Tanzania - overwhelming number of birds that all look similar (1 Viewer)

[HinzundKunz]

Hello everybody.

I live on a regenerative farm, and we have around one hundred bird species here. Thousands of birds really. There are over 500 species in the wider area. A lot of them look pretty similar, like all the cisticolas, female weavers, prinias, female indigobirds etc.

I have been birdwatching for about a year now, but I still struggle with all those similar birds. Any tips on how I might improve this? Many birds here are very elusive as well, as they are hunted (and eaten) just outside our farm. So I often only see them from far away, or they fly away as soon as I try to watch them through my binoculars. So I only get to see them for a very short time.

Thanks a lot for any help!

 

[MelospizaMelodiaFan]

Photography has helped me identify species I am new to. Be careful, because it can get expensive.

 

[tconzemi]

Don't forget to leran calls and songs, many cisticolas are easy by voice but difficult with binos
you can find all calls and songs here xeno-canto :: Sharing wildlife sounds from around the world

 

[DMW]

As I suggested in your previous thread, buy the regional field guide (Stephenson & Fanshawe) and keep studying it. Learning to identify birds is an iterative process and there's no magic wand. Some bird groups are simply difficult - female weavers, female sunbirds, pipits, non-breeding plumage widow birds, whydahs etc are notoriously hard.

Other groups are difficult on plumage but often easy by song or call (cisticolas, Prinia for example), and as tconzemi says, xenocanto is an excellent resource here. I'm not sure how good Merlin is for coverage of calls and songs in the region, but worth checking this too.

 

[HinzundKunz]

Merlin is quite good with songs, but not as extensive as xenocanto. All the songs on merlin are high quality, but it doesn't have the variety as xenocanto or macaulay.

 

[Butty]

Thing is... Many of Africa's best and most-dedicated birders find cisticolas, pipits, out-of-plumage weavers and widowirds, etc, to be an extreme challenge. So one perfectly-valid option is to ignore them and concentrate on more-identifiable birds that give you a better relative return in terms of enjoyment compared with the time/effort you put in on them.
A book that directly addresses your ID issue is

LBJs Book

Available in hard copy. Click here to buy your book. Available as a pdf ebook. Click here to download your copy. Back in stock as of March 2021!

faansiepeacock.com

- southern rather than East Africa, but many of the species will be the same. I've not used it in the field myself but it seems excellent.

 

[HinzundKunz]

Thank you, at least I now know that I'm not alone... ;-)
Cisticolas, weavers and widobirds are abundant here. Maybe pipits as well, but how would I know... ;-)
As for cisticolas, the only one I have been able to identify is the rattling cisticola. As for weavers, it's viteline masked, golden backed and black-necked weaver that I've seen. The only widowbird I've seen so far is the southern red bishop. But we have pin-tailed wydah and eastern paradise wydah, who took me a while as well to be able to differentiate (I know, they're pretty obvious for a seasoned birder...)
And we have seedeaters as well, but I don't know yet which one(s).

 

[Jim M.]

1. Birds of East Africa (Stevenson/Fanshawe) also comes in an app form for Android and Apple devices; the app includes most of the calls and songs.

2. Some weavers, widowbirds, whydahs, bishops, etc. can be most reliably and easily identified by looking at males in breeding season. Even seasoned birders often record females or non-breeding birds as, e.g., Euplectes sp.

 

[HinzundKunz]

So the short answer is: stick to it, and you will learn with time; and there is always birds that are difficult to identify. ;-)

What I really like about our farm is that the birds keep on increasing both in numbers and in species. Right now, I can see more and more brown crowned tchagras around, as well as black-backed puffbacks. I also recently found some birds that look similar to a robin chat (like white-browed robin chat, but they have duller colors, so I don't know yet what they are. I also haven't heard any song from them yet. And, the spotted morning thrushes keep on imitating so many songs anyway; half the time I think I hear a dideric cuckoo, it turns out to be a morning thrush... ;-)

 

[Larry Sweetland]

Also bear in mind that unless things have changed with a later edition, the range maps in the Stevenson Fanshshawe field guide for East Africa are very inaccurate for many species for some areas of Tanzania, eg around Mwanza, where you will commonly encounter some species that the field guide would suggest are absent. So this may be the case for you depending on the location of your farm.

 

[tconzemi]

Also bear in mind that unless things have changed with a later edition, the range maps in the Stevenson Fanshshawe field guide for East Africa are very inaccurate for many species for some areas of Tanzania, eg around Mwanza, where you will commonly encounter some species that the field guide would suggest are absent. So this may be the case for you depending on the location of your farm.

