The Zinder bush is a great place to go birdwatching. Niger has more than 500 bird species coming through (many of them seasonal) and this is the time of the year to see them.

This past Saturday, we went on a 3 hour long ride (a nice way to celebrate my birthday!). Amidst all of our adventures (and there were many), we got some great visuals of birds, many of them posing beautifully posed in front of our lenses.

The Abyssinian Roller [Coracias abyssinica] is one of my favourite Nigerien birds. He’s beautiful, colourful and very adventurous. He’s the kind of bird who’ll take a dive to distract predators, even though he might be on the menu himself.  Time stops when I see one. Fortunately for me, they’re permanent residents of the Niger bush and enhance our rides all year round!

Another permanent resident is the Red-billed Hornbill [Tockus erythrorhynchus]. He’s impressive wherever he goes, and for some reason, the birds aren’t so shy this time a year, allowing Anette to catch them with her lens. Even if you don’t catch the brilliant red of his beak, you’ll know it’s a hornbill by the long low flight.

The Chestnut-bellied Starling [Lamprotornis pulcher] is a bird I only see in the bush (in contrary to the blue and the purple starlings, that visit us in our garden). I “discovered” it for the first time last year, when all of a sudden, they could be seen in colonies of 10-20 individuals out in the fields.

The lighting was not in my favor then, but this time, I got a better shot.

Predator birds can be shy, but this Dark Chanting Goshawk [melierax metabates] didn’t mind our presence even though we followed him from one tree to another. He sang a beautiful song as he looked down at us from his high seat. What an impressive specimen!

The Grey Heron [Ardea cinerea] was a first encounter for me. He was huge (standing one meter tall) and very elegant!

We saw several Cattle Egrets [Bubulcus ibis] too, but they did not end up posing for our cameras, as Sheba kept chasing them off. The Cattle Egret likes to breed in this part of the world, but it’s a sad story. For every colony, you will find dozens of youngsters that walk out of the nest and pierce themselves to death on the thorns. Some drop out of the nest while attempting to fly, meeting death by predators or starvation. In either case, it’s a sad story, and I was always happy to see them go. As a child, I tried feeding one of those youngsters that had dropped out of the nest, but it only bit me, ruling out adoption. The smell of a breeding colony is indescribable (they make a lot of noise too!) and it is the one bird in Niger I would never want to have in my garden. I enjoy them in the bush (like all creatures, they are beautiful!), but Sheba consistently chases them off. Does she sense my distance to them? I doubt it. I think they are just too fun to chase!

Another bird we saw was this crow-like youngster. He kept crying and crying but the sun was in our way, so we only got some profile shots of him. I can’t remember seeing this particular bird before, but then again, unless you’re paying attention, you probably see a lot of wonders around you without ever looking!

Anette found a beautiful African Monarch [danaus chrysippus] by the seasonal lake, and stopped to take a picture. I never thought of identifying butterflies before, but it’s fun knowing what lives in our neighbourhood!

We saw many more birds during our three hour ride, but they were in a hurry to shy away from as humans, as animals of the wild often are. I hope you enjoyed our birdwatch ride, for we certainly did!

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