When we were growing up in Malawi and embarking on what has turned into decades of birding all over the planet, my brother and I started using our own shorthand term for birds of prey: "Bops." I've had a couple of interesting sightings in this spectacular avian category in the past couple of days.
A few days back a large falcon passed by, too quickly for positive ID, but odds are that it was a lanner (F. biarmicus).
Yesterday we had a couple of migrating common (steppe) buzzards (Buteo buteo) overhead.
And this morning while we were at breakfast, the distinctive display call of the male African goshawk came in through the window from obviously close quarters. We dashed over to have a look, and sure enough, there he was, perched in bright sunlight only 20 meters or so from us on a branch of one of our musizi trees (Maesops emini). I grabbed binoculars and had an excellent look at him before he departed his post under pressure from some pied crows (Corvus albus) that were harrassing him.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
My fascination with things feathered goes back to growing-up years in Malawi. It's been a pleasure over 13 years to get acquainted with East African bird life while living in Uganda, and to continue now that I'm back in Texas. This blog chronicles some of the birds I meet along the way, whether around our house or somewhere farther afield.
No comments:
Post a Comment