinds of birds walk, fly, and perch in their own distinctive ways, in this much like people. Birds of AFRICAMA House 77

37. Common Bulbul The related and large group of birds – the Bulbuls, Greenbuls and Brownbuls – are mostly very difficult to distinguish and identify, though many of them are quite common within their various habitats. At first sight, it seems as if this is not the case with this bird: the aptly named Common Bulbul. It is very common indeed in suburban gardens, and noticeably different from (almost all of) the other bulbuls, greenbuls and brownbuls. The dark head and small crest and the yellow vent underneath the tail are clearly visible – if, that is, you need more clues than the omnipresence and cheerfully repetitive call. But the taxonomy is not that simple: some books distinguish between Pycnonotus barbatus, the Common Bulbul, and Pycnonotus tricolor, the Dark-capped Bulbul. One book gives them very different distributions across Africa; my most recent regards tricolor not as a distinct species but as another of three ‘races’ of barbatus. The difference between them concerns the colour of the belly: barbatus has a uniformly brown belly, tricolor’s is white. If pushed, I’d say ours are tricolor, which is to say Dark- capped; this would mean that bird No.37 is misnamed above. You might see whether you agree. Birds of AFRICAMA House 78 Birds of AFRICAMA House 79

38. Ruppell’s Robin-Chat In an earlier age, when I was a boy, these Robin-Chats were known just as ‘robins’: it’s their presence and behaviour in suburban gardens, I suppose, that reminded immigrants of the red-red robins that go bob-bob-bobbing along on Christmas cards. They do bob-bob when they hop about the lawn looking for worms, usually in the morning and late afternoon. But they’re much bigger than the European robin; their breasts and bellies are a beautiful burnt orange and they are much more shy, lurking darkly deep in bushes, visible sometimes only by the bright white eyebrow which seems to glow. Also they have beautiful singing voices and interesting repertoires of songs. It is one of the nicest songs in our gardens. The songs are so different you have to learn to recognise the timbre (is that the right word?) rather than the tune. I suspect that different communities of birds develop different songs, or perhaps individuals prefer different tunes. This Ruppell’s sings slightly less prettily, I think, than the White-browed I am used to at home. Like a lot of birdsong, it’s mainly about territory: “Attention, attention”, it is saying: “I am here and this is my territory! Keep out!” Birds of AFRICAMA House 80 Birds of AFRICAMA House 81

39. Cape Robin-Chat The Cape Robin-Chat is smaller than the Ruppell’s, and duller, with a shorter, less striking white eye-stripe, a less brilliant orange breast which fades disappointingly to buffy-grey on the belly. It sings also, though only quite nicely. But – and it’s a big ‘but’ – it has one fascinating characteristic. It’s an excellent mimic. Here at Africama I heard one imitating the Red-chested Cuckoo (Piet my vrou!): scrabbling around in the undergrowth on the ground, it seemed unlikely to be a cuckoo. Why do some birds mimic? Clearly, sensitivity to sound and song is part of the way all birdsong must work: even those who do not mimic have to learn the songs of their tribe, and sounds are part of the courting tactics of most if not all birds. Some birds have very limited repertoires, others seem to rejoice in improvisation: we even call some ‘songbirds’. I imagine that demonstrating the ability to mimic another bird’s song could be one of the clues by which females estimate the genetic strength of possible mates. I have heard a Drongo imitating a kitten. But how does a cuckoo, laid, hatched and reared by a host species, get to learn the song of his tribe? Birds of AFRICAMA House 82 Birds of AFRICAMA House 83

40. Abyssinian Thrush When I came to Africama in September, the garden was full of these birds: very active, anxiously chasing each other. They’ve mostly gone now. Presumably the flurry was about breeding, and hopefully the happy couples are now quietly raising babies elsewhere. The importance of breeding for birds can hardly be exaggerated. The stakes are very high and, at that time of year, nothing else matters: the genetic imperative. It is not surprising that some cut corners, like the cuckoo outsourcing child-care to lay more often. Some birds mate, as they say, ‘for life’, although I believe that a little bit of cheating does occur even with these more principled birds. If you can get away with it, well, why not? Faithfulness has advantages: a pair strongly bonded should be better at raising young. On the other hand, if you can successfully fool another male to think that your chicks are his, he might help with feeding the greedy little blighters. With many birds, there is a very serious annual competition for partners, and males have to go to extraordinary lengths to outshine their rivals: gaudy plumage, skilful nest-building, dare-devil flying displays, melodious love-songs. Alas, ‘twas ever thus. Birds of AFRICAMA House 84 Birds of AFRICAMA House 85

41. Willow Warbler This active little bird is another ‘palearctic’ visitor from Eurasia, spreading out from October to April across the whole of sub-Saharan Africa each year. It’s a long way to fly if you’re only 11cm long. During those months, it is “very common”, they say, but this was a first for me. I caught sight of him in one of the hedges around the Africama garden. Hedges are ideal for small birds, and there are a good number here: with the leaves on the outside and a large space inside, criss-crossed with useful branches for perching, roosting and breeding. Intruders, like myself trying to spot who is in there making that noise, struggle to get a good view. This garden has, in its wilder parts, a good variety of habitats: I hope that will be maintained. I have enjoyed getting to know some of the invisible aerial ‘pathways’ that some of these smaller birds often follow, the favourite bushes and trees from which to proclaim territorial rights in song, or on which to find the new sticky buds that attract lots of delicious insects, the small fruits, and the patches of reeds or grass good for finding seeds. Birds of AFRICAMA House 87

42. Yellow-breasted Eremomela This is another little bird of the hedges – and another first for me. The books say that they like ‘semi-arid savannah’, and this is supported by their rather strange-sounding name. In fact, it is the scientific name, eremomela, and comes from two ancient Greek words: the first part (‘eremo’), from the word meaning ‘desert’ and related to our words ‘hermit’ and ‘eremitical’, and the second part (‘melos’) from the word meaning ‘song’ or ‘melody’ and related to our word, well, ‘melody’. So together this means something like ‘desert song’. The second part of the scientific name is in Latin: icteropygialis means yellow (see ‘icterine’) buttocks or belly (see ‘pygian’). The scientific convention is to derive the genus name from the Greek and the species name from the Latin: together they offer – if only to those who can do both Greek and Latin – a brief description. And indeed, it has been standard to group birds into genera by how they look and behave: that is still the easiest way to identify and group them in the field, and is used by all the guide books. Nowadays, though, DNA studies begin to show that things are a lot more complicated. Birds of AFRICAMA House 88 Birds of AFRICAMA House 89

