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Birding in Tanzania – important information

If you are planning to come to watch wildlife in Tranzania and want some avowedly impartial advice in order to fit your desired nature schedule with the most appropriate ground agents here and you wish for up-to-date help so that you can find the best birding sites, best birding accommodation, the best not-only-for-big-game safari routes, […]

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An evening stroll, for the bird, up Haile Selassie road

Last Friday evening I took a stroll from the centre of town, at the New Arusha hotel, to the even newer Mount Meru hotel up on Nairobi road. For peace of mind I went by way of a stately and well-timbered route along Haile Selassie road. This is the old diplomatic quarter of Arusha where large […]

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The Eagle, the Monkey and the Man

An African lepidopterist friend (from central Europe) just wrote to me : “We have to fight to protect every single hectare … and every single tree in a city.” I asked if I might quote him, to post his words, beneath a superb photo of one forest bird species that has viewed ‘man’ as prey. […]

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Which ornithologist has the most African birds?

Originally in Birdman – “Birding in Tanzania” with James Wolstencroft “Who was the most popular ‘African’ ornithologist of all time?” Posted: 07 April 2011. On August 14 2010 Keith Betton produced an alphabetical list of the 288 bird species on the African list currently bearing names in English that commemorate a person. He rightly thought […]

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Birders Delight in a Concrete Jungle

This is admittedly a very poor photograph of a bird. But it was shot with this iphone just now, through my sealed window on the world. It shows a Levaillant’s Cuckoo, presumably a male, who came to sing raucously at my office window. Just now. And yes, that jungle is our back garden! We moved here at […]

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A fine introduction to African Birding

  The Sunbird-Wings safari across northern Tanzania seems set to become a classic of nature tours. For it provides the most comfortable and condensed introduction possible to that source of limitless wonder which is the African wildlife experience. The plentiful “short rains” of November-December 2015 ensured once again that we would not disappoint anyone. This […]

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Everything that flies (and breathes)!

It has taken ten years for me to begin to tackle the Charaxes. Today Toran and I confirmed the occurrence of the White-barred Emperor, (C. brutus alcyone/natalensis), in our rewilding garden, when one trapped itself in the kitchen. The fore-wing of another that was eaten by a bird can be seen here on the left-hand […]

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Arusha Safari Guides – Advanced Birding

Next week I’m taking two lucky guides from Bush2Beach safaris out for the day to the wetland area in the aerial photograph (above), which lies south-east of Arusha, here in northern Tanzania. It’s an area where the birds of the dry country, acacia-commiphora scrubland, birds of the Somali-Maasai biome, meet a wealth of migrant birds at a seasonal freshwater […]

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Black-and-Rufous Elephant-shrews in Unguja

  The most charismatic member of the indigenous forest vertebrate community at Unguja Lodge is undoubtedly the Black-and-Rufous Elephant-Shrew. There are several living in the five acres of regenerating coral rag woodland on the property. This is an animal species much sought after by the more discerning eco-traveler to Tanzania. They are easy to see […]

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Broadcasting urban African bird sounds to the world

Over the week-end of April 30 – May 1 we will be singing our part in a global presentation. It’s by Sound Camp, of the global dawn chorus as it bursts forth with the sunrise, from Japan westwards right around the world. http://locusonus.org/soundmap/051/ If you click on the locusonus world map you will see that we, […]