Well, the rain did stop eventually, and the temperatures remain mild, for now, but the skies are still dark this morning, and I had a helper along with short legs who didn’t want to explore farther than the pond this time.

We did, however, spot this male belted kingfisher perched over the pond before some nice fall foliage, …

And this male wood duck stretching a wing just above the water.

But then we had to head back home, which gives me the opportunity to show you some of the insects Anne and I saw in Dzalanyama Forest Reserve of Malawi. This first beauty is a gaudy commodore butterfly (Precis octavia).

Besides butterflies, there were a few dragonflies, and this stunner appears to be a common tiger or common tigertail (Ictinogomphus ferox), a clubtail in the Gomphidae family.

This next darling butterfly, a Lang’s short-tailed blue or common zebra blue (Leptotes pirithous), was tiny and perched on a stick lying on the ground just outside our cabin door.

On the day we hiked to a highpoint to peer into Mozambique, I noticed a piece of straw on the ground moving oddly, and that’s because it was actually an African stick mantis (Hoplocorypha macra), instead.

On the day we hiked along the stream, we kept seeing this one type of butterfly, who turned out to be of the species serene sailer or river sailer (Neptis serena), and who absolutely refused to let me get a picture. At one point, after several failed attempts, Anne asked how I ever got butterfly pictures at all. Anyway, when I went back early the next morning, this particular specimen was more interestied in warming up in the sun than in evading my camera, so here we are.

I would have never spotted this next spectacular creature if I hadn’t noticed it flying in for a landing. I can’t get an exact ID, but it was pretty big, and it appears to be an antlion, possibly in the Palpares genus.

Lastly, we saw several striking orange/tan butterflies on our hikes, and this one appears to be a darker commodore (Precis antilope)

Well, the forecast calls some clearer, if cooler, skies, so keep your fingers crossed for some sun tomorrow morning.

The forecast is for rain all morning tomorrow (today when you are reading this), so I finally have an opportunity to show you the last of my trip pictures. When Anne was searching for flights from Malawai, where we had been for her research, to Delft, where I was going to a conference, they all seemed to go through Nampula, in northeastern Mozambique, so we decided to pop in for a visit to check it out.

Now, Nampula didn’t strike us as much of a tourist destination, but the nearby Island of Mozambique on the other hand, a certified UNESCO World Heritage Site, was another matter. One notable building on the island is the Chapel of Nossa Senhora de Baluarte, which was “built by the Portuguese in 1522″, and is now “considered to be the oldest European building in the southern hemisphere!”

Anyway, the island is “now entirely urbanised,” so the wildlife there has adapted to live near humans, and this is who we saw. One of the most common creatures was the pied crow, same as we saw in Malawi.

There were also plenty of slightly-smaller house crows aka Indian, greynecked, Ceylon, or Colombo crows (Corvus splendens), which I have glimpsed before I started this project, but which is a new bird for us.

I also saw my very first cattle egret (Bubulcus ibis), despite the fact that Estabrook Park appears to be in their breeding range. Perhaps we don’t have enough cattle, with whom I read they “maintain a special relationship”, in the park to attract them.

Given the relative proximity to Lilongwe, we shouldn’t be too surprised to see a blue waxbill as well.

Even though the island is urbanized, it is an island in the Indian Ocean, after all, so some shorebirds might be expected, and here’s a common sandpiper, which we last saw in the Sečovlje Saltpans of Slovenia.

On our last evening on the island, I finally came down with something, probably from the ice in the caipirinha I ill-advisedly enjoyed over dinner, and I was laying low the next morning. That was until Anne came back from her walk all excited about an egret she had seen foraging on the mud exposed by low tide. As the trooper that I like to imagine that I am, I dutifully strapped on my camera and headed out with her to find a slew of little egrets, which we also first saw in Slovenia, but in less-fancy plumage this time.

But there was something else out there, and it kept pretty far from dry land, so it was hard to get a good look at it. At first I thought it was a eurasian curlew, whom we last saw in South Holland, but upon closer inspection, that pretty-clearly “striped crown” marks it as a Eurasian or common whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus) instead, a species I have not seen before. Woo Hoo! Thanks, Mozambique, and thanks, Anne!