43. Singing Cisticola The word ‘cisticola’ is liable to cause the amateur birdwatcher like myself to sigh heavily. There are six pages of cisticolas in the Birds of East Africa guidebook and they are all different but they all look the same: small, light brown birds with streaks of dark brown. Like most small birds they are busy creatures and difficult to get the kind of sighting you need to identify them more precisely. Quite often the advice is to distinguish them by their songs rather than their appearance. The term ‘birdwatching’ is actually rather unhelpful: very often it is bird-listening that is more important, as it is in this case. For a long time, one made do with the rather strange and subjective descriptions of the sound in words: “loud chips followed by an explosive paired whi-chip whi-chip” after which the female joins in with “dry raspy churr notes” that’s the surprisingly loud call (I can’t really call it a song) of the Singing Cisticola. Nowadays, of course, armies of birders with large parabola microphones have recorded practically every tweet, whistle and mew and it is all easily available on the internet. That was what clinched this one for me. Birds of AFRICAMA House 90 Birds of AFRICAMA House 91

44. Grey-backed Camaroptera The camaropteras and wren-warblers are described as a “taxonomically confusing group” that are “variously lumped and split” across the continent. ‘Lumping’ and ‘splitting’: it sounds bloody and cruel, but it’s not that bad. It’s about classification. Classifying birds mainly in terms of their appearances and behaviours is in many cases quite adequate: but the lines can become quite fuzzy and lead to many apparently anomalous cases. Scarlet-tufted Sunbirds and Green-headed Sunbirds are both clearly sunbirds in appearance, and scarlet tufts are distinguished easily enough from green heads. Until, that is, you come across a green-headed sunbird with scarlet tufts. Some taxonomists rejoice in discovering minute differences that allow them to have discovered a new species: they’re the ‘splitters’. Others prefer to keep the number of species as low as possible: they’re the ‘lumpers’. On Camaropteras, my book is a splitter, distinguishing two ‘races’: the Grey-backed and the Green-backed Camaroptera. Both are grey with green wings, it’s the backs that differ. But there wasn’t much problem identifying this bird: the Grey-backed are mostly in the west and central of East Africa, Green-backs in the coastal south east. And the Grey-backed does have a grey back. Birds of AFRICAMA House 92 Birds of AFRICAMA House 93

45. Yellow-breasted Apalis It is always worthwhile looking up the meaning of these names. They’re often ancient Greek or Latin. The name ‘apalis’ comes from the Greek word, hapalos, which means ‘delicate’ or ‘gentle’, which suits this pretty, unassuming little bird: subdued colours of grey, brown, white and yellow. They are busy creatures, getting on with their lives and leaving the rest of us to get on with ours. Those who undertook serious ornithology in its early days, many of them ‘amateurs’, wanted of course to fit avian classification into the established rules for scientific nomenclature that used both Greek and Latin. They would have been very familiar with these ‘classical’ languages, and Greek and Latin would have then been easily understood by formally educated speakers of other languages. Of course, the people who lived and worked among thriving populations of birds always had their own local names for them. A few of the scientific names for birds do actually incorporate the traditional, ‘local’ names. One example is the name ‘turaco’, which was derived in the 18th century from a word in a West African language. Any suggestions which language? (Incidentally, the pronunciation said to be correct stresses the first syllable: too-raco.) Birds of AFRICAMA House 94 Birds of AFRICAMA House 95

46. White-eyed Slaty Flycatcher You’ll normally see a flycatcher ‘hawking’, which is to say, sitting on a prominent perch that gives a good view of the surrounding space, keeping an eye out for small flying or other insects, and then swooping down to pluck them out of the air or from the ground. The White-eyed Slaty Flycatcher is, rather predictably, both white-eyed and a beautiful slaty grey in colour. But flies are not the only things it catches. At this time of year especially, there are plenty of insects of many different kinds that rise from around a pool of water or flutter from flower to flower. Insects are an important food source for many birds. The terrestrial animal biomass on the globe is 2 gigatons; insects make up about half of that. Fish come next, at about 0.7 gigatons, with all the other animals (mammals, birds, molluscs and nematodes) making about 0.3 gigatons. (Humans weigh in at 0.06 gigatons.) Since the total global biomass is something like 550 gigatons, the big winners here must be, by far, the plants. As the White-eyed Slaty Flycatcher knows, insects are a rich source of protein, one which humans will probably need to learn how to access. Birds of AFRICAMA House 96 Birds of AFRICAMA House 97

47. African Paradise - Flycatcher This is perhaps my favourite bird, the brilliant African Paradise-Flycatcher. Its song, described as a “loud, scratchy, nasal and cheerful warbling” is an instantly recognisable heralding of summer in Zimbabwe. (That description, I would say, is unfair: these birds belong to the genus terpsiphone, meaning ‘delightful sounding’.) It’s partly the colours that make it so attractive: bright blue bill and eye-ring set off by the dark blue head, crest, and breast which fades to a lighter grey on the belly. But it is the gorgeous chestnut back and wings, and the extravagantly long tail in the breeding male, that is so fetching. As he forages noisily among the branches, that tail swirls and uncoils out behind him like the tail of a child’s kite. It makes him look even smaller than he is. I have seen one sitting incubating eggs on the tiny and beautifully neat nest that they construct: so small is it that the head overhangs it on one side and that fabulous long tail on the other. I was impressed, also, to see the male taking his turn on the eggs. But he is no push-over when it comes to seeing off possible rivals for his territory. Birds of AFRICAMA House 98 Birds of AFRICAMA House 99

