Readers’ wildlife photos

Today we have some African birds from David Hughes (see here and here for other photos from this trip). David’s captions are indented and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

Here’s another set from my recent safari in Botswana, featuring a selection of birds.

I don’t have a camera and lens suitable for photographing small birds, other than at point-blank range, but I did manage to take a few shots of some of the larger species we encountered.

A group of four marabou storks (Leptoptilos crumenifer) at a waterhole, set in a typically desiccated Savuti landscape. Bleached elephant bones are visible below and around the tree to the rear, and the ground is liberally strewn with elephant droppings. The smaller black-and-white birds are blacksmith lapwings (Vanellus armatus). There are also a couple of white cattle egrets (Ardea ibis) near the termite mound to the right of the photo:

An African openbill stork (Anastomus lamelligerus) displaying its distinctive bill shape. This bird feeds primarily on large freshwater snails. Despite appearances, the open bill isn’t used as a “nutcracker”, but rather to facilitate gripping the smooth shells so that the prey can be carried to shore, where the stork extracts the flesh using the tips of its mandibles:

Completing a trio of storks, the flamboyant saddle-billed stork (Ephippiorhynchus senegalensis), a generalist predator of fish, frogs and aquatic invertebrates:

Two wading birds by the side of the Chobe River, the African sacred ibis (Threskiornis aethiopicus), and to its right the African jacana (Actophilornis africanus):

Another pair of wading birds, the grey heron (Ardea cinerea), with a black-winged stilt (Himantopus himantopus) to the right. The grey heron is also found across Europe and is therefore very familiar to we Brits. I don’t often attempt “arty” shots, but I quite liked the symmetry created by the heron’s reflection in this scene.

Wattled crane (Grus carunculata), the tallest flying bird in Africa, standing up to 175 cm in height. This species is widely-distributed across Africa but rare in most places. The Okavango Delta region of Botswana (where this was taken) is one of its main strongholds:

Another bird of watery places, the African darter (Anhinga rufa), seen here drying its wings after a fishing excursion.

Moving onto drier habitats, the wattled crane may be the tallest flying bird in Africa, but this species, the Kori bustard (Ardeotis kori) is the heaviest. The largest specimens can reach weights of up to 20 kg. As shown here, they forage on the ground for insects, small vertebrates, seeds and fruit.

Southern red-billed hornbill (Tockus rufirostris). These birds were common around our campsites, unafraid of humans and always on the lookout for scraps:

A much larger hornbill species, the turkey-sized southern ground hornbill (Bucorvus leadbeateri):

Steppe eagle (Aquila nipalensis). This is a migratory species, breeding in central Asia and migrating south to spend the northern winter in warmer climes:

White-backed vulture (Gyps africanus). This individual was perched over a lion kill, waiting for the owner to leave the carcass unattended. Given the abundance of potential food, vultures were surprisingly rare in the areas we visited. In recent years populations of several species have crashed across much of Africa and Asia, partly as a result of deliberate poisoning or accidental contamination by chemicals used to treat livestock: