More Tarangire! This will be a very bird-centric post. We start with a profoundly crappy picture of a long-crested eagle. It is an extremely serious-looking bird and that intensity is ruined completely by its dinky mohawk. A fleepy-floopy mohawk which looks vaguely like this.
And I got some terrible backlit pictures of this eagle. Enjoy.
I made all the shots I took like this into a collage.
And here are some professional shots I found online. I made them into a collage as well.
Why did I take this picture? I must have had a reason. Was it the bird in the center? It’s a well-composed picture so I’m including it even though its original intent is gone.
Impala.
Dik-dik (smallest antelope in Africa) with an elephant (largest land mammal in the world) in the background.
Weaver bird weaving!
This picture has a bee-eater in the center. I zoomed in so you could see more betterer.
Its spouse came over with a moth in its mouth, swiped the moth back and forth against a branch to rip off its wings and ate it. That was pretty cool to see. Then they sat together.
Waterbuck! You can see the toilet ring pattern clearly here.
Is it truly one of my Africa posts if I don’t include an atrocious picture of a lilac-breasted roller? I could photoshop them to bump up the contrast and the color but I would deny my true garbage photography skills.
We stopped at a camp that had a lookout point of a river and we got to see an enormous group of buffalo making their way there to drink.
They had a good example of how slowly baobabs grow.
One of the people working at the camp said, “Would you like to see an owl?” I’ve had problems controlling myself when I see owls in the past so I tried not to dry-heave with excitement.
He walked me past the bungalows, I was taken to a tree and there he was. He was small and the lighting wasn’t great but I could see his tiny perfection.
He was a wee little scops owl with wee little scops horns and he was sleeping and I seriously could have stood there all day and bask in his wee little preciousness but the same guy said, “We have bats too. Want to see them?” YES. YES I WOULD.
He took me to a different tree and way up were sleeping bat packets! Fruit bats!
We also saw a squirrel. I did not get terribly excited about that. No disrespect to squirrels, but after owls and bats everything seems banal.
Out of nowhere, ground hornbills showed up! The super-rare ground hornbills! They’re super-rare because they lay their eggs right on the ground (hence the name) and everyone trods on them. So I’m not empathetic to their plight because that’s just silliness, but it was still cool to see them a ways off.
We saw some monkeys sorting through poo for delicious treats like seeds.
Vultures eating a dead snack.
The red dirt on the tree is where elephants scratched themselves.
I haven’t even made it to lunch so in the next post, lunch and beyond.