Blue Birds of Happiness #2

This post continues from last time, when I introduced the fabulous nature of blue in birds (and most other animals). It's a trick of the light, so to speak. The feathers aren't 'blue' in the sense that red or yellow feathers look like that because they contain red or yellow dyes. Rather the colourless feathers have highly intricate microstructures which reflect blue light only, while absorbing or trapping all other wavelengths. I won't reiterate the details here; you can check it out in last week's post here, where there are also lots more spiffy birds to admire!

 

Last time I focused on just two bird Orders which seem to have an inordinate number of blue species; this time I'm going to range much more widely, across 15 families, the majority of them being passerines - the songbirds or perching birds which comprise most of those we're likely to be familiar with in our yards. I'm going to go through them by family, just ordering them alphabetically - and unscientifically by common name! Please don't turn away in disgust - the birds are as special and as blue no matter what we call them!

 

One final observation. On going over these photos, it's striking how often blue is juxtaposed to black. I'm sure an artist could explain to me why this makes it more visible, but I don't need one to tell me that it's a very aesthetic combination!

And with that, let's head off into the blues! Starting with barbets; these actually comprise three related families, in the same Order as toucans, woodpeckers and some less widely familiar families. Each barbet family represents a continent - Asia, Africa and South America. Our representative barbet today is from the Family Megalaimidae, the Asian barbets.

Golden-naped Barbet  Psilopogon pulcherrimu Mt Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo.
A typical barbet in being chunky and stout-billed, and a fruit-eater; this one is
endemic to Borneo. I love the bright blue forehead and throat.

Cotingas are next, a big family (Cotingidae) of songbirds, part of the huge and ancient New World tyrant flycatcher assemblage - though cotingas are fruit-eaters! They are found throughout South and Central America, and many of them are quite spectacular, not least today's example.

Turquoise Cotinga Cotinga ridgwayi San Isidro, Costa Rica.
This scarce beauty was perched above the police station and, in typical
Costa Rican style, the police amiably drove around us as we set up our
telescope on the road. (I hasten to explain that it was our local guide who did so!)

Crows might seem to be making an unlikely appearance here, since all five of our Australian species are completely black and seemingly indistinguishable. However elsewhere in the world members of the family Corvidae can be brightly coloured indeed. The jays of Eurasia and the Americas are the standouts here, and I can offer a few good blue examples (but not the famous Blue Jay). All of these jays were photographed hanging around settlements, doubtless hoping for (and having learnt to expect) handouts.

Azure Jay Cyanocorax caeruleus, Peruibe, south of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Jays are clever, bold, noisy and often blue, as reflected in their names.

Turquoise Jay Cyanolyca turcosa, Bellavista Lodge, north-east of Quito, Ecuador.
Very much a blue beauty.

Plush-crested Jay Cyanocorax chrysops, Iguazu Falls, Argentina.
I've met several birds which specialise in bright blue eyebrows,
and it always seems to work!

White-throated Magpie-Jay Calocitta formosa, Monteverde, Costa Rica.
This one really caught my attention; it travels in noisy mobs of big birds which are up to 50cm long.

White-tailed Jay Cyanocorax mystacalis, Chaparrí, north-western Peru.
I know it's a poor photo, but it's a stunning bird and not easily seen.
It's endemic to the Tumbesian Region of dry forests, in near-coastal
northern Peru and southern Ecuador.

Cuckoos for the most part aren't very brightly coloured (you need to be discrete if you're going to sneak in and leave an egg in someone's nest, though not all cuckoos are nest parasites) so not many are blue. The anis of the Neotropics aren't parasites but even not bright blue, in the right light they shine with bluish tints in dark plumage. 

Greater Ani Crotophaga major, northern Pantanal, Brazil.
In another light they look black. Another big bird, 50cm long, they
too hang out in big noisy groups and breed communally.

And while I can't offer you the bluebird (of happiness) I can offer you a (very ordinary) picture of one of the two species of fairy-bluebird, family Irenidae, which live in rainforests of south-east Asia.

