East African Savanna : Birds
In October 2008, I got an opportunity to spend some time in East African Savanna. I was in Kenya, about 50 miles away from Nairobi. The place was, couple of kilometers off “Trans African Highway” which connects Cairo in Egypt to Cape Town in South Africa.
I was there for 5 days, but busy with meeting and hardly got time to go out of compound. But on last day, finally I took opportunity to walk out and explore a bit.
During my stay, I saw few birds, I could not identify them all, but I thought I will share the pictures anyway, and request for help from you to help me identify them.
These sparrow like birds were commonly seen and were nesting on medium trees, like weavers. There call was resembling Indian Mynas. The
White-browed Sparrow-weaver (
Plocepasser mahali
There were colonies of Weaver Birds. I presume they are
Speke's Weaver (Ploceus spekei). The males were busy building nests.
There were several trees having these nests.
One more bird, The
Superb Starling (
Lamprotornis superbus). Really very active bird.
And this looks like The
Northern Pied-babbler (
Turdoides hypoleuca) .
Thanks to Alka for Ids.
More bird pictures to come.
Labels: Africa, biodiversity, Birds, Kenya, travel, wildlife
Urban Biodiversity in Copenhagen, Denmark : June 2008
I had opportunity to visit Copenhagen in June 2008. June was a really good time to travel because the weather was really pleasant. I could walk a lot on the streets. To help me even more the days were really long, almost 20-21 hours.
I am trying to give a glimpse of whatever biodiversity I came across while I was there.
These Pigeons were happily moving on the ground feeding. I felt at home because this is very familiar site back in India too.
This Magpie was commonly seen scavenging on the trash cans. I found them commoner than the crows there.
The swans were present in the lakes. Some of them were very active in the afternoon.
And some of them were taking a nap.
The swans were bold and friendly and would let me go near to take photographs.
The gulls were feeding along with Swans.
And look at this Gull sitting on the statue.
And the familiar Coots were also seen.
The ducks were present, but were not looking as bright as we see them in India.
The crows were present, though in lesser number.
There another type of Pigeons which I need to identify yet.
I also saw a lot of sparrows, though I could not photograph any.
The were lot of flowers around. I could hardly photograph them, but took some snaps on the way, which are mostly planted garden flowers. Here are few of the photographs.
Labels: Birds, Copenhagen, Denmark, photography, travel, Urban Wildlife, wildlife
Vijay Barve
