That's a phrase that pops up when I see this magical bird. Are you too characteristic, scrambled egg-like body with tomatoes, and a cloak with white dots on a black background on the outside, do you know how to pull the wind? Just by looking at you, I remember what you looked like.
Located in the north of Tanzania, Serengeti National Park covers an area of more than 14,000 square kilometers and is the largest natural zoo in Tanzania with the largest area and the highest concentration of wildlife. It is bordered by the Ngorogoro Nature Reserve to the east, the Masamara Nature Reserve of Kenya to the north, and the Maswa Hunting Area to the south. "Serengeti" means "boundless steppe" in the Maasai language. Our car stopped at an observation deck in Manyara Lake National Park and was about to leave to see this flowered bird at home. Its scientific name is red and yellow owls, which are only 2 meters away from me, and they are not afraid of people at all, and they still tilt their heads to look at me.
I thought I would see animals in the Serengeti savannah, but I saw a lot of beautiful and peculiar birds in a few days. These birds are always inadvertently present around us, showing off their charming feathers and appearance. It is difficult to shoot birds, one is difficult to approach, the other is that birds are almost always moving, it is difficult to shoot clearly, and the third is that birds have particularly high requirements for cameras. But whether the shooting is good or bad, let's share with you the African birds in my lens.
Next to the salt lake in the crater of Ngorogoro we saw such a beautiful flock of grey-crowned cranes flying, foraging and walking in groups. The Grey-crowned Crane, also known as the East African Crowned Crane, is a small crane that inhabits the marshlands and savannahs of Africa. It is called a crowned crane because of its fluffy feathers, straight trachea, delicate crown feathers, and gorgeous facial markings.
There is a beautiful lake in the crater of Ngorogoro, surrounded by an oasis, and then outside is the desert, I guess this is called Oasis. We went to the lake for lunch and found black kites flying in the sky, circling to forage.
Lunch was a packed lunch, and Nicolas instructed us to close the windows and eat in the car before we could get out of the car and take pictures. It turned out that this was to protect themselves, but also to protect the black kite. This black kite is extremely fierce, and it will swoop down after watching the food in the air, so if you eat it outside with a box lunch, your lunch will be in vain. Of course, the key to this is to protect the habits of wild animals and not rely on people to feed them. After lunch, we came to the lake, where many bird nests fell from the trees, the shore of the lake was high reeds, two white water birds swam on the surface of the water, and several hippos hid in the water in the distance to enjoy the cool. The black kites circled on the surface of the water to feed, one would fly high and one would skim along the water, and after seeing the next swoop, the claws like a hook were fished in the water, and a big fish was tied up. It's wonderful!
Suddenly, the grass next to it moved, and I quickly looked away, and an unknown bird hurried away.
This beautiful bird is called Dharma monk, is it a strange name? They like to land on the top of the thorn tree and look into the distance, so it is easy to spot the Dharma monks on the top of the tree. The name "Dharma Monk" comes from The Japanese language, because its chirping sound is very similar to the pronunciation of "Dharma Monk" in Japanese, but in fact, the "Dharma Monk" is another kind of bird horned owl sound. But when people realized this mistake, it had been rumored for a long time, and they had to make the mistake wrong, and even became the name of the bird family and order.
A purple-breasted Dharma monk on top of a tree who was about to spread his wings and fly away
This bird with an exploded phoenix crown is called the Secretary Bird, scientific name Snake Vulture. It is so peculiar in the grass of the steppe, with a hooked beak like an eagle, long legs like a crane, and a crown of feathers on the top of the head, and it lives by feeding on snakes and small animals on the grassland. Because it was so strong, South Africa also moved it to the national emblem.
A snake vulture foraging on the prairie
Its natural habitat is dry savannas and gray-backed long-tailed burrows in subtropical or tropical dry lowland meadows
Long-tailed Burrow
Seeing this orange-bellied bird is in our campground, and probably there is always food in the camp for a reason.
Its scientific name is chestnut-headed starling, which eats plant foods such as fruits and berries, oleander and bay. It also eats insects, beetles, wasps, grasshoppers, ants, etc.
The chestnut-headed starling always stared at its round orange eyes, a silly look.
In a tree we found this laughing pigeon, their call is different from most pigeons's "grunting, grunting" sound, but the sound is pleasant, sound like laughter, hence the name laughing pigeon. Oh, I forgot to record it at the time.
An intimate pair of green-doves are telling each other their true feelings.
A black-headed heron that is motionless and foraging. It is a bird that lives in open land and is often seen in pastures and grasslands. The black-headed heron lives by the water, searching for prey in shallow water and dirt, grabbing food quickly with its long, sharp beak. The black-headed heron will patiently wait for the appearance of prey, completely stationary or slow to follow the prey until the hunt is successful. The main diets include fish, shrimp, frogs, insects, crabs, snakes, and mollusks.
A huge gray-necked heron bustard. The grey-necked bustard is the largest flying bird in the world, and the adult male grey-necked bustard averages 110 cm long, 60 to 90 cm tall, has a wingspan of 230 to 275 cm long, and weighs 12.4 kg. They can eat bark and dead leaves, and their stomachs are very strong, which can hold 4 to 4.5 kg of hay. There are a large number of bacteria in the stomach of the gray-necked heron bustard, and the hay slowly ferments and rots under the action of bacteria. Wild grey-necked heron bustards are docile in nature and allow humans to approach or even pet them, but none of us dare to try it.
Inhabiting rivers, lakes, swamps, meadows and other areas, African vultures prefer to be close to human settlements, they fly heavily and slowly, the fleshy hanging (throat sac) under their necks is used for courtship and showing off, feeding on the carcasses of various animals, and also preying on live prey such as insects, fish, rats and birds, and sometimes they also eat human garbage. A big bird that grows ugly.
The last little cutie is the grey-headed kingfisher, petite in size, with a sapphire blue tail and a long red beak. During the 5-day prairie parade we saw a lot of amazing birds, but many of them were not photographed.
Thank you so much for the help of "The Green Mountains of Africa", who is an animal expert on the savannahs of East Africa, who told me the names of these birds and gave me a lot of insight.