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Tanzania – Africa at its best

10,000 Birds

Tanzania is without a doubt the quintessential African safari nation. Despite being a proud South African, my honest answer is Tanzania. For this post, I have selected what is in my opinion the three essential and must-visit sites in Tanzania and these all fall within the classic Northern Tanzania safari circuit.

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Birds of Tanzania

10,000 Birds

Walter Kitundu of Bird Light Wind has an amazing four - part photographic series of the birds of Tanzania. And now he working on the animals, starting with lions. These images are well worth clicking through for, I promise!

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Birding crème de la crème: Africa – Ngorongoro Crater to Queen Elizabeth II National Park

10,000 Birds

The bird-richest region of Africa is its equatorial East: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi (unlike the rest, the last one, Burundi, is politically unstable and not recommendable). Tanzania has 14 400+ hotspots, of which the top-5 have 500+ (the first one, Ngorongoro Conservation Area even with 600+ sp.). 4 Arusha NP 565 sp.

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World birding from a Schrödinger’s house

10,000 Birds

Tanzania 1135 13. Kenya (Masai Mara, Lakes Nakuru and Baringo, Arabuko-Sokoke Forest) and northern Tanzania (Ngorongoro, Serengeti) combined are the birding staple of East Africa. Indonesia 1761 5. Ecuador 1690 6. Bolivia 1433 7. Venezuela 1417 8. China 1410 9. India 1341 10. United States 1160 12.

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UN Refuses to Re-open Ivory Trade

Critter News

Zambia and Tanzania proposed re-opening the trade, but the UN said no.

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Between the Birds

10,000 Birds

Tanzania has an enormous variety of exquisite birds but unfortunately it has an equal number of distractions that can interrupt your birding experience. This was my first encounter with big cats in Tanzania and of course I’ve never seen anything like it since. Take these pesky Lions for instance.

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Where America dreams of/goes birding?

10,000 Birds

Here are the results: 3 per cent of respondents (in no particular order): Trinidad and Tobago, Chile, Tanzania, Madagascar. Kenya and Tanzania combined offer the longest tour list of Africa, South Africa with its good infrastructure and easiness of finding birds comes close second, while Madagascar is there because of its 100 endemics.

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Big Cat Week, day 4

4 The Love Of Animals

Ruaha National Park in Tanzania used to be a true paradise for wildlife gathered around the rich Ruaha riverbanks. Another fun sneak peek of Nat Geo Wild’s Big Cat Week! Tonight, Lions on the Edge! Premieres Thursday, December 9, at 9PM ET/PT. Now, the worst drought in decades is pushing all the animals on a march to find water.

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Lake Natron Threatened With Soda Ash Plant

10,000 Birds

Tanzania’s Lake Natron, renowned as the best place in the world to see Lesser Flamingoes , is threatened by a potential soda ash plant.

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Tanzanian Starlings, Shrikes, and Weavers (Part 3)

10,000 Birds

Click on the image to see a Speke’s Weaver colony in action on an escarpment near Lake Manyara, Tanzania. A female takes her time inspecting a nest while the male waits just out of view. Other weavers include the Grey-capped Social Weaver which is the size of a little sparrow.

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Jane Goodall Live

4 The Love Of Animals

Goodall will share her incredible life’s journey during this unique live event, which will highlight not only the decades of her most extraordinary study of the wild chimpanzees in Tanzania, but also provide audiences with a rare look into the life of one the world’s most extraordinary people.

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The Storks of Africa

10,000 Birds

A Marabou Stork arriving at its roost tree, Serengeti, Tanzania by Adam Riley We’ll start off with the largest and ugliest of them all (measuring up to 60in (152cm) in height, a weight of 20 lb (9 kg) and a wingspan of up to 12ft), the Marabou Stork. The Saddle-billed Stork has a similar Africa-wide distribution as the Marabou.

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Africa’s Barbets

10,000 Birds

The next isolated populations are several thousand miles northwards in Malawi, northern Mozambique and the Rondo Plateau in southern Tanzania. Finally the most northern population ranges are found in coastal forests of northern Tanzania and Kenya. Image taken in Selous Game Reserve, Tanzania. Image from Lalibela, Ethiopia.

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Tanzanian Starlings, Shrikes, and Weavers (Part 1)

10,000 Birds

SUPER STARLINGS Tanzania plays host to a wide variety of Starlings, over twenty species in fact. In California we have the feisty intelligent generalist European Starling.