Finally, it should come as no surprise that “the most widely distributed wild bird,” which is also “strongly associated with human habitation,” would be found in such a location, and sure enough, here’s a house sparrow.

Back in Estabrook Park, the forecast is mixed for Friday morning, so let’s hope it clears up enough for me to go get some more pictures.

I got off to a slow start in Estabrook Park this morning. It wasn’t raining very hard, but if I get any drops on my lens, I’m pretty much done for the day, so I waited out the precipitation. When I finally did venture in, I was happy to find plenty of critters still out and about. Perhaps they had waited out the rain as well and were busy making up for lost time.

I was particularly surprised to find this young male yellow-bellied sapsucker on the east side of the pond so late in the season. I expected that they had all already flown south, but I underestimated this procrastinator.

There are also still wood ducks on the pond, and here’s a pair already taking their morning nap.

There was a flock of hungry cedar waxwings around, which is always a treat, and here’s one scarfing down berries on the west side of the pond.

I eventually headed to the river, and I was greeted by this young and curious red squirrel beside the water.

A bit farther north, something spooked this young white-tailed buck on the southern island, and then the poor thing got photobombed by a great blue heron. He’s having a rough morning.

At the north end, another merlin was perched high above the northern island. Perhaps it is one of the pair from yesterday.

There was a big fish, probably chinook salmon, breaking the surface of the shallow river water.

On my way back south, I came across this dark-eyed junco on the side of the bluff coming down from the beer garden.

Just a bit farther south, this ruby-crowned kinglet was foraging in a willow tree right along the river.

I normally don’t take a lot of eastern gray squirrel pictures, but this one munching on a nut really dared me to.

Finally, here’s another hermit thrush, but this one was really doing its best to show off its distinctive cinnamon tail.

It was an odd morning in Estabrook Park. It was warmer than yesterday, but even darker, and breezy in unprotected areas. I did see most of the regulars, but nobody looked particularly photogenic today, I hadn’t seen any surprise guests, and I hadn’t even taken one picture by the time I started my way back south from the far north end.

Then I heard a high-pitched call that sounded like maybe a raptor. Despite being a little pressed for time at that point, I was also desperate for something to show you, so I headed back north to a spot I knew would give me a good view of the northern island, and that’s when I spotted this beauty. For those of you who don’t recognize it, this is a bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). Woo Hoo! They’ve become more common lately, and I read we even had three fledglings in Milwaukee County this year, but spotting them is still always a pleasure.

Then, farther south, I took the last stairway up the bluff from the path along the river, and I couldn’t believe my luck when I spotted this little cutie almost right overhead. That prominent white eyebrow marks this as a merlin (Falco columbarius), and we’re in their migration territory, so we don’t get to see them too often.

Best of all, while I was taking this picture, I could hear a call from another bird nearby! Right across the parkway, there was a second merlin similarly perched in the top of another tree, and I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve ever seen two of them together. Sweet!

And that’s it for Estabrook Park this morning, so since I have plenty of room left in this post, here are a couple more pictures from Malawi. First, a couple more agama lizards.

Finally, a couple more vervet monkeys.

Anne and I are back from our travels, and I still have some pictures from the trip, but I was anxious to check on our friends in Estabrook Park this morning, so I’ll keep the rest of the trip pictures in my back pocket for one of the rainy days in our forecast.

The sun was slow to shine this morning, and streetlights were still on well after sunrise, but this goldfinch busily feasting on cedar seeds by the soccer fields helpfully held still long enough for my camera to capture an image.

Just a bit farther north, I could hear a trio of cardinals chirping to each other, and one happened to perch out in the open so we could have a look.

On the pond, there was a trio of wood ducks preening and resting, …

a great blue heron skulking along the far shore, …

a bold female mallard dabbling along the near shore, …

and a couple dozen Canada geese, of which these sixteen did a nice job of lining up with the fall foliage over the island.

