Sooty Chat

In our first area of Uganda the sooty chat was ubiquitus. I got lots of photos of it on the hill between Nkima Forest Lodge and Mabamba Swamp southwest of Entebbe. In fact, I got sick of it and quit taking photos. I believe I saw them in Murchison Falls NP, but took no photos and I don't recall seeing them in Kidepo Valley NP, but may have been just completely ignoring them. 

The male is glossy black except for a white patch on each wing and the female is dark brown and has no white patch. 

This and the next photo are males. 

This and the next photos are females. 

This photo, female, next photo male, from Birds of the World. 

Sooty chat range from Birds of the World.

White-Rumped Shrike

The white-rumped shrike is also known as the northern white-crowned shrike (on Wikipedia) a name I like better because the white crown is much more obvious than the white rump which can only be seen when it is flying. From the name you can deduce that there is also a southern white-crowned shrike (on Wikipedia) which is not known as a white-rumped shrike, but on Birds of the World it is just known as the white-crowned shrike (which does not appear to have a white rump). We saw it in Kidepo Valley NP in northeastern Uganda and my photos of it follow:

This photo, showing it in flight, reveals the white rump.

Illustration from Birds of the World.

Range from Birds of the World shows that it has a fairly limited geographical footprint. I really liked the shrikes/fiscals that we saw in Uganda. 

Speckled Mousebird

While staying at Nkima Forest Lodge above the Mabamba Swamp and Lake Victoria southwest of Entebbe, Uganda, I went with a bird guide, William, on the slope between the lodge and the swamp. One of the birds we tracked for awhile was a speckled mousebird. There were actually several of them and I couldn't see them real well. I could tell they had a long tail and that was about it. I would leave the dirt trail we were following and track up through uneven planted agricultural fields to thickets of trees which they would hide in, then they would fly to another thicket. I finally got some photos of them after following them quite some time and exhausting myself in the process.  

 

The speckled mousebird is about 14 inches long with a long tail that is about half of that length. It is "dull-mousy brown in overall color on the back and head (including a prominent crest). The upper part of the bill is black and the lower part is pinkish. Subspecies mainly differ in the contrast of the head, the throat color, the amount of barring and the iris color. 

 

There are 17 subspecies. I believe we saw either subspecies jebelensis, which is found in South Sudan, northeast DRC and northern Uganda, or subspecies kiwuensis which is found in eastern DRC, central and southern Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and northwestern Tanzania. The range looks more like kiwuensis, but the bird itself looks more like jebelensis.  

Illustration of ssp jebelensis from Birds of the World. 

It is a spectacular looking bird and one of my favorite sightings of the trip. 

Northern Red Bishop

On May 31, 2014 Judy and I were in Elmina, Ghana with my cousin Russell and his wife Shelley. A red and black bird exploded into my vision from the green bushes ahead of the car and I told Russ to stop, I needed a photo of that bird (it turned out to be a poor photo). That northern red bishop was the most colorful bird I'd ever seen. 

Eleven years later we were in Murchison Falls NP and later Kidepo Valley NP in Uganda and I had seen a lot more birds in the interim, but I was still shocked by the color of the many northern red bishops we saw that stood out a mile away. 

This northern red bishop was seen in Murchison Falls NP.

This and the next were taken in Kidepo Valley NP. 

It is also known as an orange bishop and photos on both Wikipedia and Birds of the World show orange plumage where my photos show red. It is bright red with contrasting black plumage in breeding males. Females and non-breeding males have a brown and white feather pattern similar to a song sparrow. There is a southern red bishop, a separate species, which has a black chin and black which does not extend as far back on the crown. 

Illustration of a male from Birds of the World. 

Illustration of a female from Birds of the World. We didn't see any females, or at least our guide did not point any out. We would not have connected the male and female on our own. 

Range map from Birds of the World. 

Shoebill

While looking up the shoebill for this post I came across a fascinating series of articles by Noah Strycker in Audubon Magazine. In 2015 he was on a year-long quest to see as many birds as he possibly could. On August 29 he was on day 241 and at the end of the day he'd seen an incredible 4,090 different birds that year! This day he was in Mabamba Swamp "a floating mass of vegetation in an inlet of Lake Victoria, famous among birders for one bird, the Shoebill, my most wanted bird in Uganda." 

Strycker goes on: "The Shoebill resembles no other bird on Earth. It stands nearly four feet tall with a massive beak and weird eyes and a cowlick on the back of its head, and always seems to be glowering down with a curious disapproval. The Shoebill makes no sound except an occasional bill-snap; it doesn't blink; it often stands statue-still for long periods of time; it eats lungfish and has been recorded attacking fish more than three feet long; it mostly lives in remote swamps (perhaps most commonly in South Sudan, though nobody seems to be sure);...it's not closely related to any other birds...Virtually everyone who has ever seen a Shoebill went to Uganda to see it, and virtually everyone who has seen one in Uganda found it at Mabamba Swamp, where there are an estimated eight adult birds. The swamp is weird enough...the solid-looking reeds and grasses are, in fact, floating on top of deep water. Narrow channels have been cut to allow canoe access..." Great writing and great information. 

Almost ten years after Strycker was at Mabamba Swamp (July 2025) I was there with Judy and my granddaughter in a wooden boat floating through the narrow channels cut through the reeds and grasses, also looking for a shoebill. We came upon another boat watching one and were then joined by several other boats that also came to watch. We probably watched it for 30 minutes, way too long because it hardly moved. This series of photos captures about all of the movement made by the shoebill while we watched, and most of that movement was made by my camera, lengthening and shortening the lens. 

Well, that's about all the excitement I'm sure you can handle for the day, so we'll move on. 

Shoebill illustration from Birds of the World, including the illustration of the head below. 

Shoebill range from Birds of the World.

White-Faced Whistling Duck

I previously did a post (on July 4, 2018) on white faced whistling ducks we saw in Botswana. This past July, while taking a wood motor boat in the Mabamba Swamp on Lake Victoria near Entebbe, Uganda, we got close looks of the same bird which I'm going to share. They are a really beautiful. 

Illlustrations of the white-faced whistling duck (this and next) from Birds of the World. 

Range of the white-faced whistling duck from Birds of the World.