Asian Fairy-bluebird Irena puella, Bako NP, Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo.
Regardless of the photo (almost) I couldn't very well leave an actual 'bluebird'
out of this series, could I?

Much more familiar to many of my readers are the fairywrens (family Maluridae) of Australia and New Guinea. Indeed I think I'm safe in asserting that there's nowhere in Australia, including the deserts, which doesn't have a species or two. Males are seasonally gorgeous, females stay sensibly less noticeable all year round. Blue features heavily in all but two of the eight Australian species. Here are three of them.

Superb Fairywren Malurus cyaneus Canberra; this lovely bird is familiar to any
bird-aware person in south-eastern Australia. In fact it features strongly in
polls of  'Australia's most popular bird'. The blues flash in the sun and even
the 'black' is navy blue in the right light.

Splendid Fairywren Malurus splendens, Alice Springs. Unfortunately I was a couple
of weeks early. He was just coming into his breeding splendour - you can just see the
first blue feathers appearing on his back. They'll be covering his whole body soon.

Variegated Fairywren Malurus lamberti, Tomaree NP, central coast NSW.
It's taken me many years to persuade this common but thicket-loving east coast
dweller to sit up for a photo, and it only happened last year.

It's a funny thing that, in Australia at least, many people who wouldn't claim to know a lot about birds confidently name any small bird as a 'finch'. While we have quite a few grass-finches or waxbills in Australia we have no true native finches (family Fringillidae) - in fact Australia is the only unfrozen continent in which finches don't naturally occur. Blue isn't a common colour among finches but I can offer one. (There is actually a Blue Finch in South America, but it's really a tanager... Never mind, South America's like that.)

Violaceous Euphonia Euphonia violacea, Peruibe, south of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Despite its common and scientific names, I reckon those are real blues on its
wings and tail. The stubby bill is typical of the seed-eating finches - only the
euphonias have adapted to an almost exclusively fruit diet.

Herons might seem an unlikely family to be considering here too, though some are certainly a blue-grey colour. However these two small South American herons both, for different reasons, not seen by very many birders, can certainly claim a blue star.

Lava Heron Butorides sundevalli, Galápagos. This heron is only found in the
Galápagos, though some would describe it as a subspecies of Striated Heron. Any birder there
will see it, but it's not an easy destination to reach.

Agami Heron Agamia agami, Napo Lodge, Ecuadorian Amazonia.
A strikingly beautiful heron, but restricted to dense rainforest waterways and not
easy to find. But when you do...!

Hummingbirds are among my very favourite bird groups - which certainly doesn't make me unique! - and while they are often brilliantly coloured it's not always easy to say exactly what colour they are, as their iridescence means they change with the angle. I could still have offered quite a few however, but here are two which qualify, both happening to be Ecuadorian.

Blue-mantled Thornbill Chalcostigma stanleyi, El Cajas NP, southern Andes, Ecuador.
This lovely and fairly modestly attired hummer was at 4000m above sea level. This
is typical of this species, which can live above the tree line.

Violet-bellied Hummingbird Chlorestes julie, Umbrellabird Lodge, southern Ecuador.
Blue or green? Blue or violet? Does it matter in the end? Looks blue enough to me
to include here, and if you're offended by its presence feel free to look away. 😀

From the same part of the world, the wonderful little manakins (Family Pipridae, and not to be confused with mannikins, waxbill finches) are real stars, though they tend to lurk in the forest shadows. Males display spectucularly and many are brightly coloured. Not many display blue though, and unsurprisingly one of these is the Blue (or Swallow-tailed) Manakin Chiroxiphia caudata.

Blue Manakin near Peruibe, south of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The Old World flycatchers (family Muscicapidae) comprise a huge family of over 300 species, many of which are fairly plain-coloured but many aren't. Here's one such. 

 

Malaysian blue flycatcher Cyornis turcosus, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo.
This one was roosting at night; in daylight the blue is deeper.

