Did I say no more?

I know. I said I wouldn't post pictures of Village weavers / Ploceus cucullatus / Tisserins gendarmes. But after the rain and the free-for-all winged termite buffet in my yard, birds of all feathers flocked and were too busy gorging themselves on the insects to fly away when I tried to take pictures. Never before was I able to get that close to so many birds. So, please bear with me, and join me to admire this fine (albeit a bit angry looking, if you ask me) specimen.

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A very lucky morning

After the rain and the swarms of winged termites attracted by light around the house last night, we were lucky to see a lot of birds flocking to our compound to feast on them this morning. 

The first unusual one was this small bird of prey:

As usual with the first pictures of the day, these ones are not perfectly neat since they are taken from inside the house, through the fixed mosquito net. I find the subjects interesting enough to consider it worth the drawback, and I'll keep taking pictures and posting them despite the relatively poor quality shots.

Although I don't remember having seen this bird before, it was relatively easy to identify thanks to its striped "pants" and the one white stripe on the tail. This is a Lizard buzzard / Kaupifalco monogrammicus / Autour unibande (Buse unibande).

A friendly reminder: please contact me if you intend using any materials posted on this blog. It's nice, and it's the law. Thank you!

Swarming

We've had a lot of rain most of the weekend and with it came throngs of winged termites, which is rather unpleasant because they congregate by thousands (millions, it seems!) around light sources. Being one of the few houses with electricity around, we get more than our fair share of the insects.

The upside of this is that they are apparently a delicacy (or maybe just ready food considering their rather big size and astonishing numbers) for all sorts of birds. More about this in the next few posts!

A friendly reminder: please contact me if you intend to use any materials posted in this blog. It's nice, and it's law. Thank you!