Thursday 20 December 2012

Best of Uganda 2012 (Ugandan style)

Ugandan photographic safari

Was a great way to end the year on a high and what great guests we had this time. I was joined by my good friend and work colleague Tom Svensson a new Canon Ambassador  and deservedly so.

I met the guests (Thomas,Albert,Magnus,Julie,Emil and Daniel) at Entebbe airport late on the 1st of December to embark on our adventure together and we traveled to our first accommodation a short drive away.
as the flight arrived so late the next day was a rest day but there was no holding the guests back.

Day one

And we woke early to go on a birding day organised by our bird mad guest Thomas.
Our destination was Mabamba swamp in search of the elusive Shoebill stork!

Okay before we get into this please forgive the quality of some of the images they were taken on a small compact Nikon on auto so i could quickly capture the moments of the team  and are not intended to be award winning images ;)

Magnus taking an image of Tom and the birding guides working out the boat situation

Daniel and Magnus looking for one of the many malachite kingfishers in the reeds

Was a lovely day with just a few clouds and wonderful sunlight but many of us got sun burnt due to the intensity for the suns rays
 So we limited the boats to three photographers in two boats and two in the other so we could keep them stable and protect our expensive equipment!
but i must say they were surprisingly stable and not bad to photograph from.

Albert shooting geese with the canon whilst Julie and Emil take and more measured approach

balance! it is not easy standing in a thin rocking boat whilst looking through a small viewfinder eek

when we approached a bird the motors went off and the paddle was used to try and stalk our prey

Albert making good use of his new combo of 1Dx and 500mm f4 (not jealous at all!) These guys have the balance of gymnasts!

 Right so now we have a feel for what it was like to photograph from small boats in a swamp lets have a look at some of the birds we were lucky enough to see.
My only gripe and its shared by the group was that the guides went a little to fast and we missed some opportunities as it is hard to reverse a boat.
But still was well worth it.

There was more Malachite kingfishers than i have ever seen! it was seriously every 20 meters or so that we came across one.

They are so beautiful with amazingly vivid colors if only the boat driver would have gone slower so we could spend more time with a individual bird.

Some kind of duck species of which i am not sure yet but i will find out and put the name up  but they were lots of them as well

African Jacana doing what it does best trotting on lilies.

Again some small brown bird probably a reed warbler or swamp warbler but never fear we have our resident birder Thomas to help me identify all the species and the correct name will be put up soon (i am a bird of prey specialist these LBJ's just confuse me haha)

White pelican having a bath

what a handsome bird he is

Not an easy image to capture from a moving boat but i did manage this one sharp image of a Malachite taking off to its next perch

I know i know it is a terrible picture but the best i could do with my 300mm lens you would have needed a 800mm for this guy as he was very shy but still nice to see
After the trip we had a short birding walk and saw some cool species like the greater blue turaco which i will show images of from our trip to the Botanical gardens in the evening.

On our way back we even found some birds in the middle of a busy market!
Nest of black headed herons chicks looking at the moon

the black and white casqued billed hornbill a wonderful bird!
This was the end of our morning exursion to Mabamba swamp and we settled down for a relaxing lunch before work was passed round to go birding at the Botanical gardens.
Thomas,Daniel, Magnus and myself where the only ones with the energy for more birding and we set off leaving the other to recover from the flight.

The Botanical gardens are beautiful with a huge variety of interesting trees providing the ideal habitat for birds and monkeys.
Our hunt for the birds didn't last long as we found about 15 greater blue turaco's fighting in some nearby trees

This is my first time to see these birds so good and they are simply amazing and really big! i love the silly hair do

they are not the best or most graceful fliers but still put on a noisy display for us hopping around the branches chasing each other

Flying straight over me i nearly fell over backwards to get this shot

Just a bit of feather pulling but nothing serious

Flying high they look really goofy when they fly

Okay the last flight shot of the Turaco's

Okay enough of the Turaco's here is some other birds we saw

After the Palm nut vulture landed an African march harrier didn't like its presence so attempted to scare off the vulture but he was not budging for anyone

Once the Harrier had given up a brave Hammerkop decided to have a go at dethroning the Vulture

But nerves got the better of the Hammerkop and even the vulture turning around was enough to scare the 'pijebus' out of him
 Right lets move on to the shore now and have a look at some birds found on the shores of lake Victoria
(Africa's largest lake and the second largest lake in the world after the arrogantly named Lake superior in USA )

Never seen so many pied kingfishers this is just one of many bushes full of these cool little guys, got to feel sorry for all the small fish

Some small weaver with a insect that it caught off the water surface

flocks of black winged stilts flit around the shores of the lake

on the way back we found this dragonfly on a nail and thought it was a good subject to play with Depth of field.


And that was the end of our first exciting day in Uganda!






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