48. White-bellied Tit Though the White-bellied Tit is quite common in Kenya and Tanzania, it’s not widespread elsewhere in Africa, with some populations in Cameroun. A very black and white bird, for both sexes. Why are some birds brightly coloured and others dull? Patterned browns and buffs are obviously good camouflage in many African contexts, especially for birds incubating eggs and feeding chicks, often but not always females; but also for those whose hunting techniques require stealth, like many of the owls, for instance. Some birds, like the snowy owl and the ptarmigan change into snow-coloured plumage when winter comes. Perhaps contrasting black and white has a camouflaging effect in shady conditions, breaking up the silhouette so that the bird is less easily noticed. Bright-coloured birds must be the result of some kind of evolutionary calculation: the advantages of bright colours – for breeding or for species recognition – presumably outweigh the disadvantages of the greater visibility in the eyes of their predators. The way those balance out will vary widely in different circumstances, so the calculations cannot be simple. But what is sure is that all those who miscalculated have either already gone extinct or presently on the way out. Birds of AFRICAMA House 101

49. African Yellow White-eye A very yellow bird, this time! How do birds get their colour? Some colour is iridescence, as already mentioned, but all the rest come from a very small paint-box, only three kinds of pigment combined in a great variety of ingenious ways: arrangements of pixel-like dots, clever feather-structuring, and so on. A pigment called melanin produces a range of black, grey, brown and orange; it also contributes to feather strength which is why many birds have black or dark wing feathers. Another pigment are the carotenoids, involved in producing other bright colours. Interestingly, carotenoids are not produced by the birds on their own: the birds have to eat certain foods that contain these pigments which are then distributed to different parts of their bodies. Flamingos are the best example, perhaps: they’re only that pink colour because of the tiny crustaceans that the birds live on. The third type of pigment is found only in one kind of bird: the turacos. It’s called turacin, appropriately enough, and it is the basis of that lovely red in their wings. A related pigment, turacoverdin, accounts for the equally beautiful green of the turacos, but also of some other birds of the same family. Birds of AFRICAMA House 102 Birds of AFRICAMA House 103

50. Bronze Sunbird Africama has many sunbirds: there are eight different types on this list, all with that sharp curved beak for drawing nectar up from deep inside flowers. Though not all sunbirds are iridescent, they are specialists in that: practically all of them – at least the males – make brilliant use of the sun, flashing a variety of different colours depending on the angle the light strikes the translucent feathers. It is a good example of beauty truly being in the eye of the beholder; turn your head and it looks different. The largest sunbird on our list is this one. Most of it is tail, of course. It likes sitting prominently, singing its heart out, for sunbirds can be amazingly noisy for such small creatures. Seen against the sky, this bird just looks black, and that is the colour of the wings, belly and tail. But it has a wonderful coat (or mantle, really) of many colours. In the right light, you can see brown with a net of gold thrown over it, turning on the shoulders into purple, and into goldish green on the back. Oh all right – you try to describe it, then, without using the word ‘bronze’! Birds of AFRICAMA House 104 Birds of AFRICAMA House 105

51. Green - headed Sunbird The Green-headed sunbird has an iridescent green head which often shines blue. So you can appreciate the problems of naming these birds: which colour is it, really? Green or blue? You can argue, perhaps, that it isn’t either colour because iridescence isn’t a colour in that sense. But usually iridescence is combined with pigmentation, as in this case, I guess, giving the iridescence a dominant colour. I imagine the degree and nature of translucence in the feathers makes a difference, too. Sunbirds are nectarivores, living off the nectar drawn from flowers, mostly from red flowers: that’s where you will normally see them, working the bushes industriously and systematically, digging deep into the intimate parts of blooms, chirruping and chirping all the while. Nectar from flowers, though, doesn’t give them all they need: it is low in proteins. The birds have to top up their diet with insects; and so you will also often see sunbirds working those trees which, at this time of the year, have sticky buds that draw insects. They check the outsides of windows regularly, looking to take the little spiders living in the corners; and perhaps also the webs for nests. Birds of AFRICAMA House 106 Birds of AFRICAMA House 107

52. Eastern Double-collared Sunbird Sunbird beaks or bills are ‘purpose built’ for getting nectar up from the depths of flowers. It slides sharply and easily down the flower’s ‘throat’ and the curve allows the bird to manipulate it to get the last few drops of the sugary liquid out. Does it have tiny muscles like ours, this tongue, to allow the bird to bend it around corners? I don’t know. Do they suck the nectar up, like a tiny elephant with a tiny trunk? Hardly: that beak is an upper and a lower mandible all the way up to the mouth, and I guess that it wouldn’t allow sufficient suction power to do the job. In fact, they have very long tongues which they flick down to the deepest part of the flower. At the ends of these tongues there are, depending on the type of sunbird, various brush- or barb-like protuberances to which the sticky nectar sticks. When the tongue is drawn back into the beak, the nectar is swallowed. This happens very fast: with binoculars, you can see the flicking, and sometime even the tongue moving. So: a quiz question: why is a sunbird like a chameleon? Birds of AFRICAMA House 108 Birds of AFRICAMA House 109

53. Northern Double-collared Sunbird There is a slight difference between this Northern Double Collared Sunbird and the previous one: the Eastern. See if you can spot it. The relationship between flowers and sunbirds is interesting. Many flowering plants need birds (or insects or bats) to carry their pollen to other flowers to produce seeds. Plants make themselves attractive to pollinators by dressing in bright colours (sunbirds like red flowers) and serving the sugary nectar that the birds want, in such a way that the the bird will pick up some of the pollen, often on its forehead, and deposit it in the next flower. So plant and bird are joined in a mutual strategy of survival: without each other, neither will reproduce. Plants have to exclude, somehow, other creatures getting in and taking the nectar without being the right shape to pick up the pollen. So their flowers are of such a shape to ensure, as much as possible, that their preferred pollinators are the only ones to get in. Some sunbirds, however, have learned to cheat, boring a hole in the side of the flower to steal the nectar without paying the agreed price of carrying away some pollen. Birds of AFRICAMA House 110 Birds of AFRICAMA House 111