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Birding Brazil Blog

10,000 Birds

Derek Kverno has already created epic blog travelogues of his stints in Ecuador and Tanzania. Now he’s moved to Brazil , which means we get to vicariously explore the avifauna of another bird-rich country.

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Our Favorite Bird Books (and one pair of Binoculars) of 2022

10,000 Birds

And what I am saying here doesn’t only apply to his Sri Lanka guide, but to all the others as well (these include the first dedicated guidebooks to Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Malawi, Ghana, Mozambique, Rwanda, Suriname).

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Tanzanian Starlings, Shrikes, and Weavers (Part 2)

10,000 Birds

Tanzania’s more commonly seen shrikes are the Common Fiscal , Long-tailed Fiscal , Grey-backed Fiscal , the beautiful dark Magpie Shrike , and the White-crowned Shrike (seen in the series below). .” This one was calling to its family group as they wandered through the thorns searching for tidbits.

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Exploring the Uncharted Bird World

10,000 Birds

1101-1200 sp: Mexico; Argentina; DR Congo (Kinshasa), Tanzania, Kenya; India. Shown as a list, it looks like this: Less than 200 bird species: Antarctica; oceanic islands. 201-400 sp: Madagascar, north African countries; European countries; Asia Minor, Arabian Peninsula, Mongolia. 801-1000 sp. – 1201-1400 sp: Venezuela; China.

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Introducing the African Birding Beat

10,000 Birds

Quintessential African scene from Tarangire National Park, Tanzania Africa boasts a fabulous and unique avifauna. Birding here is a joy, further augmented by the world’s most intact mammalian megafuana, fascinating tribal cultures, breath-taking scenery and the cradle of human history. What should you avoid and where should you not go?

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Jane Goodall Institute’s New President

4 The Love Of Animals

We are engaging new partners, like the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Tanzania, to support local reforestation efforts and we’re working with companies from ESRI to Google Earth Outreach to employ cutting-edge geospatial technology to address conservation challenges in Africa.

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A Brief Tour of Uganda, The Pearl of Africa

10,000 Birds

While Uganda does not have the international reputation of its neighbors Kenya and Tanzania, the experience there is no less extraordinary – and in many ways, particularly for the birder, it’s even more so. The diversity of habitats in this country that is approximately the size of Oregon is particularly notable.

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Where Are You Birding This Final Weekend of January 2012?

10,000 Birds

Northern White-crowned Shrike in Tanzania by Walter Kitundu a. Also be sure to come back Monday to share your best bird of the weekend ! Keep your eyes to the skies. If you’re lucky, you might see a striking shrike perched against a stunning sky!

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What is a Palm-thrush?

10,000 Birds

They are also found in patches of Zimbabwe and Mozambique, and also north through Zambia, the Congo and Tanzania (just poking into Kenya). These Collared Palm-thrushes were photographed in the Cresta Mowana Lodge in Kasane, pretty much the only place you’ll see the species in Botswana (according to one of the guidebooks I read).

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Africa’s Big Five and Little Five

10,000 Birds

Prime destinations for seeing African Elephant in the wild include Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Uganda. Black Rhinos are best sought in South Africa, Namibia and Tanzania. Lions are most easily found in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

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Dreaming of Africa

10,000 Birds

Bird book of choice is the “Birds of East Africa” by Terry Stevenson and John Fanshawe, a Helm Field Guide covering Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi – also the first complete guide to cover the 1388 species found in this region.

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Pink in Africa

10,000 Birds

This attractive (for a lark anyway) species is restricted to the dry savannah Somali-Maasai biome of north-east Africa (northern Tanzania, Kenya, southern Ethiopia and Somalia). Great White Pelicans showing the pink flush of breeding plumage. Photo by Adam Riley. Pink-breasted Lark.

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“Peacocks and Picathartes: Reflections on Africa’s Birdlife”

10,000 Birds

A lot of destinations were mentioned, with Central and South America leading the way, New Guinea, Indonesia and Australia appearing only at the middle of the list, and African countries (South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and Madagascar) lagging at the end of the list.

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White-backed Vultures are Proper Birds

10,000 Birds

The populations remain stable in Ethiopia, Tanzania and southern Africa, but have collapsed in West Africa and have declined in other parts as well. The White-backed Vulture is the most common species of vulture in Africa, although these days they are, like most vultures, globally endangered.

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Alien species – Rose-ringed Parakeet.

