Goliath Heron

One of the birds I really wanted to see in Uganda was a Goliath heron. I saw exactly one. I was on a boat ride along the White Nile between Paraa and Murchison Falls, shortly after we started, near the Paraa Lodge on the north side of the river. 

Illustration from Birds of the World. 

The Goliath heron is the world's largest heron. It reaches a height between 3 feet 11 inches and 5 feet. Males and females look similar with an overall plumage of slate gray and chestnut. The head, face, back and sides of the neck are chestnut. The chin, throat, foreneck and upper breast are white with black streaks across the foreneck and upper breast. The lower breast and belly are buff with black streaks. The back and upper wings are slate-gray with a chestnut shoulder patch at the bend of the wings when they are closed. The upper mandible is black and the lores and orbital areas are yellow with a greenish tinge. The eyes are yellow and the legs and feet are black. The heron that looks most like it, the purple heron, is much smaller. 

Range from Birds of the World.

Northern Gray-Headed Sparrow

The northern gray-headed sparrow has a pale gray head with a white moustache stripe, pale brown upperparts, whitish underparts and chestnut wings with a small white shoulder patch. Males and females are similar. There are three subspecies which differ in plumage tone, particularly as to the darkness of the head. It appears that I was seeing the ssp. ugandae. Ugandae is darker than the nominate ssp., with a gray-brown head, a well-defined white bib, and a whiter belly. 

Near Nkima Forest Lodge northwest of Entebbe, Uganda. This does have a darker head than the illustration below. 

This, and the next two photos, were taken in Kidepo Valley NP in northern Uganda. These photos were taken on the grass outside the Apoka Ranger Station.  

Illustration from Birds of the World. 

Range map from Birds of the World.

Black-Crowned Tchagra

The black-crowned tchagra has a black crown and eye stripes separated by a white supercilium. The underparts are pale gray and the upperparts are pale brown. the folded wings are chestnut and the tail is black with a white tip. The bill is black. I saw one in Murchison Falls NP in Uganda. It mainly eats insects, including grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, caterpillars, wasps, cicadas, termites, worms, spiders, scorpions, snails, frogs, small lizards and snakes and small fruits. 

There are 10 subspecies and I saw ssp. armenus which is found from south Cameroon east to northern DRC, South Sudan and Uganda, south and west to Angola, east to Kenya (except the coast), Tanzania (except the east lowlands), Malawi, northwest Mozambique and northern Zimbabwe. 

Illustration of ssp. senegalus from Birds of the World. 

Range from Birds of the World.

Red-Billed Quelea

The red-billed quelea is a weaver, also known as the red-billed weaver and red-billed dioch.  I saw them in Kidepo Valley NP in northern Uganda. It is small, about the size of a sparrow. Breeding males have a black facial mask surrounded by a purplish, pinkish, rusty or yellowish wash on the head and breast. Breeding females have a yellowish bill. Non-breeding males and females have striped brown upper parts, yellow-edged flight feathers, a reddish bill and light underparts. It is the most numerous undomesticated bird on earthwith an estimated 1.5 billion breeding birds. It feeds in huge flocks of millions of individuals and is sometimes referred to as "Africa's feathered locust." 

A breeding male with black facial mask and yellowish wash on head and breast. 

Breeding females have a yellowish bill. 

Illustration of male from Birds of the World.

Illustration of female from Birds of the World.

There are three subspecies and I saw ssp. aethiopica which is found in southern Sudan, eastern South Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea south to northeast DRC, Uganda, Kenya, central and eastern Tanzania and northwestern and southern Somalia. 

Range map from Birds of the World.

Black-Headed Oriole

The black-headed oriole (Wikipedia and iNaturalist), referred to as the African black-headed oriole in Birds of the World, is found in Africa and is the fourth species of oriole I've seen. But now I learn that there are New World orioles in the Genus Icterus and Old World Orioles in the family Oriolidae. The New World orioles are not closely related to the Old World orioles, but because they are similar in size, diet, behavior and strongly contrasting plumage, they are both given the same vernacular name. Given this new knowledge, this is my first Old World oriole. We were staying at the Savannah Lodge on the outskirts of Kidepo Valley NP in Uganda, relatively close to the South Sudan border. I was going up to the lodge for dinner and saw it fly into a very tall tree. The photos are blurry, but clearly identify it. 

Illustration from Birds of the World.

The nominate subspecies has a glossy black head, neck and upper breast; a brown iris; a red or brownish-red bill; a bright yellow mantle; and varying degrees of yellow, with shades of olive-green or gray elsewhere on the body; and black on portions of the wing and tail, intermixed with white or whitish-gray. There are six subspecies and I saw ssp. rolleti which is found in southern South Sudan, Uganda, the Lake Victoria Basin; eastern DRC, western and southern Ethiopia, and western and central Kenya. Rolleti is smaller than the nominate ssp. and has brighter yellow upperparts. 

Range map from Birds of the World.

Stone Partridge

While in Kidepo Valley NP in northeastern Uganda our guide, William, and ranger, Zachary, took us on an afternoon drive toward the Kidepo Valley, closer to South Sudan, to show us a stone partridge. I'm not sure why they were so keen on it, it is not rare, but perhaps it is just difficult to see. At any rate, we got as far as a ridge strewn with large boulders and William set his phone to broadcast the stone partridge vocalizations and Zachary stayed with my granddaughter and me. The side of the hill was not conducive to easily seeing anything. At the end of what was probably 30 or 40 minutes, I got one poor photo of the back-end of a stone partridge. I think Zachary was a little disgusted at my inability to see the stone partridges darting through the hillside. 

The stone partridge is standing on the boulder on the top-right side, with its tail to the left. 

I like this photo from Wikipedia because the tail looks like the tail I have in my photo.

Illustration from Birds of the World.

Range from Birds of the World.

Western Black-Headed Batis

While at the Savannah Lodge near Kidepo Valley NP in northeastern Uganda, I walked the grounds with my guide, William. He spotted a small bird in a large bush and I couldn't get my camera to focus on it. I finally put the camera on manual, instead of automatic focus, and was able to get some good photos through a small window in the bush. I believe I saw both a female (initially) and a male (later) western black-headed batis, also known as Von Erlanger's batis. There are two ssp and I saw the nominate ssp erlangeri found from north Cameroon to Ethiopia, south to Uganda, west Kenya and Burundi. 

It is described as flycatcher-like and shrike-like with contrasting black, gray, white and some rufous. The male has a black crown and mantle; a white superciliary stripe extending to the hindneck; a black mask from the lores back to the nape; blackish scapulars; uppertail coverts, wing, tail; whitish rump, wingstripe, auxiliaries; and yellow iris. The female differs from the male by having a maroon instead of a black breastband. It has a very small entry on Wikipedia and on Birds of the World and only 371 photos and 2,437 observations on Birds of the World. 

Female

Male

Illustration of female from Birds of the World.

Illustration of male from Birds of the World.

Range from Birds of the World.