Tuesday, 11 March 2014

Common Quail




African Scrub Robin (minor)

Locals with a pet White Pelican, Bango, Saint Louis.


Red-billed Quelea. Photographs can't capture the continuous rolling effect that the feeding flocks create. The front line birds are continuously replaced by the others behind them and then others behind them etc.




One male Sudan Golden Sparrow with the Red-billed Quelea.


Black Stork (imm)

Fish Eagle with White Pelicans

Garganey

Whistling Ducks, Pintail and Garganey on Grand Lac, Djoudj.




Allen's Gallinule

Montagu's Harrier, male. Appeared to be an intermediate between the normal morph and the dark morph. 

Juvenile male Osprey flushing Pintail and White-faced Whistling Ducks


Pintail


Adult Female Osprey and ducks


Marbled Ducks. 34 were present on the west side of the Grand Lac.




Male Hoopoe taking a grub to the nest hole. Northern Senegal.

Male Hoopoe (senegalensis). The large white secondary patch identifies it as the West African race.


Taking a grub to the nest hole where the female was brooding the young (maybe a week old)

The extensive white secondaries are easily visible.

Female leaving the nest cavity for a breather and a preen. I was surprised to see that she had wing markings that closely resembled the European race epops

She also had a dusky mantle similar to epops. The male's upper-parts were similar in tone to the rest of the body. Also note the evenly barred secondaries. The West African field guide illustrations clearly separate the two Hoopoe forms but it would surely be unusual for a European to be breeding with a West African? 


Male with grub.


Chestnut-backed Sparrow Lark

Black-crowned Sparrow Lark

Greater Blue-eared Starling

White Pelicans









Iberian Wagtails



Warthogs









Common Darter, RW, 1st December, 2013.