 

In Australia we tend not to think of starlings as colourful (though our only native species, the green-sheened Metallic Starling of tropical Queensland, is pretty impressive). Elsewhere however there are some truly dramatic starlings, and Africa is something of a hotspot for them. Here are a couple of examples, both from the fabulous Serengeti NP in Tanzania.

Hildbrandt's Starlings Lamprotornis hildebrandti (with the red eyes)
and Superb Starlings Lamprotornis superbus (with white eyes)
taking advantage of the facilities at the entrance gate.

Rüppell's Starling Onychognathus walleri; an impressive
long-tailed starling found in East African grasslands.

Tanagers! Along with hummingbirds surely the standout big bird group of South and Central America. Nearly 400 species in a bewildering cluster of groups - 'bewildering' to professional ornithologists too, as many groups have been moved into and out of tthe family Thraupidae over the years. The dust is probably starting to settle now though. In addition to the tanagers themselves, groups such as various 'finches' and seedeaters (including the Galápagos 'finches'), flowerpiercers, saltators, honeyecreepers, cardinals and dacnises are all part of the family. (On the other hand some 'tanagers' are not, but let's not go there!) And yes, I may have gone a bit over the top here, but which ones would you have left out?

Azure-shouldered Tanager Thraupis cyanoptera, Trilha dos Tucanos, near
Sao Paulo, Brazil. It is endemic to the rich but endangered Atlantic Forests
of near-coastal Brazil.

Blue-grey Tanager Thraupis episcopus, near Machu Picchu, Peruvian Andes
By contrast with the previous closely-related species, this one is common and widespread
across Central America and northern South America.

Green-headed Tanager Tangara seledon, Trilha dos Tucanos again.
This name perplexes me as much as the bird delights me, but perhaps
you too think that the head is really green. Another one that you'll
have to go to south-eastern Brazil to see.

Masked Tanager Stilpnia nigrocincta, Sacha Lodge, Ecuadorian Amazonia.
I am, with difficulty, able to overcome my aversion to heights to venture up these
rainforest towers for the privilege of seeing canopy animals from above.
This lovely is found throughout much of Amazonia.

Blue-necked Tanager Stilpnia cyanicollis, near Machu Picchu.
I tossed up whether to include this photo and the next couple - I much prefer
not to use photos of birds on feeders - but in the end I decided you'd not
want to miss them. This one has a curious distribution along the tropical
Andes, and separately in the Amazon basin of Brazil.

Speckled Tanager Ixothraupis guttata, central Costa Rica.
A striking bird found south from here to northern South America.
It was on the verandah rail of a simple local open-air restaurant in the mountains.

Blue-winged Mountain Tanager Anisognathus somptuosus, Paz de las Aves, Mindo Valley,
northern Ecuador. A lovely tanager of the Andean forests.

Blue Dacnis Dacnis cayana, Trilha dos Tucanos again. Blue indeed!
And this really is a wonderful place; more about it here.

And our last tanager for today, but I think I'll come back to them for a tanager mini-series at some stage- there are many more of them that we've not seen here yet!

Masked Flowerpiercer Diglossa cyanea, Yanacocha Reserve, north of Quito, Ecuador.
Flowerpiercers are just that; they have sharp hooked beaks to pierce the base of
flowers and steal the nectar. A few of them, including this one, are impressively blue.
There are 18 flowerpiercers, all in the same genus and mostly found in the Andes.

Turacos are spectacular African endemics, 18 species comprising an entire Order. They are unique, seeemingly, for being the only birds to have a green pigment in their feathers. All others have yellow pigment overlaid with blue (and thus looking green) by the light reflection trick we've been talking about here. However some of them do blue quite well too - I lament that my only photo of a Great Blue Turaco is too distant to be of use.

Hartlaub's Turaco Tauraco hartlaubi, Mount Kenya.
A gorgeous bird of the mountain forests of east Africa.