Agreed, therefore use this source: TBA Start
science in progress

 

[jurek]

Birds which look similar usually sort themselves by habitat, voice and locality. Try on e-bird a barchart, and see which birds are commonest. Learn these.

Especially, on a farmland, there is usually a small selection of birds which are adaptable to human habitat. It is likely that e.g. of many similar weavers, you have only 1 or 2 on your farm.

 

[SteveClark]

I'm not sure where you are exactly. I lived in Bukoba and Arusha until recently. I found local birders to go bush with and we learned together. In Arusha there are many local birders. Mostly young folk and they've are extremely enthusiastic. Join the Birding Tanzania Facebook group and you will find local birders. The distribution maps at Tanzania Bird Atlas are excellent. Neil Baker is the force behind the Atlas. He is on the Facebook group and if you are in a poorly birded area of the country he will be excited to receive your sightings and will be very helpful generally.

 

[01101001]

Just curious, why is every bird's range measured in 'Virgin Yellow-vented Bulbul squares'? Also, how is it possible that some birds (e.g. Shoebill or Yellow-vented Bulbul) occur 13 months a year in certain circumstances (the last one is called 'month 13')? (And many of the maps were last updated more than a decade ago.)

EDIT: And what is the database they refer to (said to contain millions of records).

 

[SteveClark]

The Atlas project has been running for decades. Its database contains millions of records. At the moment Neil is preparing it for publication so atlas maps on Tanzania Bird Atlas are not as up to date as the database. Neil often posts up to date maps on the Facebook group however.

The Yellow-vented (aka Dark-capped) Bulbul is considered a possibility in every square so it gives an indication of birding effort in each square. Virgin squares are those where the Bulbul has not been recorded. Single YvB month squares are those when the Bulbul has only been recorded in one month.

I think month 13 is used when the month of the sighting is not known. This would probably be mainly historical records.

Coincidentally, Neil posted the latest Bulbul map today. Its a Georeferenced map rather than a month map so more accurately represents the database. There is now only one virgin square.

 

[MacNara]

The Atlas project has been running for decades. Its database contains millions of records. At the moment Neil is preparing it for publication so atlas maps on Tanzania Bird Atlas are not as up to date as the database. Neil often posts up to date maps on the Facebook group however.

In 2016 I visited Tanzania. Asking for help for some IDs Tib78 mentioned this Atlas Project. However, the site looked dead to me even then. I couldn't find any simple way to report a sighting. I'm surprised to find it is still an ongoing project.

I am not, and don't wish to be a member of Facebook; maybe the Facebook move is what made the site look dead. I'm also not on eBird or sites like that.

I was thinking (in 2016) of trying to report seeing Blue-spotted Wood Dove on the lakeside at Manyara in December (on the perfectly standard one afternoon tourist circuit around the lake from Manyara Serena). It doesn't seem to be reported for Manyara at all or in that broader area (square) for that month. But I couldn't work out how to do it, and anyway the site, as I said, seemed to be frozen or dead. I looked today, and the Blue-spotted Wood Dove situation seems to be the same as it was then. I have clear photos, and in a sequence of a few hundred which would guarantee the location.

Any thoughts?

 

[tconzemi]

I was thinking (in 2016) of trying to report seeing Blue-spotted Wood Dove on the lakeside at Manyara in December (on the perfectly standard one afternoon tourist circuit around the lake from Manyara Serena). It doesn't seem to be reported for Manyara at all or in that broader area (square) for that month. But I couldn't work out how to do it, and anyway the site, as I said, seemed to be frozen or dead. I looked today, and the Blue-spotted Wood Dove situation seems to be the same as it was then. I have clear photos, and in a sequence of a few hundred which would guarantee the location.

Any thoughts?

MacNara
Please simply send the observation (with coordinates) to Neil Baker [email protected]
That's how I do it (I am using Birdlasser and send excel files after my trip to Neil). He will be very happy to receive all your data, especially the exceptional ones but also the common ones, breeding records are most welcome, even for common species

 

[SteveClark]

There is a contact link at the top of the Atlas website with Neil Baker's postal and email addresses.

You can send Neil your sighting detail for the Blue-spotted Wood Dove via [email protected].

 

[MacNara]

Tom and Steve: I sent the sighting and got a friendly reply. Thanks to both of you.

 

[HinzundKunz]

Thank you all very much for your input, that is very helpful. I have joined the facebook group and visited the TBA website (it's not the most userfriendly one, but that's not a big deal).