Hello folks, here is the first piece from my Tanzanian diaries and a cherished experience too 🙂

Most of the tourist I saw in Tanzania were there to see the big five. What people often don’t notice are the 1100 species of birds in Tanzania. Luckily for me, a dear friend recently introduced me to the joy of birding. There couldn’t have been a better place to enjoy the beautiful antics and colors of these birds other than Serengeti and Ngorongoro.

Hence I thought these beautiful birds deserve a post of their own. This is a photostory about all the birds I have seen in the game drives along with the pictures we took. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Superb Starling – This was probably the most captured bird in my camera and was commonly found near campsites.

Secretary bird is a very large bird of prey, I could only manage to get this one shot in the entire trip even though we saw it many times.

The cute little Crowned Lapwing, hopping around gleefully.

Marabou stork: Although they are common birds in Serengeti but rarely seen outside the park.

Hammerkop as seen near a waterhole in Serengeti.

Southern Ground Hornbill

White-headed buffalo weaver

A pretty bird seen resting in Serengeti, wish I could remember its name though.

Female Von der Decken’s Hornbill as seen in Serengeti, along with a Superb Starling

Male Von der Decken’s Hornbill as seen in Serengeti. These Hornbills could be commonly seen near our camping sites and even near the Seronera airstrip.

Lilac-breasted roller – my favorite bird with myriad colors. Sigh! A bird unlike any other bird I saw there. I could not take my eyes off it and spent a good half an hour enjoying its antics 🙂

Cape teal

Blacksmith lapwing. These waterholes always turned out to be interesting places to watch birds. Morning game drives were are best for birders.

Helmented Guineafowls, look how beautiful they are and their small polka dotted feathers.

African fish eagle hovering around a prey, just waiting for the right moment to attack.

Ring necked dove: how they say “beauty is in the smallest of things”.

Kori Bustard is the largest flying bird native to Africa.

Black-headed heron

Some bird from Accipitridae family. Perhaps a vulture.

Egyptian Goose – we saw many of these, but managed to take this one picture in Serengeti

Another beautiful sight – a waterhole in Central Serengeti.

Pale chanting Goshawk

Now we saw an interesting game, a Gazelle was being eaten by a Jackal, and the onlookers were a big group of vultures waiting to devour the remainder of the prey. Gradually they came near the Jackal. It was obvious that they were scared of the Jackal, one look from Jackal made them go back several steps. Soon enough the Jackal left with a big piece of Gazelle meat and all Vultures attacked on the remaining meat and bones.

Lake Magadi in Ngorongoro conservation area was inhabited by the Greater and Lesser Flamingos. We couldn’t go too near the lake as the birds would fly away and we didn’t want to disturb the serenity of the lake. Besides going off the designated safari circuit in Tanzanian parks is an offence.

Yellow Billed Storks as seen in Serengeti, enjoying their afternoon with an Elephant drinking water from a waterhole

 

Another one of my favorites, Grey crowned cranes mostly found in a pair.

Female black-headed weaver

On our way back to Kilimanjaro airport we saw these beautiful Yellow billed storks – both Adult and Juvenile (Juveniles are grey colored).

Apart from the birds mentioned above we saw the following too:

• Pied kingfisher
• Grey backed fiscal
• White bellied bustard
• Coqui francolin
• Magpie shrike
• Yellow barbett
• Ox peckers
• Spar winged goose
• Pipits
• Rufous tailed weaver
• Augur buzzard

I was truly enriched by this birding experience..!!