On The Road – Albatrossity – Tarangire National Park – 5

This is a Yellow-collared Lovebird (Agapornis personatus), a bird that is endemic to Tanzania. Some field guides treat this as a subspecies of Fischer’s Lovebird (A. fischeri), which is a more colorful bird, but recent observations indicate that these two species do not interbreed in parts of the range where they both occur. These cuties were abundant at the park HQ area, where this one was preparing to nest in a man-made site that seems just about perfect for it. Click here for larger image.

Although we had sighted warthogs (Phacochoerus africanus) the previous day, we had much better looks at them on day 2. This one has a wee Red-billed Oxpecker (Buphagus erythrorynchus) hiding on its back; you can just see the eye and the eponymous beak in this picture. The warthog saw us and startled, wheeling away from our vehicle, while the oxpecker was flung off and flew in the opposite direction. I hope that they were reunited later! Click here for larger image.

The Baobab Trees in this park are massive, ancient, and quite scarred by elephant damage. Click here for larger image.

Last week I included a picture of the Bare-faced Go-Away Bird (Corythaixoides personatus), an East African member of the turaco family, hanging out with some Gray Hornbills. We found this one by itself, and it didn’t tell us to go away! Click for larger image.

Another member of the turaco family, as dull and gray as the Bare-faced Go-Away Bird, is the White-bellied Go-Away Bird (Corythaixoides leucogaster). It does, however, sport a much more stylish crest! Click here for larger image.

There were other winged creatures besides the birds to photograph, although I did not have a field guide for non-avian creatures and so had to rely on the guides for IDing them. This butterfly is known as the Yellow Pansy (Hierta junonia), and is found throughout the Paleotropics (eastern & southern Africa, Arabia, and south Asia). Our guide simply called it a “Pansy”, but since I had a picture I could look it up later to get the complete name. According to what I learned later, this is a male, although he is somewhat the worse for wear. Click here for larger image.

Wildebeests (aka Gnu) were something that we would see almost every day for the rest of the trip. I learned that there are two species of wildebeest, and this East African version is the Blue Wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus). The South African version (C. gnou) was the first to be discovered by European settlers, and its species name reflects the grunting sounds that these creatures (both species) emit while grazing. Apparently the two species do interbreed where their ranges overlap, and the offspring are fertile, so there may still be some taxonomic rearranging to do in this situation. Click here for larger image.

An unexpected find was this pair of Black-faced Sandgrouse (Pterocles decoratus). The male has the black face, the female does not. But both of them have intricate patterns on the feathers, as seen in the next photo. Click here for larger image.

Detail of feather patterns on the back of the female Black-faced Sandgrouse. Click here for larger image.

Our final bird for today is one that we would see in other parts of Tanzania, the Double-banded Courser (Smutsornis africanus). I was interested in the origin of that generic name, since the bird didn’t seem so smutty, and it turns out that it is in honor of Field-Marshal Jan Christiaan Smuts, a South African statesman, writer, philosopher, and Prime Minister of South Africa for several terms. This gracile bird, which evokes an image of a ballerina, deserves a better name, methinks. Click here for larger image.