Village weavers in the Gambia

Over the last three years I have had some eye problems, and arthritis in my hip. Hopefully the eye will be resolved with a small operation at Moorfields, one of the best if not the best eye hospital in the world, which just happens to be local to me! I may need a hip replacement, but there are a few investigations to be performed first. This means my travel plans have been somewhat curtailed, but I did manage a birdwatching holiday in the Gambia, run by Naturetrek, which was excellent. Most of the group were of the same equally mature years as myself. I bought a particularly apt T-shirt for my husband, and had a couple of enthusiastic enquiries from other wives on the trip.

husband modelling T-shirt
I would like to give a big plug for Merlin, the birdwatching app run by Cornell University. It identifies birds by sound, and also by photograph. I had no idea how many different birds we had in our garden, as it picks up the ones with soft, high-pitched voices such as the goldcrest and the firecrest. I also realised that if I'd taken a photograph of a bird on my travels I had obviously seen it, so I entered them all as well. Currently I have 544 birds on my life list! Some of them are really unusual, such as the hoatzin, which I saw in Venezuela in 2008 and the Amber Mountain rock thrush - Madagascar, 2023. But there are so many really beautiful birds as well, and there are a lot of different rollers in Africa which deserve a mention - and a photo. Paradise flycatchers live up to their name, and so does the resplendent quetzal, which I've seen in Costa Rica but not photographed. So I've become a birder, but not a twitcher. They're obsessives!

Malagasy paradise flycatcher

Amber Mountain rock thrushI think what I'll do now is just add some birds I've really liked, saying when and where I saw them. Some were identified by sound, and some by photograph. I have often used birds in my writing, and the difficulty in seeing the ones you want gave me the idea for the one in the Divide books - the lesser spotted tease!

If you're interested in identifying what's in your locality, do try the Merlin app. Make sure it's the Cornell version, and not something else. Happy birding! 

Go away bird, Namibia Lilac-breasted roller, Namibia

Carmine-breasted
bee-eater, Botswana


Hoatzin, Venezuela

 
Hyacinth macaw, Brazil