At the north end, a Cooper’s hawk perched in one tree over the northern island in the river, and the sun snuck through the clouds for a moment, …

while a peregrine falcon perched in another, and the clouds had already plugged that hole.

Finally, a recently-arrived hermit thrush was perhaps digesting a belly full of breakfast, or just taking a breather, before continuing a bit farther south to its wintering grounds.

On our last morning at the preserve, I got up at sunrise again to go see who I could find. One simple technique I have often used to spot birds is to look for big dark spots in trees, but that had been oddly unfruitful for me on this trip, until the last morning. This first large dark spot, at the very top of a tree across the small valley that the stream had carved, is a broad-billed roller aka cinnamon roller (Eurystomus glaucurus).

I read that they “are known as rollers because of the aerial acrobatics some of these birds perform during courtship or territorial flights. Rollers resemble crows in size and build and share the colorful appearance of kingfishers and bee-eaters.”

Even better than one dark spot that finally turned out to be a bird, another dark spot soon arrived, and this one turned out to be a ring-necked dove aka Cape turtle dove or half-collared dove (Streptopelia capicola),

As time for breakfast approached and I headed back toward the lodge, I spotted this white-breasted cuckooshrike (Ceblepyris pectoralis). Despite the name, I read that “cuckooshrikes are not closely related to either the cuckoos or to the shrikes.” Instead, “the name probably comes from the grey color of many of the cuckooshrikes.”

Right after the cuckooshrike, another bird swooped in, and this one is a black-headed oriole (Oriolus larvatus). Man, I was on a roll. That’s four new birds in about 90 minutes. Sweet!

Finally, as I approached the lodge, where Anne was already enjoying her cup of tea, I spotted this stunner, an amethyst sunbird, aka black sunbird (Chalcomitra amethystina). I had actually glimpsed one two days before, but the pictures were just too rough to publish. The picture below is still not quite what I would call a portrait, but you can at least make out a little violet patch on its shoulder.

And that finally wraps up the birds of Malawi, but wait, there were other creatures to see as well. One morning as we set out on our hike after breakfast, a troop of vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus) came through. At first, the scouts were very shy, but when the boss showed up and took a seat on the ground to calmly munch on fallen fruit, …

several others soon joined him.

Meanwhile, another common ground dweller was the common agama, red-headed rock agama or rainbow agama (Agama agama). Here’s a “dominant male” with his bright orange head and wonderfully-contrasting bright blue body, …

and here’s a “female, adolescent, or subordinate male” in far better camouflage.

Here’s another shy little bird I found in the trees and bushes growing along the stream, and it is a southern yellow white-eye (Zosterops anderssoni).

Near the white-eye, I got as close to a sunbird, a female double-collared sunbird this time, as I believe I ever managed.

Atop the small bluff above the stream, I thought I had finally found a woodpecker, but this dashing figure turns out to be a green wood hoopoe, formerly known as a red-billed wood hoopoe (Phoeniculus purpureus). I read that “they climb tree trunks in the manner of a woodpecker,” so I don’t feel so bad about mistaking it for one, “and when feeding on the ground they hop rather than walking like the true hoopoe,” such as the Eurasian hoopoes we saw in Lilongwe.

One afternoon, Anne and I hiked to a highpoint, from which we could see Lilongwe in the distance to the northeast and Mozambique only a few kilometers away to the west. While there, a small flock of these hungry little birds, bronze mannikins or bronze munias (Spermestes cucullata), flew into the swaying treetops above us and really made me work for these pictures.

In this image you can better see the bicolored beak that helps distinguish it from the black-and-white mannikin.

After struggling with the mannikins, it was a joy to work with this darling Souza’s shrike (Lanius souzae), who was willing to sit for this portrait.

Okay, I’ve gotta stop here because the conference is finally over, and so Anne and I are going to visit Gouda for the day before we start our journey home tomorrow. Yes, I will be sure to sample the cheese.

I can’t get the wifi here today, so I’m typing this on my phone, and all typographical errors are solely the fault of my thumbs.