54. Scarlet-chested Sunbird This is an extremely handsome bird and it knows it: an iridescent green cap and throat, and a breast and chest of the most scarlet scarlet you can imagine. Quite large for a sunbird, it has long and sharply de-curved bill. Once you notice it, the subtle difference in sunbird bill shapes is obvious: longer or thinner, more or less curved. Sunbirds are quite like the hummingbirds of the Americas, though hummingbirds are mostly smaller and perhaps more varied in shapes and sizes. Some of them have developed perilously exclusive relationships with particular plants, so that they are the only bird to pollinate that flower, which is the only flower from which they can feed. One American example is the extraordinary Sword-billed Hummingbird, a tiny creature with a bill that is longer than the rest of its body. It needs that to get nectar from one particular kind of flower which has developed a very long flower that secretes its nectar at the very bottom. The Sword-bill can do the business, however, though it is unable, with its enormous bill, to use it to preen its own feathers. It has had to learn to comb itself with its foot. Birds of AFRICAMA House 113

55. Amethyst Sunbird This black bird used to be called the Black Sunbird. But in fact the black is set off by patches of iridescence that are only to be seen from some angles: a blue-green cap and an amethyst-purple throat. Feathers are unique in the animal kingdom, developed by evolution, it seems, from reptilian scales; and they’re wonderful for displaying colour. Every bird has a variety of different kinds of feathers: soft downy ones for insulating against heat and cold, more robust ones for a smooth surface to the wings, some just for decoration. It is vital to all birds that feathers are looked-after, and they devote a lot of time to preening. Most feathers (not so much the downy ones) have interlocking barbs on their filaments which have regularly to be ‘zipped’ up by combing them with the bill; especially for water-birds, they need oiling from special oil glands; and they need to be cleaned of parasites. Most of this is done by the individual bird itself, with the bill or sometimes with the foot; but some engage in ‘allopreening’. This is when one bird preens another. This can be part of the bonding rituals between mates. Birds of AFRICAMA House 114 Birds of AFRICAMA House 115

56. Collared Sunbird The collar in question is a thin band of purple between the green breast, and the yellow belly. Sunbirds are among the few birds in this part of the world that can actually hover: that is, stay stationary in the air simply by moving their wings. Some other birds can remain stationary, but only because they are riding the oncoming wind flowing over the aerofoil-shaped wings. They might have to flap their wings to stop being pushed backwards. But sunbirds can hover without the help of an oncoming wind. They will do this sometimes to access the nectar inside a flower that is otherwise hard to get at, hanging in the air on wings made invisible by speed in front of the flower and drinking deep. It must take a lot of energy, and normally sunbirds perch first and attack the flower from that position. Their cousins the hummingbirds, however, are great hoverers and rarely perch to feed. They both do this by beating their wings in a ‘figure of eight’ pattern which does work if you do it very very fast. Hummingbirds, however, do something that no other bird (I think) can do: they can fly backwards. Birds of AFRICAMA House 116 Birds of AFRICAMA House 117

57. Variable Sunbird This is certainly the most active, audible and visible little bird in Africama garden: look long enough at a patch of grass or bush, and there will sooner rather than later be a flash of yellow breast and purple back, accompanied by a lot of chipping, chirping and singing in a surprisingly loud voice. But it has what must be one of the least helpful names for a bird: the ‘variable sunbird’. Not only does this fail to give you any identifying features: it also hints discouragingly that, because it is so variable in appearance, it is not worth trying. And the singing: it is amazing how such a small creature can produce so much, and so continuously. It’s possible because birds have two ‘voice boxes’ where we only have one. Each one is controlled independently by the brain. The lungs are connected to a number of air sacks that provide an extra flow of air to vibrate in the voice-boxes, exiting through the syrinx where the sound can be further modified. Using all this built-in gear, birds can sing two songs at once – sing a duet with itself, if you like – and without pausing to take breath. Birds of AFRICAMA House 118 Birds of AFRICAMA House 119

58. Longtailed-Fiscal Another black-and-white bird. In days past, a ‘fiscal’ was a treasury official: i.e. not to put too fine a point on it, a tax collector. It seems to fit this bird: the forbidding black suit and white dress-shirt and, more especially perhaps, the sharply-hooked business end of that strong-looking bill. Colour is important not merely for plumage: the fiscals, for example, lay pale blue eggs marked with dark blotches. It is not always clear why some birds’ eggs are coloured in the way that they are. One reason must be connected with ‘brood parasitism’, that nasty habit of birds such as the cuckoo of laying its eggs in another bird’s nest, leaving them to be brought up by their hosts. A foreign egg markedly different in colour or patterning should, in theory, be easily recognised and disposed of by the host. I say ‘in theory’ because some hosts seem not to notice such things, and desperately continue to keep fed a loudly demanding chick that is several times bigger in the nest than themselves. To make matters worse, the more unscrupulous parasites lay eggs that mimic the colour and patterning of those of their hosts, locking together the reproduction of both species. Birds of AFRICAMA House 120 Birds of AFRICAMA House 121

59. Tropical Boubou Yet another black and white bird. In fact, though, this boubou has a very light pink wash on the breast. One striking thing about this bird is the variety of its calls and sounds: another is the beautifully clear and fluty character of many of those sounds – once you hear it and recognise it, it is hard to forget. Some of those vocalisations are ‘contact calls’, meant to keep the singer in touch with other birds of its type in the neighbourhood. Others may be intended to declare territorial rights and intimidate any possible rivals. Some sound like “course scolds”, as the book calls them. But this bird, like some others, also uses song as part of the rituals that cement the bonding between male and female. For quite a few of the boubou’s vocalisations are actually duets; which is to say that the male and female make the song together: singing not simultaneously, in chorus, but antiphonally. That’s to say, one bird calls, perhaps repeated perhaps three or four times, and suddenly the other (from a distance) gives a perfectly timed melodious response. Nothing expresses mutual commitment more charmingly. Birds of AFRICAMA House 123