10,000 Birds

Although there is a small wild population in the northern reaches of nearby Uganda, Rose-ringed Parakeets would have been a vagrant for German East Africa (now known as Tanzania) at the time. Their original home is Northeast Africa, The Middle East, India and Myanmar.

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The long and winding road

10,000 Birds

This tiny passerine winters in Africa, places like Tanzania, Nigeria, Somalia. They also migrate to and from the High Arctic, crossing the Atlantic to Europe, but they keep going, down across the Mediterranean into Africa. From the Tundra to the African Steppes.

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Avian Quiz – April 15, 2011

10,000 Birds

Instead, name one of the endemic species in this country.

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Birding the Kruger Park (2): Bateleur area

10,000 Birds

Medicinal and commercial uses of ostrich products in Tanzania. As the world’s largest living bird, the Ostrich is the topic of many weird and wonderful scientific papers. Here are a few examples: The Ostrich Communal Nesting System. Preliminary Study of Slaughter Value and Meat Characteristics of 18 Months Ostrich Reared in Hungary.

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A Bird Rehabber Goes Birding. And Thwarts Mongooses.

10,000 Birds

This is the reason I’m birding in Tanzania with no field guide. The last time I visited my friend India, who lives in the hills above Karatu, I brought my own field guide and filled a notebook with bird names, descriptions, and sketches. But that was seven years ago.

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Birding the Kruger Park (4): Letaba area

10,000 Birds

Interestingly, the HBW gives different contact calls depending on the country in which the flycatcher lives: “Contact call a simple ‘zeet, zwayt’ (South Africa), ‘ti-twit tee-twit’ (Gabon), ‘zi’zk’zk’ (Tanzania).”

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Patch: An Urban Red-tailed Hawk (3 of 4)

10,000 Birds

I’ll be in Tanzania when that post appears working on a new topic for January. Now Patch would reach down and pluck the gophers from the surface of the earth, carrying them wriggling and screeching up into the trees where she would dispatch them. Stay tuned.

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Africa’s endangered species

10,000 Birds

A pair of Hooded Vultures in Selous Game Reserve, Tanzania by Adam Riley. Rueppell’s Vulture scanning for a carcass at Ndutu, Tanzania by Adam Riley. An adult (left) and subadult (right) White-backed Vulture with full crops after feeding on the remains of a Lion kill, Ndutu, Tanzania by Adam Riley.

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Patch: An Urban Red-tailed Hawk (4 of 4)

10,000 Birds

I’m in Tanzania now dreaming up my next post so I’ll see you in 2 weeks. Patch provided so many moments of wonder and awe both to me and the other park goers. I can’t imagine having another sustained encounter like that. It was a special time and the reason I’m such a raptor enthusiast to this day.

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We Should Kill More Lions

10,000 Birds

Take the Selous Game Reserve in Tanzania. Lion shooting over three years brought $75 million into the economy of Tanzania alone. If you want to have the “thrill” of shooting a wild lion (not a canned hunt), well, you’re going to need a lot of land to sustain those lions. Managing areas for hunting does exactly that.

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The Bee-eaters of Africa

10,000 Birds

It occurs in similar montane forest edges but further south, with Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania forming the bulk of its range. Excellent locations for finding this bird include Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Gorilla National Park and the forests cloaking Tanzania’s Ngorongoro Crater.

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Can we talk about Cecil the Lion?

10,000 Birds

If tourists are too dim to tell Sierra Leone from Botswana or Tanzania, do we really want to rely on them to save Africa’s species? Ebola, a disease ravaging the other side of the continent. Booking were down by half in some wildlife tourist sites.

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From the Mailbag

Animal Ethics

It is an animated website aimed at educating and inspiring children about endangered species, and all of our characters actually exist in a real-life camp in Tanzania which protects black rhino and wild African hunting dogs. We’re going to go and have an in-depth look this morning, in the meantime, please take a look at our website.

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Ethiopia’s Endemics

10,000 Birds

A two-week birding tour could expect around 400 species and up to 550 in 3 weeks, including sightings of most of Ethiopia’s endemic and near-endemic birds.

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Summer Books for Kids (and the rest of us)

10,000 Birds

My favorite was the Greater Flamingo in Tanzania (Pinkest bird!). The Blues visit 11 more birds around the world (they are very sophisticated bluebirds), from an Arctic Tern in Alaska (migrates the longest distance) to a Horned Sungem Hummingbird in Brazil (fastest wingbeat).