And lastly the Waxbills, more often known as grass finches in Australia (though as mentioned earlier, they are not true finches). The family Estrildidae contains some 140 species of little grass-seed eaters, found across southern Africa and Asia, and throughout Australia. Blue doesn't feature in the family for the most part, except for the parrotfinches (and my only photo is not for public display) and, as you'd expect, for the three species of cordonbleus, in the genus Uraeginthus. Here I can offer you two for the price of one.

Red-cheeked Cordonbleu Uraeginthus bengalus and Blue-capped Cordonbleu
Uraeginthus cyanocephalus, Serengeti NP. You'll work out which is which.
(The one on the left is a youngster and could be either.)

And that will do us for now I think, before we're all blued out. I'm not sure whether to continue next time with a final instalment of blue skin, scales, beaks, legs, insect wings etc, or go on to something else. I'm happy to take advice or requests, but I won't hold my breath for it!

Previous post in this series here.

Next post in this series here.

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Serengeti Sublime: #2 birds

Last time I introduced this superb park, one of the highlights of my natural history life - not least because of decades of anticipation! - and some of its non-feathered fauna. Say 'East Africa' and I imagine most people immediately, and quite understandably, think of the wealth of big mammals for which it is rightly famed. But it would be a bad mistake to overlook the even greater diversity of bird life, as a result of which this is a longer than usual post. However if you're reading this you may be predisposed to feel that the bit of extra time spent in this wonderful virtual bird world is worth it - and after all most of us do have some unaccustomed extra time on our hands these days!

One limitation on birding there is that of course it must be done from a vehicle, other than in the immediate surrounds of the lodges, the admin centre at Seronera and a few guarded rest areas. (I digress briefly to remember someone I met some years ago on a tour in Uganda; she proclaimed herself a 'free spirit' and grumbled about 'bureaucracy' trying to constrain her in the same way. It did seem to me that being trodden on by an elephant or eaten by lions might be more constraining than most bureaucracies, but that's just me. I don't mind going along with COVID-19 restrictions either.)

Notwithstanding such restrictions Serengeti birding is just splendid. It began soon after we passed under the slightly kitsch archway and entered the park, with our first bird soon after right on the roadside, thanks to our excellent Tanzanian driver/guide Geitan who spotted it at about 40kph despite its impressive camouflage. An astonishing feat.

Spotted Thick-knee Burhinus capensis; closely related to our rather more euphoniously-named stone curlews.
The South African term 'dikkop' sounds better too - until you realise that it means 'thick head'!
As the huge eye suggests, the bird is a nocturnal hunter, eating insects, mice and small reptiles.

The entrance station carpark - where we were able to get out - was very rewarding too, including a concrete bird bath which attracted a lot of interest (among the birds, and thus us). 

Black-lored Babbler Turdoides sharpei; this is a noisy gregarious bird, like the Australian babblers,
which are nonetheless quite unrelated.

Starlings in Australia (except for one native species in tropical Queensland) are exotic and frankly depressing.
In Africa it's very different.  Here's a gathering of Superb Starlings Lamprotornis superbus, an abundant East African
bird known affectionately as 'Super Stars' and much less common Hildebrandt's Starlings Lamprotornis hildebrandti.Hildebrandt's have red eyes, while those of the Super Stars are white.

Here's another impressive Serengeti starling.

Rüppell's Starling Lamprotornis purpuroptera, a striking long-tailed starling found across
East Africa, plus across the continent in Cameroon.

But back in the entrance carpark were a couple more treats to get us started. 

Beautiful Sunbird Cinnyris pulchella; and there's a tautological name!
However even by sunbird standards this one's pretty spiffy. It's found right across tropical Africa.

Silverbird Empidornis semipartitus, a glorious little Old World flycatcher; like us it too was having lunch there.

Elsewhere in the park natural water was, unsurprisingly, a magnet for many birds. Both Greater and Lesser Flamingos were present on ponds throughout.

Greater Flamingos Phoenicopterus roseus, above and below.

