Tanzania 10 - Ngorongoro Crater - Birds

19 - 20 December 2014

The crater is filled with a huge population and variety of birds. Here are some of the highlights.

Thousands of flamingoes on the saline Lake Migadi.

Male ostrich. Earth's largest bird.

The female ostrich is drab.

We got to watch an ostrich family with at least 9 chicks walk across the savannah. Sometimes the chicks trailed behind, and sometimes they surged ahead.

A closer view of the chicks.

Even as a chick, it's obvious that this is an ostrich! What else could have that neck and body shape?

We saw a number of different species of storks.

The white stork was probably the most numerous of the storks we saw.

Abdim's stork.

The grey-crested stork is without a doubt the most beautiful one we saw. I couldn't stop taking photographs.

Lon prefered this pose.

Grey-crested cranes in flight.

This picture is in the running for a place in the "Great Rear Ends of Tanzania" calendar. (It seemed that most of the pictures we took were of animals walking away from us.)

From the elegant to the downright ugly. While not the most common, the Marabou stork was probably the most prominent stork we encountered, since they are large and liked to hang out around human habitations. In my book it wins the prize for the ugliest stork with it's bare head adapted to eating carrion.

Kori bustard

Kori bustard all puffed up to impress a potential mate.

Augur buzzard

A dozen-or-so Speke's weavers flew into our vehicle the moment it stopped at one of the picnic areas. They were looking for any crumbs we may have left behind.