gorilla.cd

by Marc Languy

*Marc Languy works for ICCN (Congolese Wildlife Authority) in Kinshasa toward reform, and also co-wrote the “Virunga” book with Emmanuel de Merode. Marc loves walking through the forests around park headquarters when he visits and knows the birds well. He wrote last month about monkeys is the park.*

This morning, I managed to beat the sun. Birds get up very early here. Many birds are breeding now. You hear the first songs as early as 5 am. Today, I took a different track; it has not been used for months, so it was a real struggle to work my way through the thick vegetation. Many trees are old and dying, which is good for many forms of life. Dead trees offer a feast of all kinds of insects for birds but they also offer something everyone is looking for: a good shelter for raising a family. There are many hole-nesting birds here and I will share with you some I saw and managed to capture; on my camera, of course…

The first ones I saw are the fine Narrow-tailed Starling; they live in groups and are actively feeding their offspring. They are very tame, so it didn’t take me much time to take a picture of a male. Sweet, isn’t it? As the sun rose higher over the horizon, the light became better and a confident female came to me. Not as colourful as the male, but still very cute. Looking at the female, I guess you know why it is called a narrow-tailed starling…

A male and female Narrow-tailed Starling. The male birds are always more beautiful.

Progressing along the trail, I found Grey-throated Barbets; they were also actively feeding their chicks. They live in small colonies and dig their holes in dead trees. Here is one ready to enter the nest.

Grey-throated Barbet

Many species of barbets are more colourful; and they are all very vocal. I heard the call of a Double-toothed Barbet further down the path. They often come in pairs and I quickly spotted one of them, thanks to their flashy colours standing out of the lush greenery. We actually find many of these birds around the camp, as they are fond of the wild figs that are now ripe.

Double-toothed Barbet

Today seemed to be the “Barbet day”, as I came along a much more elusive species, the Yellow-billed Barbet. This one was actively digging a hole in a tree, very much like a woodpecker would do. A second one came nearby; this is most probably a pair ready to breed. I promised myself to come and check in the coming weeks if they managed to raise a family.

Yellow-billed Barbet

As I was ready to walk back to the camp under the bright sunshine, a very nice bird came in a nearby tree. This one is also a hole-nesting bird, but of a very different kind. Bee-eaters dig their nest in sand banks or other small cliffs made of earth. It had been 18 years since I had seen this species – still in Virunga NP when I was working for WWF: the Madagascar Bee-eater is a migrating species that doesn’t breed here but take advantage of the rainy season to feed on dragonflies, wasps and other large insects that seem to come from nowhere soon after the first heavy rains.

Madagascar Bee-eater

I was so happy that I stayed watching it for close to half an hour and missed breakfast. Never mind, that was yet a wonderful morning walk that gave me all the energy I needed to work on my annual report…

These eggs caught my attention the other day. The nest was just on the ground not far from the patrol post, made of old grass. It is the first time I have seen 4 eggs of this kind together, usually it is just 2.

The eggs seemed quite exposed.

The eggs are those of a Caspian Plover. This bird helps us, during the night and the day, by making a noise if they see something strange. These birds help our security. In Ishango, and my country in general, having help with security is a good thing. Remember we still have the Mai Mai not far away, even though at the moment they are calm.

Taken from a distance with zoom, so a little blurred.

I am going to try and find out if it is 1 or 2 birds nesting.

I also wanted to share a photo of a crocodile. This is a young crocodile trying to climb the hill on the bank of the Semliki River. Recently we recorded 10 crocodiles just below the patrol post in the river, and you often see the crocs basking in the sun with the hippos. This picture was taken from the boat, so I was not scared!

Technorati : drc, iccn, ishango, virunga, wildlifedirect

Just outside my house I am often visited by many weaver birds. I was interested to see how they got along with each other and so I threw them a piece of potato.

There is no sound and the quality is poor, but below you can see a video that I took of the birds fighting over the potato. I edited the video to just 30 seconds, but the original went on for two minutes and the actual battle went on for much longer.

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Always fighting, with the piece of potato too big for just one bird to take away. The fight continued with no bird winning, each one losing.

Ishango is well known for its diversity of bird life. This is the Saddle-billed Stork that makes a regular appearance in the Semliki River just below the patrol post.

As you can see it has a long tri-coloured beak and very long legs.

It hunts through flooded vegetation where it captures fish and frogs, which are often thrown into the air before they are swallowed. They do not make much noise, but we like to watch them.

Ishango used to be one of the best bird watching sites in DR Congo, with a lot of migratory birds landing on the sandbanks in the mouth of the Semliki River. With the slaughtering of so many hippos the sandbanks are now covered with grass and reeds (hippos used to eat and trample on the vegetation) and there are much fewer birds.

The hippos are hopefully coming back to Ishango, and so one day we will be seeing more birds.

While clearing away some grass around the paths of Ishango we came across this egg.

It is the egg of the Senegal Thick-Knee.

Notice the speckled markings on the shell which add camouflage among the gravel in the ground.

When the Thick-Knee has a nest, she will try and scare away any animal that comes near by running straight at him.

Although we were too big a match and so she waited by the paillote, just by the doorway, and then returned again once we had left the area.

Technorati : Birds, Congo, Ishango, Senegal Thick-Knee, Virunga, WildlifeDirect