BEAUTIFUL BIRDS AT LAKE MANYARA, TANZANIA, Guest Post by Karen Minkowski

Yellow-billed Stork, Lake Manyara, Tanzania.

My friend Karen Minkowski has visited Africa many times and has contributed often to The Intrepid Tourist, sharing her beautiful photographs and insights about animals. She recently went to northern Tanzania, visiting four national parks: Lake Manyara, Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, and Tarangire. This is the first of her reports of that trip. 

I recently completed a wonderful safari in Tanzania’s northern circuit with three German friends. We ranged in age from 22 to 81 and travelled together very well; everyone was enthusiastic about everything we saw, and we had lots of great observations. We visited four sites over eight amazing, intense days that exhausted even the youngest of us! Our guide was excellent. He had a great sense of humor and worked hard to meet our requests.

Our first destination was Lake Manyara National Park. Human settlement has reached one side of the lake, and erosion of agricultural fields nearby may be the cause of the brown appearance of the water on some days. 

Heavy rains in the last years have resulted in a rise in the water levels, partially submerging many trees.

But birds were abundant. Below: Red and Yellow Barbet; Grey-headed Kingfisher; Little Bee-eater. The Barbet nests in termite mounds and feeds on termites (and other insects). The Kingfisher, despite its name, feeds primarily on insects on the ground and only occasionally fishes. The Bee-eater catches insects on the wing.

Red and Yellow Barbet.

Grey-headed Kingfisher.

Little Bee-eater.

Blue monkeys were common in the forested area.

Blue Monkey.

The next three pictures  show two female elephants greeting one another. The sequence lasted just a few seconds, and I know nothing of the context. It seemed like a very intimate interaction, perhaps an elephant version of a warm hug.

 

Looking from the Lake to the forested area.

Ground Hornbill.

Note: Karen's post about her visit to Serengeti National Park will appear next week.

RAINY SEASON IN SONGO, ZIMBABWE: Spectacular Birds and More, Guest Post by Karen Minkowski

Elephants at Songo Conservancy site, Zimbabwe

My friend Karen Minkowski, a frequent contributor to The Intrepid Tourist and definitely an intrepid traveler, is currently in Africa, a place that she has visited often. She spent the month of February at the Songo Conservancy site, which is several hundred miles from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. She writes:

I had a great rainy season month in Songo, lots of new birds (among many I'd seen in November). Elephants were present; it's always astonishing to see these great creatures. Poaching levels have dropped in Songo since the International Anti-Poaching Foundation, which manages this conservancy, trained and is now deploying rangers (all young women - strong, motivated and committed) to patrol the huge area. A place worth protecting, for sure.

Here's the Songo landscape. (photo above) The water body is Lake Kariba. Look at those baby elephants!!

Rain falling on the distant floodplains. Songo is especially beautiful when it's green.

African grey hornbill.

Arrow-marked babbler parent feeding its young.

Black-winged kite.

One of my favorite birds, the collared palm thrush - I love the bedroom eyes!

This bull elephant came within 40 meters of the electric fence. Elephants look bigger when you see them on foot rather than from a vehicle.

Green wood-hoopoe, frequently seen poking around in the dead ends of tree limbs.

Jacobin's cuckoo.

Levaillant's cuckoo. Most if not all African cuckoos lay their eggs (very surreptitiously) in the nests of other species, who do the hard work of foraging for food for these cuckoo chicks.

The red and black birds are male southern red bishops. They're gathering with potential mates. Each male will form a harem with several females and build their nests in the reeds and grasses.

Tawny-flanked prinia, a feisty little bird.

This is a male Village Weaver constructing a nest that hopefully his potential mate will find suitable for raising their young. If she rejects it - by not lining the nest's interior -  and other females do the same, he'll build a new nest in hopes of pleasing someone!

The most common, and the noisiest of birds around our camp, the white-browed sparrow weaver. Like the weaver in the previous photo they build nests from grasses, but rather messy ones!

I'm leaving Songo very soon, but hope to return, for the birds and the elephants and for the lovely community of people here.