60. Black-backed Puffback Here’s yet another black and white shrike-like bird: the Black-backed Puffback. Notice the rather minimalistic hook to its bill, but also its fiery red eye. Just to make things difficult, this bird has in its repertoire a call which sounds like another duet – a clicking tic followed immediately by a drawn-out wheu – but isn’t (for a long time I thought it was). It is called a ‘puffback’ because, when it is displaying, it puffs up in a rather dramatic way the loose white feathers of its rump and lower back. Its species name cubla, given to it by Francois Levaillant, an early 19th century naturalist and ornithologist, is derived from a local Southern African name. What’s more, we are told, the initial letter ‘c’ represents one of the click sounds characteristic of languages such as isiZulu, isiXhosa, and isiNdebele. This makes sense, given the click (tic!) at the beginning of its call, and enables one to think rather fondly of Mr Levaillant. Was it that the people heard the bird speaking in their own language? In any case, out of respect for this smart little bird, we should, I think, make an effort to pronounce it (something like) tsubla. Birds of AFRICAMA House 124 Birds of AFRICAMA House 125

61. Orange-breasted Bushshrike No black and white bird here: with a dark grey cap and black mask, a bright yellow forehead, eye-brow stripe and throat, and the lovely orange wash over the yellow breast and belly, the Orange-breasted Bushshrike is highly colourful. It’s shy and not often seen in the open: though widespread within its range, I was lucky to see it here. Was it a male or a female I saw? They look the same: but only the females do the amazing work of producing and laying eggs. Eggs are a brilliantly ingenious way of allowing growth to take place outside the bird’s body, which doesn’t have to lug it around like the mammals. A cell from the ovaries grows, forms a yolk and begins the journey down the oviduct to meet, hopefully, a viable sperm (though an unfertilised egg will also continue and be laid infertile). With membranes and albumen (i.e. the protein-rich ‘white’) added, the shell develops from calcium deposited on the outer membrane. Appropriate colours are added as it proceeds: spots, blotches or streaks are added as it passes colouring points, and (here’s the clever part) swirls made by rotating the egg. All birds’ eggs are beautiful, but some are exquisite. Birds of AFRICAMA House 126 Birds of AFRICAMA House 127

62. Pied Crow No one can plausibly claim not to have seen these large, raucous, sociable, highly intelligent, and ‘in your face’ birds in our cities and suburbs. They are so adapted now to living with, or rather off, humans you don’t see them much elsewhere. If you doubt their intelligence, and encounter them only as the nuisances that overturn bins and rummage through rubbish, you should look at one or two YouTube videos: try “Intelligent crows” and take your pick. There’s one that solves an 8-step puzzle, and some wild crows that learned to crack nuts by dropping them under the wheels of cars at a pedestrian crossing. I also read of wild crows trained to pick up litter and deposit it in bins. But it’s not just crows, though they’re near the top of the class: I’d wager that all birds are more intelligent than we think. All birds communicate among themselves. A number of birds use tools to help extract food from their environment. Some display coloured flowers, stones, nuts to decorate their nests (and attract mates). Many navigate their way across the globe every year, returning each time to the exact spot. Birds of AFRICAMA House 128 Birds of AFRICAMA House 129

63. African Black-headed Oriole Another mainly yellow bird with a black head: why are so many birds coloured yellow? I don’t know. It’s not much good for camouflage, but if it’s a bright colour you want, yellow is a good one to go for. Perhaps arranging pigments just right to get that colour is less ‘expensive’ in evolutionary terms than other colours. Who knows? I managed to find a picture of Black-headed Oriole eggs: a very pale bluish white with dark spots. Why are eggs always egg-shaped, with a point at one end and rounded at the other? Actually, they’re not all like that. Some eggs, especially those of birds that nest in holes in trees or the ground, or in very deep enclosed nests, tend to be more evenly spherical. This is a clue. An egg laid there is very unlikely to roll out of the nest. But for those laid on the flat ground, as some are, or in rather shallow and open nests, there is such a danger. An egg of the traditional egg-shape, however, will roll not away but in a circle and return to where it came from (you can try this with a chicken egg). These birds; they think of everything. Birds of AFRICAMA House 130 Birds of AFRICAMA House 131

64. Kenya Rufus Sparrow There is something humble about these birds, even about their name: sparrows. While city-living sparrows often seem cocky, argumentative and even rowdy, these good-living rural sparrows, like the Kenya Rufous Sparrow, are polite, tidy and unassuming, even when they come into town. They’ve got a job to do and they get on with it. Their niceness can make them vulnerable, and they are known as hosts of one of the parasitic cuckoos; they can be lumbered with raising a fat, greedy and ungrateful cuckoo chick. They are one of the few birds mentioned in the bible (others are the hoopoe, eagle, vulture, kite, hawk, raven, owl, cormorant, stork, heron and even bat – which is not a bird at all). “Don’t be afraid,” Jesus once said, “for you are worth more than many sparrows” (Mt 10:31). If he meant by this that sparrows, perhaps because they’re very numerous and easy to come by, are not worth very much, then he was not saying anything particularly encouraging, was he? I’d like to think, therefore, that what he meant was that every sparrow is worth a great deal, and that we are worth a great deal more than many of them. Birds of AFRICAMA House 132 Birds of AFRICAMA House 133

65. Spectacled Weaver The Spectacled Weaver is not short- or long-sighted: it is just that the bright yellow eye in the middle of the black eye-mask looks a bit like spectacles. There are a lot of weavers, and a lot of them are yellow; so finding distinctive names for them is not easy. They’re justly famous for their intricately woven nests from grass stems or similar material. Many of their nests are globular, with more or less elaborate entrances, suspended usually from very slender branches, and quite often over water. It’s all about making it as difficult as possible for unwelcome guests to get in and steal eggs or chicks. Some weavers make their nests accessible only by wriggling up long hanging entrance tubes; others provide a fake entrance to fool predators while the eggs remain safe in a hidden compartment. Nest-building is a furious activity and a very serious business. Males must first build and then sing as loudly as possible to attract a mate. She will inspect the nest thoroughly, and if she disapproves she will demolish it and seek a mate with higher standards. For their part, males sensibly hedge their bets, doubling their chances by building more than one nest. Birds of AFRICAMA House 134 Birds of AFRICAMA House 135

