Towheeblog

All images and captions courtesy of Albert Ryckman. He and his wife made a photo-rich visits there earlier this month.

First, some bird pics, Albert sent back from Tanzania: Kori Bustard; Fisher Lovebirds (two images); Lilac-breasted Roller (two images.

NOT BIRDS “We spent 7 days at a ecolodge near Ndutu Lake in the Ngorongoro Conservation Área bordering the Serengeti.   The trip had been billed as a Wildebeest Birthing Safari.  Ndutu  is ground zero for where a million Wildebeests birth their calves over a couple weeks initiating the start of the Great Migration culminating in Mara River Crossings  into Kenya in August.
 Except…..by the time we arrived they’d already had their calves. That left us to photograph the mothers and their newborn calves getting ready to migrate.”

Above: wildebeest; leopard; young lions; Thompson’s gazelle; hippos and hippo; wildebeests; sign. This is just trhe start of the galleries from Tanzania, but I won’t quit this one without a first-time posted bird pic:

This is the inimitable Hamerkop. Like South America’s and the Hoopoe, it is unique. The hamerkop is a medium-sized wading bird. It is the only living species in the genus Scopus and the family Scopidae. Taxonimcally it is now placed with the Pelecaniformes, and its closest relatives are thought to be the pelicans and the shoebill.

With a build lie that, you don’t need fancy plumage–leave that to the rollers and lovebirds.