Click here to read about Karen’s visit to Songo in November 2022:  https://theintrepidtourist.blogspot.com/2023/01/songo-nature-conservancy-victoria-falls.html .

BUTTERFLIES OF KIBALE FOREST NATIONAL PARK, Uganda, Part 1, Guest Post by Karen Minkowski

Little Pansy (Junonia sophia), Kibale National Park, Uganda

My friend Karen Minkowski, truly an intrepid tourist, has spent much of her life in the field observing wild animals. She spent several months last year in Africa, including time in Kibale Forest National Park. In this three part post she shares her photos and observations of some of the wildlife there, particularly its wonderful diversity of butterflies. Parts 2 and 3 will follow in the next two weeks.

This image of a Herminia Glider (Cymothoe herminia) looks more like a

chalk pastel drawing than a photo.

Slogging through mucky swamps, slipping and sliding on steep, wet slopes and occasionally beating a hasty retreat from elephants, I was overjoyed to be in Uganda's beautiful Kibale Forest National Park. As a volunteer with Makerere University Biological Field Station, on the Park's western side, I was checking for missing ID tags on the trail system that has been expanding since field studies began there in 1970. Wildlife was all around me.

Black and white colobus monkey.

In my free time I watched monkeys, looked for the birds that were calling but hard to see, and photographed whatever I could. The butterflies - diverse, elegant and often brilliantly colored - were among my favorite subjects.

A main “artery” road through the forest that provides access to many trails

Forty-eight years earlier I'd managed camp for a university field course in this forest. My husband was one of the instructors (and Caroline's husband, Art, was a student!). Since then I'd returned a few times for short visits only. Tropical rain forest is for me a refuge, with its dense profusion of plant and animal life. I wanted to get to know this forest at a slower pace, to have the time to observe more deeply. And I hoped to see a particular purpley-blue butterfly that I'd photographed in 1971 and carried a strong memory of all these years.

Black and white casqued hornbill.

Kibale Forest National Park's forests, grasslands, wetlands and woodlands support diverse and abundant populations of plant and animal life. Here are just a few examples.

Bushbuck.

Dung beetle.

Blue-headed agama lizard.

White-headed wood hoopoe.

Trail work ended at midday. My field assistant, Charles, had worked with the field station's trail crew for over 20 years and knew the forest intimately. He had much experience evading elephants and wanted us out of the forest well before early evening, when elephants became more active.
From my point of view elephants were active enough at any time of day, and more than once we abandoned work and left the forest upon finding signs of their close but unseen presence. The sounds of feeding, a pile of fresh warm dung, recently trampled vegetation – or the scent of an elephant, which Charles, but not I, could detect – were evidence that they were near. Though I never saw elephants in Kibale, they were always roaming through my head when I was in the forest.
On weekends, Richard, a former field assistant from the local community, was my guide.

Richard is making a detour around elephant “potholes” (footprints) filled with water, as they can be quite mucky.

With all my slipping and sliding on wet trails, it was reassuring to see that elephants did the same.

 *****

I am very grateful to Dr. David Tumusiime and Mr. Innocent Kato for welcoming me as a volunteer at the Makerere University Biological Field Station and for their hospitality and support during my stay from April 9 to June 19, 2019. Many others on the MUBFS staff and in the Kanyawara community helped me as well. I thank Nelson Guma of Uganda Wildlife Authority for expediting permission for me to reside and work in Kibale for that time period.It was a remarkable experience that I will always treasure. Thanks to Dr. Freerk Molleman, who kindly made available for download his Butterflies of Uganda: Kibale Forest (2012) and also identified some of my photos. Likewise, Dr. Sille Holm identified several moths and the family of a moth larva. I also consulted The Anglia Ruskin University guide to butterflies of Kibale Forest, Uganda, by Alvin J. Helden, Fabrizio Manco and Sophie Mowles, v.2 (2018); A Field Guide to the Butterflies of East Africa, by John G. Williams (1969); and the internet. Any errors in identification are my own.