66. Speke’s Weaver Weavers are very sociable: there is one type, not in this part of Africa but endemic to Southern Africa, called the Sociable Weaver, which builds enormous permanent communal nests that can occupy an entire tree, house over one hundred pairs of birds at any one time and last for a hundred years. But even when they build individual nests, usually many do so in the same tree: at breeding time, when males are frantically building and trying to attract mates, their combined ‘swizzling’ and chattering noises can be deafening. Speke’s Weaver also builds and lives in large colonies, like bird villages. There are obvious advantages in living in such social communities: there are more pairs of eyes to notice and warn of the approach of snakes or rodents or other predators such as hawks – the African Harrier-Hawk regularly dines on succulent fat weaver chicks which it scoops out of their nests. More birds also make more noise that just might discourage uninvited guests. And even if a predator does succeed in getting among the nests, the chances of any individual nest being robbed decrease with the size of the group. Birds of AFRICAMA House 137

67. Baglafecht Weaver This bright yellow and brilliantly black bird is one of the most frequently seen in the Africama garden. The taxonomy of the Baglafecht Weaver, as recorded in my guide book, is an example of ‘lumping’. In the case of the Grey-backed and Green-backed Camaroptera, the book went with the ‘splitters’, recording these two as distinct races of Camaroptera. The name ‘Baglafecht Weaver’, by contrast, now includes as one species birds that were previously regarded as distinct: Reichenow’s Weaver, Emin’s Weaver, and Stuhlmann’s Weaver. One wonders who or what it was that, in the end, awarded the species to Baglafecht rather than to Reichenow, Emin or Stuhlmann; and why. Interestingly, the differences in plumage between what were formerly distinct species appear, at least to the eye of the ordinary beholder, significantly greater than the differences between many birds that are un-controversially considered distinct. But appearances are not the only, or even perhaps the most important, criteria for taxonomists: for example, populations that live in distinct and non-overlapping regions and come to differ in appearance may still turn out to be able to interbreed, and so be recognised as a single species. Birds of AFRICAMA House 138 Birds of AFRICAMA House 139

68. Holub’s Golden Weaver This bird, which is the largest of the many weavers in East Africa, is currently nesting in a small patch of thin reeds at the bottom of Africama garden. I was able to watch the stocky male, equipped with a heavy and powerful-looking bill, building a number of nests. On one occasion I saw him taking food – it looked like a grasshopper – into the nest. The food looked rather large for nestlings, so perhaps he was feeding his mate sitting on their eggs. The nest hung from a narrow and very flexible reed which would have been very difficult, if not impossible, for any predator to climb, and it was constantly swaying, jerking and whipping around in the wind. It made me feel queasy just to imagine what it must feel like to sit inside that bucking globule of woven grasses, softened inside no doubt with feathers or fluff, but still a nightmare of a natural fairground ride. The birds themselves, of course, care not-at-all for all that. Even landing accurately and without mishap at the entrance to one of those nests seemed, in rain or a high wind, an aviation feat of some magnitude. Birds of AFRICAMA House 140 Birds of AFRICAMA House 141

69. Red Cheeked Cordon-Bleu Birds, as everyone knows, live in trees. But this ‘common knowledge’ has too many exceptions. Some birds live all their lives on the ground and never set foot in trees (ostriches), others – apart from a brief period on the ground to breed – live, eat, and sleep on the wing (albatrosses). Most of the others do, of course, spend time in trees, especially if you count bushes as trees. But even among these, not all types of trees are equally attractive to different kinds of bird. And in any case, different species use different parts of the tree: some love to sit right on the topmost tip, while others wouldn’t be seen dead up there but always lurk as far as possible within. The lovely little Red-cheeked Cordon-bleu will mostly be seen on the ground in groups, sometimes composed of mixed species of small ground feeding seed-eaters, softly calling swii swii swii to each other as they go busily about their business. Cordon-bleu means literally ‘blue ribbon’ and at one time referred to the highest order of chivalry in Bourbon France, but now means a highly qualified cook. Why is it the name of this bird? I’ve no idea. Birds of AFRICAMA House 142 Birds of AFRICAMA House 143

70. African Firefinch It is not unusual to see this African Firefinch, with its more obviously appropriate name and its soft red and brown colours, busily picking up seeds in mixed- species groups that include the Cordon-bleus. Such birds can eat only small seed grains, and not having teeth and jaws to grind them up, they must swallow these whole. The bird’s digestion system, then, will have to deal somehow with the process of getting the nourishing kernel out of the dry protective husk. But how do they feed their very young chicks? For most small species, young chicks are fed on protein-rich insects until they are able to handle seeds and other kinds of food. But some birds – pigeons and doves who also eat mainly seeds and grains, for instance – feed their young a special kind of ‘milk’ that is secreted not from mammary glands but from special cells in the lining of the crop (part of the oesophagus) of the parent birds. It is nutritious and contains anti-oxidants and immune-boosters. A few other birds – flamingos and some penguins – can do this trick as well. Perhaps it is not unlike the ‘milk’ made from oats that vegans enjoy. Birds of AFRICAMA House 144 Birds of AFRICAMA House 145

71. Common Waxbill Many of these small birds – waxbills (including the Cordon-bleu), firefinches, and others – have brownish backs; which is why, although some of them have quite striking colours, they can often be almost invisible when feeding on the ground, foraging amidst the dust and leaf-litter, pecking up minute grass and other seeds. They tend to move in large groups, keeping constantly in touch with each other through their soft contact calls. A flock of these birds can suddenly explode in a flurry of whirring wings in front of you, almost under your feet. Common Waxbills, with their bright red bill and eye- streaks, soft pinkish browns and whites, are engaging birds: perhaps even too engaging for their own health. For they are often the victims of brood parasites, such as the Pin-tailed Whydah, and are frequently tricked into hatching and raising the Whydah’s chicks, thinking that they are their own. Thus they carry much of the burden of reproducing not only their own species but also that of a particularly flashy parasite. Birds of AFRICAMA House 146 Birds of AFRICAMA House 147

72. Bronze Mannikin Another small, rather ordinary looking brown, black and white, ground-foraging, seed-eating finch-like bird. But look closely at that shoulder and the lozenge-shaped patch of iridescent green. Look at the different colours of the mandibles of the bill: the upper slatey grey, the lower bluish white. These features, along with a slightly less heavy beak, distinguish it from the similar looking Red-Backed Mannikin which is also on our list (see overpage). One of the things that I love about birds and watching birds is the way it requires one to look really closely and intently at what is in front of one, at the world in which we live. Most of the time, we do not really see what we are looking at. But watching birds – seeing not only how they look but how they behave, how they make their living on this planet – makes me engage much more deeply in that world. I suspect there are not many days in my life when I have not seen mannikins, for they are plentiful where I live. Now after this, I am wondering whether what I looked at, but may not have really seen, were not in fact Bronzes but were actually read-backs Birds of AFRICAMA House 149

73. Red-backed Mannikin This Red-backed Mannikin is not considered a species on its own, but a ‘race’, i.e. a subgroup, of the species Black-and-White Mannikin. You have to look carefully in the bird guide to find it. The Black-and-White is not on our list, and for good reason: it lives and operates in the western part of East Africa, mostly on the Ugandan side of Lake Victoria, through Rwanda and Burundi. It has probably never been seen at Africama. But its sub-group, the Red-backed, is common in this area and has been seen here. So two ‘races’ of one species do not overlap in territory and have distinguishing characteristics, but are grouped together as one species. Of course habitat – altitude, climate, particular kinds of food resources etc. – must be what ultimately determines where birds establish settled populations. And when suitable habitats become overcrowded or reduced in size, birds and other animals will have to move to survive. Inevitably, some will not. Tracking bird populations and distribution can therefore provide a quite sensitive criterion for monitoring degradation and the effects of climate change. Birds of AFRICAMA House 150 Birds of AFRICAMA House 151

74. Pin-tailed Whydah When in breeding, this flashily-dressed little bird, with his ostentatious red bill and ridiculously long and elaborate tail, is something (quite a lot, actually) of a ‘ladies’ man’. He goes to great lengths to impress the females of his species, spending much energy showing off – what ornithologists call, more politely, ‘displaying’ – to females, trying to persuade them of his strength, aerial agility and beauty, which is to say, the virility of his genes. He commands a prominent high look-out post and proclaim his presence to any females feeding on the ground below. Calling to entice them to come and join him, he has a special chirp that does the trick. Any female who considers him worth investigating will join him, and watch his fantastic fluttering dance in the air in front of her. If that works (it by no means always does), she will fly up and he will mate with her in mid-air, an almost instantaneous matter, and the business is done. She will then leave and, in due course, search for a convenient nest – often the Common Waxbill’s – to secretly lay her egg. For the Pin-tailed Whydah is a brood parasite: parents play no role in rearing offspring. Birds of AFRICAMA House 152 Birds of AFRICAMA House 153

75. Streaky Seedeater At this time of year when there are still plenty of seeds around for seedeaters to eat, a very common bird in Africama’s garden, often in small flocks, as well as in Kenya and Ethiopia more generally, is the Streaky Seedeater (Crithagra striolata). A previous list of Africama birds contained an entry ‘Streaky-headed Seedeater’, and until writing this, I have been assuming that was correct. But it turns out that, though there is indeed a bird of that name (Crithagra gularis), it is a Southern African bird and (it seems) confined to that region. It would seem to be a mistaken identification. Not only are the ranges non-overlapping (that can, of course, change over time), there are some differences in appearance – the back of striolata is patterned in a more defined way while gularis is plainer, only indistinctly patterned – and the songs differ. Especially for someone used to the birds of Southern Africa, like me, there is, evidently, always a danger when looking at something that seems very familiar, but is not quite the same: the feeling that “Oh, I know that one!” is satisfying alright, but can be misleading. Compare the two pictures and see what you think. Birds of AFRICAMA House 154 Birds of AFRICAMA House 155

76. African Golden-breasted Bunting This boldly-marked bird is another seedeater, although like other seedeaters it will take insects and spiders when it is time to feed its young. Unlike the smaller seedeaters we have already covered, the bunting is not very gregarious, meaning that it normally feeds alone, or in pairs or small groups. On the other hand, it is said to be “often quite tame” which suggests, I suppose, that it prefers human company – or at least the benefits of human company – to that of other birds! It is a resident i.e. not migratory, which is not to say that they do not move about more locally. The map shows them widely spread across Southern and Eastern Africa, with rather isolated populations far away in West Africa (Nigeria, Benin, Burkina Faso and even Chad), suggesting that they prefer more open savannah to tropical forests. But there are an awful lot of miles between the main concentrations of this bird in the south and east and the more isolated groups in the west. It would be interesting to know about the historical relationship between these. Did the birds move? Or did the environment in between become over time uninhabitable? When? Birds of AFRICAMA House 156 Birds of AFRICAMA House 157

77. Great Cormorant There is water all year round in Africama in the pond known affectionately as ‘Lake Masawe’ after a former Jesuit president of JCAM. It’s too small for waterbirds (unless you count, as I do not, the domesticated ducks). But one interesting bird has been seen here: the Great or White-breasted Cormorant. Though they are never far away from water, it seems that one ventured once to visit us here in Karen, and was seen, I believe, looking thoughtfully into the greenly opaque waters. Cormorants dive and catch their fish underwater. They are powerful swimmers and the hooked bill is no doubt helpful in gripping slippery fish. Other water birds regularly oil their feathers from special glands: it keeps them dry in the water, and allows air trapped in the feathers which creates buoyancy. “Like water off a duck’s back”, we say. But buoyancy is what cormorants, don’t want: it makes it harder to dive below the surface. They want their feathers to be waterlogged, making it easy for them to dive. But it also means they need to hang themselves out to dry when they emerge: so you will typically see them in the sun with wings extended. Birds of AFRICAMA House 159

