Feast your focus on a few of the feathered and festive fowl caught creeping and cavorting in the fallow fields and fine fair air of the Caprivi that few (that I rightly remember) have found, framed and featured before:

Blue Waxbill:



Fish Eagle At Waterhole:



Carmine Bee-Eaters:



Doves In Flight:



Lilac Breasted Roller:



Giant Ground Horn Bills:



All framed on film by my fair and special spouse.

* * *

AND NOW FOR SOME CLOSE UPS:

Lilac Breasted Roller:



Giant Ground Horn Bill:



Blue Waxbill:



Carmine Bee-Eaters:



Leather-Winged, Pop-Eyed Warbler:

Very nice pictures.

What are the specs on the camera she used? The photos came out great.

Thanks Charles and Belarus.

The camera is a Nikon D70 with some really good Nikkor f2.8 telephoto lenses.

Wow, beautiful! Thanks for sharing.

I have a lilac-breasted roller at the taxidermist right now.

There are do many terrific birds in Africa. I'll be honored to have one in the trophy room.

Kyler

Beautiful! Well done, Mrs. Lexma. The hornbills are awesome!

But none of them big enough to eat!

Oldsarge, those hornbills are WAY bigger than turkeys.

But as to how they taste . . . now, that's a whole 'nother question, and I for sure wouldn't know!

All are very nice. Again, thanks for sharing the pics.

.

Mrlexma,

Great photo's and your better half used a excellent camera!

I would say the lens were "very good"

great work!

Yeah, it looks like a Lilac Breasted Roller. With the Carmine Bee Earters they are probably the two most vividly colored birds I've seen in Africa.

Great photos.

Mike, tell your better half great photos...That is also my better half's job in Africa the photo journalist...

Mike

mrlexma,

Thanks for reminding me of that part of my trip! These are great photos!

Les

Thanks, ALF,
I wondered about the status of the ground hornbill. They seemed to be all over the place in the Zambezi Delta but hornbills live a long time so a really low reproductive rate makes sense. I like the KZN approach. Reminds me of the California Condor program, sort of.

ALF, my descriptions were obviously more "descriptive" than scientifically accurate , but I have edited them to provide the correct names of the birds in question. Thanks for the information.

I have a great close up of the Lilac Breasted Roller that really shows off its remarkable colors. I'll try to post it later.

a photographic bird reference book for most areas of the world can be bought for under $20.Do a search on Amazon.com
If you are like me getting a few more birds on my "Life List" is well worth the price.

.

we birders can be an odd bunch

I am an avid birder and have been for some years. I get almost as much pleasure from the birds of Africa as I do the hunting. The colors are so very vivid and the numbers are so great. I must take exception though that the Blue Waxbill shown is a Blue Breasted Finch and the Lilac Roller is a Rainbow Swallow tail. My favorite field guide is Ian Sinclairs Birds of Southern Africa and it lists niether a Blue Breasted Finch or a Rainbow Swallow Tail. It is definitely a Blue Waxbill (Afrikaans-Gewone Blousysie) and the Lilac Roller is definitely a Lilac Roller (Afrikaans-Gewone Troupant) my favorite African bird.. There may quite well be other local names for these birds but they were labeled correctly. The handiest guide to Southern Africa is the Pocket Guide to Southern African Birds by Burger Cillie and Ulrich Oberprieler. It and the Sinclair guide use Photographs and make identicication easier.Kenneth Newmans Birds of Southern Africa (Green Edition)is also a very good guide but it uses drawings that are not as good as actual photos. The colors are quite good however.I generally carry 10 x 50 Swarovskis strictly for the birding even though they are HEAVY at the end of the day. The pleasure they give in watching birds is payoff for the extra weight.

Ok, now I'm well and truely confused. If that is the LBR what is this one?

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and while we're at it what are all these? { I've GOT to start writing stuff down rather than rely on my "total recall"]

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To all you serious birders - thanks for your help!

Les

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zimbabwe I have Sinclair's "Photographic reference to birds of Namibia" $16 on Amazon. It is a quality well done book. I've lugged those 10x50's around myself often catching myself more involved with a little brown bird at a waterhole than what I was there for in the first place.
Once in Wyo. while hunting elk I asked my guide what the bird sitting on a meat pole was (it was a Gray Jay) he looked at me ,smiled and said feathered.

.

On my trip to Zim last summer, the PH that I hunted with (Dean Kendall) was an outstanding birder in all respects. We spotted 84 birds to add to my "life List" with a Saddle-billed Stork putting at the 500 mark. My favorite were the various hornbills and mousebirds. We saw a glimpse of a Pei's Fish Owl, which, according to Dean is very rare.

His quest was to see an African (Angola) Pitta. This is an extremely rare small bird that is difficult to see. I had a blast birding as well as hunting.

Your pictures are great. Thanks for sharing them.

.

.

Keep 'em coming, folks. Nice photos LHowell and gotogirl.

If you pay attention around here, you can learn a lot (I know I have).

I have added some close ups to my original post.

Alf,

All these were taken in Kruger National Park, in August, 2005.

That's the best photo I have of the vulture so we'll have to go with your original call.

Anyone have an idea on this one?

[IMG:left] [/IMG]

Thanks for your help! This brings up flashbacks of the visit!

Les

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It's great to see all these bird photos. I'm sure all of you have seen these birds in Africa.

African Fish Eagle


Kori Bustard - I was lucky enough to see this guy displaying


Bee-Eater


the Oxpecker


and finally, the hunters least favorite bird, the Gray Lourie

My PH in Namibia called the Gray Lorrie the "go away bird". I told him they sounded like the small red squirrels here in Michigan blowing your cover while deer hunting.