Social birds

Southern white-crowned shrike

There are three species of birds that we see often around the lodge and that are both social (moving and feeding in small groups) and noisy.  They come from three different bird families. 

Most common are the Southern white-crowned shrikes, mostly feeding on the ground. 

Next are the Arrow-marked babblers, also very much ground-feeding birds. 

Arrow-marked babblers

Least often seen are the Green wood-hoopoes, iridescent blue-green birds with long, curved red-coloured bills that they use for finding insects in the bark of trees.  However, all three make their own distinctive and quite continuous noises, generally as they move around and fly from point to point or from tree to tree but also whilst sitting as a group in a tree.  Indeed the wood-hoopoes are known locally as “bahlega mfasi” or “cackling women.” 

Green wood-hoopoes

There is a fourth species of social and constantly noisy bird that we see only rarely and have not spotted for a long time:  this is the White-crested helmet-shrike.  It was therefore a great pleasure to see a group of these birds on two occasions in the last week.  Although they moved on relatively quickly the second time, the first visit saw them flitting from tree to tree around the lodge for a while, enabling us to get a good view and take photographs.

White-crested helmet-shrike