No. Name Link Photographer 1 Cattle Egret https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/143154785 Ricardo Sánchez Sources 2 Black-headed Heron https://pixabay.com/photos/black-headed-heron-bird-crane-heron-3436037/ Jean van der Meulen 3 Grey Heron https://pixabay.com/photos/gray-heron-wading-bird-animal-5113202/ Mabel Amber 4 Hamerkop https://pixabay.com/photos/hammer-head-bird-animals-1105395/ Marcel Langthim 5 Marabou Stork https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/143021215 Thomas emeadows 6 Hadada Ibis https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/142060986 Asrat Ayalew 7 Sacred Ibis https://pixabay.com/photos/bird-malagasy-sacred-ibis-pond-lake-7128980/ hartono subagio 8 Egyptian Goose https://pixabay.com/photos/egyptian-goose-bird-waterbird-3238771/ Mabel Amber 9 Black Kite https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-a-bird-10860877/ Rajesh S Balouria 10 African Goshawk https://pixabay.com/photos/goshawk-bird-perched-animal-6696074/ Pixabay License 11 Little Sparrowhawk https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/756972?size=original Ian White 12 African Harrier-Hawk https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/117964563 Jean-Paul Boerekamps 13 Augur Buzzard https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/137149094 guspiralsnuvols 14 Common Buzzard https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/3322594?size=original Paul Cools 15 Long-crested Eagle https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/140253098 Asrat Ayalew 16 Montane Nightjar https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/1594655?size=original Allan Drewitt 17 Grey-crowned Crane https://pixabay.com/photos/grey-crowned-cranes-birds-cranes-540657/ Frank Winkler 18 Rock Dove https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/114524647?size=original Judy Gallagher 19 Tambourine Dove https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/78721486?size=original Dave Brown

20 Red-Eyed Dove https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/1954844?size=original Paul Cools 40 Abyssinian Thrush https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/1358110?size=original Peter Steward 21 Hartlaub’s Turaco https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/807856?size=original Derek Keats 41 Willow Warbler https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/37430679?size=original Enric LLao Sanchez 22 Red-chested Cuckoo https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/86937250?size=original ianrijsdijk 42 Yellow-bellied Eremomela https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/106311304 Alex R 23 White-browed Coucal https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/31625?size=original Ian White 43 Singing Cisticola https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/9174987?size=original markus lilje 24 Barn Owl https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/165796939?size=original caroline legg 44 Grey-backed Camaroptera https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/12684876 Mikael Bauer 25 African Wood Owl https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/29794103?size=original Mette H.H. Hansen 45 Yellow-breasted Apalis https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/258458?size=original Ian White 26 Little Swift https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/173576219?size=original Niall Perrins 46 White-eyed Slaty Flycatcher https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/55380?size=original Sergey Yeliseev 27 African Palm Swift https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/1852168?size=original Paul Cools 47 African Paradise-Flycatcher https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/1332763?size=original blingbeek 28 Speckled Mousebird https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/141690341 Tommy Andriollo 48 White-bellied Tit https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/124525208 rguinness 29 Cinnamon-chested Bee-eater https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/656341?size=original Hans Olofsson 49 African Yellow White-eye https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/35620529 Richard Pockat 30 European Bee-eater https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/1958052?size=original Paul Cools 50 Bronze Sunbird https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/33698?size=original Francesco Veronesi 31 Silvery-cheeked Hornbill https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/646026?size=original Tarique Sani 51 Green-headed Sunbird https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/122462130 OlegRozhko 32 Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/136064?size=original Nathan Rupert 52 Eastern Double-collared Sunbird https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/9174331?size=original markus lilje 33 Cardinal Woodpecker https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/137752864 Rudolph Steenkamp 53 Northern Double-collared Sunbird https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/635381?size=original Tom Tarrant 34 Barn Swallow https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/91234376?size=original Ad Konings 54 Scarlet-chested Sunbird https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/125829372 Peter Lupton 35 Black Saw-wing https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/135505885 Alex R 55 Amethyst Sunbird https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/16169724?size=original Peter Vos 36 African Pied Wagtail https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/28693835?size=original Carmelo López Abad 56 Collared Sunbird https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/35728612?size=original tjeerd 37 Common Bulbul https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/1447665?size=original Lip Kee 57 Variable Sunbird https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/11527199?size=original Shirley Hitschmann 38 Ruppell’s Robin-Chat https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/106441607 Cossypha Semirufa 58 Longtailed-Fiscal Hekima University College, Nairobi, Kenya Peter Knox, SJ 39 Cape Robin-Chat https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/9175813?size=original markus lilje 59 Tropical Boubou https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/139649249 Jeffrey H. Skevington

60 Black-backed Puffback https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/649512?size=original Ian White 61 Orange-breasted Bushshrike https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/5575964?size=original Robert Muckley 62 Pied Crow https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/32121?size=original Ian White 63 African Black-headed Oriole https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/129786034?size=original Kate Braun 64 Kenya Rufus Sparrow https://ebird.org/species/kerspa2 Charles Robshaw 65 Spectacled Weaver https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/26203?size=original Francesco Veronesi 66 Speke’s Weaver https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/139652066 Jeffrey H. Skevington 67 Baglafecht Weaver https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/130962918 Fernando Bastos 68 Holub’s Golden Weaver https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/782553?size=original Sergey Yeliseev 69 Red Cheeked Cordon-Bleu https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/139802132 Jeffrey H. Skevington 70 African Firefinch https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/14053-Lagonosticta-rubricata Martin Heigan 2007 71 Common Waxbill https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/21764?size=original Joaquim Coelho 72 Bronze Mannikin https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/59165298?size=original tjeerd 73 Red-backed Mannikin https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/64350006 Brett 74 Pin-tailed Whydah https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/152423828?size=original Dimitris S 75 Streaky Seedeater https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/107955958 Heather & Andrew H. 76 African Golden-breasted Bunting https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/122692366 Peter Lupton 77 Great Cormorant https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/143128324 Pete Woodall

Jesuit Conference of Africa and Madagascar (JCAM) Africama House, 260 Dagoretti Rd. - Karen P.O.Box 1540 -00502, Nairobi, Kenya 254 (0) 20 3884528 www.jesuits.africa