RSPB North Bucks Local Group

“WILDLIFE OF ” Illustrated talk by Brian & Gina Lloyd – Thursday 12 September 2019

Brian and Gina Lloyd are well known to many members of our Group – they’ve been members for around 20 years and co-ordinated our walks programme for many years, leading some of those walks. You’re still likely to meet them on many of our walks too – Brian will be one of those sharing views through his scope and Gina will probably be there with a very long lens! – and they will both be sharing their extensive wildlife knowledge.

They’re probably some of our most widely travelled members too – and this talk about their trip to Uganda was delivered just after they returned from birding in Peru. They have a world list of 5,871 seen – and they shared some of the best Ugandan endemics with us during their talk.

However, it wasn’t all about birds of course. Possibly the most associated with Uganda is the Mountain (over half the world’s population of these primates can be found in Uganda) and Gina had captured some great images of these wonderful animals – although Brian did comment that they were much closer than expected so Gina’s long lens meant it was easier to get a close up of their faces than a whole gorilla!

However when that delivers beautiful images such as this juvenile – I think we’ll forgive that!

Brian told us that a trip to see is fairly expensive – but well worth the money – and the fact that around £35m a year is raised for the local community by these trips means there is a great incentive to protect their habitats and not cut down forests.

Brian and Gina also saw plenty of Elephants and (the African “River Horse”) and we saw some great images of these two large – including the common view of a Hippo mostly submerged (Brian told us they sometimes suffer from sunburn so tend to emerge in the evenings when the sun is less fierce).

Brian showed us several of the 17 different Weaver birds found in Uganda, including Village Weaver, Black- necked Weaver and Brown-capped Weaver. Weavers are small passerine birds, seed-eating with rounded conical bills and the males are often very brightly coloured during the breeding season.

We also saw some of the 13 Kingfishers found in Uganda, including the Pied Kingfisher, the smaller Malachite Kingfisher and the Giant Kingfisher- the largest African Kingfisher (at around 42 to 46 cm)

Brian reminded us that there are nearly 100 Kingfishers in the world and around half of them go nowhere near water.

The colourful Blue-breasted Kingfisher shown here is one that prefers a variety of well-wooded habitats, perching in deep shade while seeking food including large insects & arthropods.

Bee-eaters are another group of birds associated with Africa, often characterised by richly coloured plumage, long slightly downturned bills and pointed wings. Species include Swallow-tailed Bee-eater, White-throated Bee-eater and the distinctively coloured Northern Carmine Bee-eater.

Also these two stunning species – the Cinnamon-chested Bee-eater on the left and the Red-throated Bee-eater on the right.

We also saw several Sunbirds – very small passerines which feed largely on nectar. Brian said this was a good example of parallel evolution with the Hummingbirds of the Americas – Sunbirds fly fast and direct on their short wings – most can take nectar by hovering like a hummingbird but more usually perch to feed.

As well as colourful bee-eaters and sunbirds, Uganda also has a number of seed-eating finches. While hunting for food is not so common in Uganda, sadly some of these colourful small birds are trapped and then sold as caged birds, putting some species at risk of extinction.

But of course Uganda doesn’t just have pretty, little, colourful birds – it also has some much larger birds too, including the African Openbill (widely found throughout sub-Saharan Africa) and the Marabou Stork (which Brian described as impressively ugly and huge! – at a height of 5ft, a weight of 20 lb and with a wingspan of 12 ft – it certainly qualifies as “huge”) … and then of course there’s the Shoebill - with its enormous shoe-shaped bill (apparently the third longest bill among extant birds after pelicans and large storks) – it’s unmistakable and on the target list for most birders who visit East Africa.

We saw so many more birds during our “virtual” tour of Uganda – including several such as Isabelline and Grey- backed Shrike which are occasional visitors to our shores and have prompted many a “twitch”.

However we’re going to finish off this write- up with another mammal.

Uganda is home to big cats including , Cheetah and Leopard – and Brian and Gina enjoyed great views of this lounging leopard.

Many thanks to Brian and Gina for sharing their trip with us – if you were there on Thursday night, we hope you enjoyed it.

If you missed it, why not come and join us for our next illustrated talk on Thursday 10 October when international wildlife photographer Mike Leach will be talking about “Supernatural History”!