 

 

Male sandgrouse famously take water to their chicks out on the hot plains via their highly absorbent breast feathers. The eminent English ornithologist, the splendidly named Edmund Gustavus Bloomfield Meade-Waldo, reported this in 1896 but despite his formidable reputation his observation was scornfully dismissed until long after his death. I find this sad. This is only one reason I'm fascinated by these birds, and one of our highlights was the time we spent watching a large nervous flock of Chestnut-bellied Sandgrouse Pterocles exustus dithering and coming down to drink in small groups at a waterhole.

The lovely soft colours and patterns of sandgrouse are for camouflage out on the open plains,
including when they're sitting on a nest.

 Other birds were also attracted to this little waterhole.

Male Greater Painted-snipe Rostratula benghalensis (the female is more brightly coloured).
Not related to true snipe, the painted-snipes comprise three species (this one across Africa and southern
Asia, one in Australia and one in South America).
The Australian one is rare and very hard to see, so this was a real treat; it is uncommon, but not Threatened.

Collared Pratincoles Glareola pratincola breed in Mediterranean Europe and western Asia,
and spend winter in tropical Africa.

Coursers, in the same family, were also present nearby.

Three-banded Coursers Rhinoptilus cinctus are present all year round.

The most memorable watering place we found however was a small muddy puddle in a management track at the back of the Seronera visitors' centre and administration centre. In the middle of the day we watched a steady stream of small birds coming to drink and bathe. At least a dozen species came in to drink (five of which were new to me), most of them seedeaters, including all the drinkers below, which need to drink regularly, with others overhead and in nearby bushes. Mesmerising. 

Here are a few of them.

Black-faced Waxbill Estrilda erythronotos. This is in the same family as the Australian grass-finches.

Blue-capped Cordonbleus Uraeginthus cyanocephalus (also waxbills) and Kenya Sparrow Passer rufocinctus.

Red-cheeked Cordonbleu pair Uraeginthus bengalus (with another Blue-capped male).
(The bengalus name was applied in error; it is only found in Africa.)

Speckle-fronted Weaver Sporopipes frontalis, one of many weavers in the park, which
specialise in building large, sometimes communal (though not this one) grass nests.
I find this one especially dapper.

White-bellied Canary Crithagra dorsostriatus, a lovely dryland canary from east Africa.

Banded Parisoma (or Warbler) Sylvia boehmi, a pretty little Old World warbler of the
tough dry thorn scrubs of north-eastern Africa.

White-browed Scrub-robin Cercotrichas leucophrys, a busy friendly little Old World flycatcher
found throughout much of Africa below the Sahara.

Usambiro Barbets Trachyphonus darnaudii usambiro. Sometimes regarded as a full species,
but usually as a subspecies of D'Arnaud's Barbet. Barbets occur in Africa, Asia and South America,
but the barbets of each continent are now put into separate families. They are active hunters
of a wide range of small prey, but also avid fruit eaters. I think that collectively they merit
their own blog post here one day.

Here are a few more small birds from the park.

Immature male Scarlet-chested Sunbird Chalcomitra senegalensis; when he grows up he'll be
even more gorgeous! He was working the flowers in the lodge garden early one morning.

Grey-backed Fiscal Lanius excubitoroides. The fiscals are a group of African shrikes (fierce little hunters
of the family Laniidae) named for their mostly black and white plumage, apparently reminiscent of
the garb of the tax man (from Dutch or Afrikaans fiskaal). The details vary somewhat
according to the source.

Grey-crested Helmetshrike Prionops poliolophus, an attractive bush-shrike with a small range.
A small busy flock popped up alongside the car after we'd given up on them; I got just
this one shot off before they scooted off again.

Holub's Golden Weaver Ploceus xanthops, another lovely weaver, who we admired
from the lodge balcony while we had lunch.

Rufous-naped Lark Mirafra africana; Africa is full of larks (unlike Australia), which can
cause some identification angst to visiting birders. This species is quite short-tailed, but I'm sure this one is moulting as well.

