Blue-headed Tree Agama

Blue-headed Tree Agama Acanthocercus atricollis

Lake Ziway, Ethiopia

12 January 2014

     While my primary focus is birds, I am very happy to see other organisms too, and reptiles in tropical areas always seem to have a special appeal. This Blue-headed Tree Agama was sunning itself in the open, dangerously exposed to aerial predation it seemed to me - but I was happy that it posed for a photograph!

African Fish Eagle

African Fish Eagle Haliaeetus vocifer

Lake Ziway, Ethiopia

12 January 2014

     African Fish Eagle is quite common throughout much of the African continent and its piercing call is a familiar sound around most lakes and rivers. While its primary diet is fish, either caught or scavenged, it is an opportunistic feeder and does not hesitate to take advantage of other ready sources of food. 

Marabou Stork - Only a Mother Could Love One!

Marabou Stork Leptopilos crumenifer

Lakes Ziway and Awassa, Ethiopia

12 January 2014

    Marabou Stork is a strange and fearsome-looking creature indeed. It looks as though it was put together by someone with a malevolent streak. Neither its appearance, nor its behaviour, do much to endear it to humans, but it fills its niche in nature with finessse and expertise, and being pleasing to our eyes is hardly part of its role. Where it surpasses all of our expectations is when it takes to the air revealing itself to be a graceful and consummate flier.

Male and female

Female

With Africa Sacred Ibis Threskiornis aethiopicus

Waiting for fish scraps

Ever the Opportunist