Owls, etc.

Last week we got a pretty good look at a barn owl perched in a flamboyant (Poinciana) tree, across the road from the house where the children go to school. It was being mobbed (a bit half-heartedly) by some bulbuls and some other small birds, and putting up with it all right. When Nathanael spotted it and asked me what it was, we called several of the other kids and teachers to come have a look in the few minutes before school was to begin. The growing knot of observers under its roost eventually proved to much for comfort and it flew across into a nook under the eaves of a neighbor's house.

The other morning I was out jogging a bit earlier than usual (too dark to see potholes on the road, so maybe a bit ill-advised) and I heard a white-faced owl (some books list it as white-faced scops owl) calling across the way. These seem to be regular here in Mbale, at least during some parts of the year, but we don't get to see them all that often since we're seldom out at night and they tend not to move from their secluded roosts during the day.

As far as I've been able to tell from a dozen years in Mbale, our normally resident owls are Verreaux's/giant eagle owls (often noisy even in day time) that inhabit the mature African mahogany trees in this neighborhood; the pint-sized white-faced owls (an adolescent specimen of which we once kept for a while during its recuperation from a close encounter with a car); and barn owls. Other than these, we once in a while hear or much less often catch a glimpse of the medium-sized African wood owl (their duets are one of the especially interesting signature sounds of the night across much of Africa).

In other news, there was a paradise flycatcher in our yard the other day -- first time for me to see/hear one right here, even though they have turned up elsewhere in Mbale once in a great while.

The European bee-eaters are overhead several times a day now, heading for cooler climes. I also saw a flight of 100+ Abdim's storks flying NW early this morning, probably also on migration. And the other day I had a glimpse of a large falcon, either lanner or peregrine over the neighborhood road on which I was driving. Wish I'd had binocs handy and time to stop and gaze and nail down its ID.