Africa's Amazing Birds

 

Africa hosts a diversity of birds that rival any place on the planet. Birds have evolved in amazing ways to exploit every resource niche and habitat. This crested barbet features crazy colors that give it the nickname fruit salad.

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A red-chested sunbird has beautiful iridescent colors in Uganda's Lake Bunyonyi, which fittingly means place of little birds.

My favorite bird in Kruger was the common lilac-breasted roller. I photographed every roller I could find.

I tried to replicate a famous Thomas Mangelsen pic of a lilac-breasted roller in flight. This was the best I could manage.

Of course, the world's biggest living bird is the ostrich. This one is a subspecies that features a red neck and legs on Kenya's Maasai Mara.

Meet the Griffon vulture, the highest-flying bird on Earth. Griffon vultures have been observed flying at more than 33,000 feet in altitude. This one was finishing up a wildebeest on the Mara.

The go-away bird takes flight in Kenya's Maasai Mara.

One of my favorite birds is the ground hornbill, which is convincing evidence that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Every time I saw a ground hornbill, it had some small, helpless creature dangling from its terrible maw. Bullfrogs, lizards, snakes, insects. Everything is on the menu for these amazing birds.

Kruger is home to a number of beautiful hornbills, including this yellow-billed.

A pied kingfisher hunts for minnows above the Nile River.

A red-cheeked cordon-bleu has striking colors. These little porcelain birds are incredible.

Kenya's vulturine guinea fowl make a cameo in the beginning of the Lion King. They are wonderful.

South Africa's blue waxbills look like they belong in a china cabinet. Wowza.

Crowned cranes are resplendent in their royal finery on the Maasai Mara. They are the national bird of Uganda.

Meet the kori bustard, the world's largest bird that can still fly. These birds can weigh up to 40 pounds. They hunt equally large lizards and snakes in the grasslands of Kruger.