Happy Easter!

The skies were grey again this morning, but at least it wasn’t raining. The most interesting sight today was this red-breasted merganser drake on the pond.

He even caught himself a goldfish for breakfast.

Since we’re all here, let me show you a bit more of the sights from Malawi. After staying one night at the house in Lilongwe, which featured the birds I showed you yesterday and the first day, we all traveled to the Nkotakhota Wildlife Reserve to stay at the Tongole Wilderness Lodge on the Bua River. On the one hand, it offered the possibility of seeing elephants and hippos, which would be super cool, but on the other hand, we couldn’t explore on our own, as we could at Dzalanyama Forest Reserve last October, because of the possibility of encountering elephants and hippos. I did the best I could.

Things did get off to a good start when I spotted this Arnot’s chat (Myrmecocichla arnotti) right at the entrance gate. It is a completely new bird for me.

I didn’t see anything else that first day, but when I got up in the morning, I could hear some loud bird(s) making a ruckus. I eventually found the source on the other side of the river. It was these five hamerkops (Scopus umbretta). Here’s a video of just one “talking”.

Later in the trip, I was finally able to get a nice closeup of one. Oddly enough, they are the only living species in their genus, and that genus is the only genus in the family Scopidae. You have to go all the way up to the order Pelecaniformes to find any of their relatives.

Also interesting, at least to me, is that they construct enormous nests, “up to 6.5 feet wide, 6.5 feet deep and over 100 pounds“. Here’s a picture of one I saw in Uganda back in 2017. You can just make out one of the nearly-two-feet-tall and 1-pound birds working on the opening near the top. “Dude, that’s big enough!”

Despite the limitations on exploring, I did see more there than I want to cram into this post, so let me wrap up with a couple of the amazing butterflies I saw there.

This first one appears to be a common joker (Byblia anvatara). Pretty snazzy, if you ask me.

Finally, this second one appears to be a white pie (Tuxentius calice), and it was one of the smallest butterflies I have ever photographed.