The red-billed oxpecker is a bird commonly found attached to large short-haired mammals where its feeds on ticks, flies and other insects found on mammals.
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| Red-billed oxpecker on back of bushbuck in Mount Kenya NR. Photo by John Mirau. |
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| Red-billed oxpecker on cape buffalo at Nakuru NP. Photo by Steven Shuel. |
They will eat up to 100 blood-gorged ticks or 1,200 tick larvae in a day. One oxpecker stomach contained 250 adult ticks and 1,400 larval ticks. The red-billed oxpecker prefers blood, and in addition to blood-gorged ticks, will feed on blood directly from a wounded mammal. They will also eat grasshoppers and other large insects kicked up by mammals and will catch and eat flying termites on the wing.
It has a bright red bill and red eyes surrounded by a yellow eye ring. The back, wings, rump and tail are ashy/brown and it has a buff belly. They have sharp claws and stiff tail feathers that helps them to crawl all over a mammal.
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| Closer view of the oxpeckers on the cape buffalo above. |
They are found in East Africa, from Eritrea in the north to eastern South Africa in the south. We saw quite a few of them, but they tended to blend in with the mammals. I noticed them more going through photos.
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| This red-billed oxpecker is on the back of a defassa waterbuck in Nakuru NP. Photo by John Mirau. |
Vampire birds? Kind of creepy.
ReplyDeleteA cute little bird with an icky (though useful) diet.
ReplyDeleteThe animals don't seem to mind the birds. The birds are actually doing them a favor. A mutually beneficial relationship.
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