Both species of oxpecker, Red-billed Buphagus erythrorhynchus and Yellow-billed B. africanus,on a giraffe - you can work out which is which! I am very happy with their juxtaposition here.
Oxpeckers separated off from the line that gave rise to starlings and mockingbirds some 20 million years ago.
Yellow-billeds specialise in picking large blood-engorged ticks off large mammals, while Red-billeds prefer tick larvae.

 

Female Pygmy Falcon Polihierax semitorquatus; males have a grey back.
This is an exquisite little falcon, less than 20cm long, which nests in a weaver nest chamber.
It's common enough in this part of the world, but always a delight.

Needless to say, there are plenty of birds of prey in this part of the world, and most of them are much larger. The wonderful big Bateleur is a common and very distinctive sight as it glides overhead, rocking from side to side - the word is French for a tumbler or acrobat.

Adult Bateleur Terathopius ecaudatus; the startling black and white plumage, broad wings, very short tail
and red bill and legs create an unmistakeable pattern. I think this one is carrying a nestling in its bill,
but I can't quite make it out.

And one of the sad stories of much of Africa is the decline of vultures. Alarming numbers are poisoned, by poachers treating carcasses (eg of elephants) to prevent the vultures attracting attention to them, and for the sale of body parts as talismans. Here are two, probably safe in Serengeti, but in trouble more widely.

Lappet-faced Vulture Torgos tracheliotos warming in the morning sun; this is a huge vulture
with a wingspan of nearly three metres. It is listed as Endangered.

The Rüppell's Vulture Gyps rueppelli is found right across Africa in the tropics, but is in
an even more parlous state than the Lappet-faced, being listed as Critically Endangered.
They are virtually extinct anywhere outside of national parks like Serengeti.
It is a lot easier to gain public sympathy for Cheetahs and Giant Pandas than vultures,
and it's a tragic situation.

And wherever we drove, there seemed to be larger birds on or near the ground, storks, bustards, spurfowl and francolins, hornbills - a true birder's cornucopia.

Abdim's Stork Ciconia abdimii, the smallest stork, which breeds right across the African tropics
but moves south in winter. This lovely bird found itself largely ignored (except by me!)
when it had to compete for attention with a Cheetah.

White Stork Ciconia ciconia. This is the celebrated chimney-nesting, baby-bringing
stork of Europe, which makes a long journey each year to spend winter throughout Africa.
It avoids flying over the Mediterranean, and flocks funnel through either the Straits of Gibraltar
or the Middle East.

Francolins and spurfowl comprise some 40 mostly African species within the family of domestic fowl, pheasants, quails etc. They are common roadside birds in Serengeti and many other parts of Africa.

Coqui Francolin Peliperdix coqui; a pretty grassland dweller of much of the southern half of Africa.

The Grey-breasted Spurfowl Pternistis rufopictus on the other hand is found only in northern Tanzania.

Black-bellied Bustard Lissotis melanogaster; this female lacks the male's black belly -
not that we can see it from this angle anyway!

White-bellied Bustard Eupodotis senegalensis; this time we do get the very handsome male.
It has a strange discontinuous grassland range from Senegal to Djibouti and South Africa.

Von der Decken's Hornbill Tockus deckeni is a smallish hornbill, but a striking part of the landscape
in northern Tanzania and into Ethiopia. They are quite relaxed around lodges.
Karl von der Decken was a German adventurer who travelled in East Africa and Madagascar in the 1860s.

And to finish (yes, really!) another very different hornbill, the great slouching menacing Southern Ground Hornbill Bucorvus leadbeateri which stalks the grasslands in small gangs, doubtless terrorising small animals up to the size of hares.

Male Southern Ground Hornbill; the female has a blue patch in the red throat.
With a wingspan of up to 180cm and weighing over four kilograms, they are larger than any of
the 'conventional' hornbills; the two ground hornbills are now regarded as comprising their own family.

So, Serengeti Sublime indeed; I shall never forget our days there. Thank you for letting me relive them with you, and I hope you've been inspired to see it for yourself one day. You won't be sorry.

NEXT POSTING THURSDAY 28 MAY.
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