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Up before dawn, I take a quick cold shower to rouse me for a full day of bird photography and gather my binoculars, hat, boots and camera. Leaving the hotel my Australian birder friends and I drive north , leaving behind Katherine, a small town in the Northern Territories of Australia. After about fifteen minutes we stop and walk down a dirt road to a stream called Edith Creek.
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When birding in a new country, what is banal to locals there can be thrilling to the visitor. In Bangladesh I have seen visitors marvel at our Purple Swamphens and Common Kingfishers. And so when I visited Kenya, the Superb Starling, which is very common there, delighted me. Its iridescent blue back, orange breast and white eyes that stared from its black head kept me spellbound.
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We would have missed it but for the vultures. A large flock of them stood around at the far edge of the giant field that stretched to our right, catching our attention. The ground beyond the field was raised and covered with trees. Periodically a vulture flew over to the shade of the trees and lazily flapped its way back to the flock after a few seconds.
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Masai Mara National Reserve of Kenya is one of the few places in the world where one can see a large variety of mammals – including Lions, Cheetahs, Elephants, Zebras and Giraffes - in their natural habitat. For anyone who loves nature and wildlife, it is a compelling attraction.
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I first met her on Christmas Day a few years ago. In the late winter afternoon I was looking for birds in a large field in Purbachol. I found her perched on the very top of an Akond shrub. I couldn’t recognize her from a distance and, intrigued, came closer. Her underpart was cream coloured and she was brown on the top. Her wings had brown stripes and three dots near each shoulder. She was hardly larger than a sparrow. I photographed her, came closer and photographed her again.