Anyway, here are a few more birds that Anne and I saw when we ventured deeper into the forest.

This first amazing bird is an African paradise flycatcher (Terpsiphone viridis), and I was only lucky enough to catch a glimpse of one just one time.

This Cabanis’s bunting (Emberiza cabanisi) might not be quite as flashy, but it was equally shy and elusive.

These violet-backed starlings aka plum-coloured starlings or amethyst starlings (Cinnyricinclus leucogaster), on the other hand, were plentiful along the stream, much bolder, and boardering on boisterous.

Here are a couple of close-ups of a male.

I think I have the energy to fight with wordpress and flickr on my phone for one more picture, so let’s wrap this post up with a southern double-collared sunbird or lesser double-collared sunbird (Cinnyris chalybeus) taking a pause between two blossom clumps of a lucky bean or flame tree (Erythrina abyssinica) from which it had just been feeding.

I read that “despite … similarities, sunbirds and hummingbirds are not very closely related. In fact, hummingbirds are more closely related to swifts and sunbirds are more closely related to crows — so the striking similarities between these two groups of tiny, colorful birds … evolved through convergent evolution. “

Okay, that’s all I can take for today. Let’s all hope I can find the wifi tomorrow and so use a real keyboard, mouse, and screen larger than an index card.

After Anne’s work was done in Lilongwe, we traveled to the nearby Dzalanyama Forest Reserve for a little R&R, and nearly as soon as we arrived, we were greeted by this amazing little red-throated twinspot aka Peters’s twinspot (Hypargos niveoguttatus) methodically foraging on the forest floor near our cabin. I was able to spot it in the same area nearly every day we were there, so it must be finding something.

Similarly, this sharp-looking white-browed robin-chat aka as Heuglin’s robin (Cossypha heuglini) was often foraging in the same area. I had spotted one several times in Lilongwe, but it had evaded my camera, so I was very happy to have another opportunity to make a portrait.

Our cabin was located at the top of a small bluff above a small and picturesque stream, which attracted a lot of birds, including this shy black-backed puffback (Dryoscopus cubla),

and this surprisingly bold mountain wagtail aka long-tailed wagtail or grey-backed wagtail,(Motacilla clara), which was the only bird I believe I ever saw actually at the water.

The stream, of course, was a great source for all manner of flying insects, and so we were treated to two different flycatchers. This first one is a grey tit-flycatcher (Fraseria plumbeus)

known for flicking and fanning its tail.

The second one is a similar-looking ashy flycatcher (Fraseria caerulescens)

who sang me the faintest little song instead.

Anne and I are now back in Delft for a bicycle conference, and my presentation is this afternoon, so I’ve gotta run, but I’ll have more pictures for you tomorrow from deeper into the amazing Dzalanyama Forest Preserve.

As amazing as it was to see the masked weaver I showed you yesterday, it wasn’t the only weaver to visit the guesthouse backyard in Lilongwe. I also spotted a Holub’s golden weaver (Ploceus xanthops), aka African golden weaver a couple of times, …

and this super shy spectacled weaver (Ploceus ocularis) just once and for only a moment.

Another shy visitor was this tropical boubou or bell shrike (Laniarius major) that I also only saw once.

In contrast, these gray-headed sparrows were quite common. I can’t quite be sure if they were northern (Passer griseus) or southern (Passer diffusus), and their ranges overlap in Malawi. Here’s one crowding a hoopoe.

Speaking of hoopoes, and while we’re still at the guesthouse backyard, here’s one more look at one.

And here’s another look at a pied crow who stopped in for a moment.

If you ever doubted that American robins were thrushes, here’s the missing link that should convince you. This Kurrichane thrush (Turdus libonyana) as a red breast almost like a robin, and “with a broad black moustache” like many thrushes, such as the hermit thrush we see in Estabrook Park.

I spotted this next bird on the morning we left the guesthouse, and it led me on quite a goose-chase in those bushes before I could get a decent picture. Once I had a good look, though, I could hardly believe my eyes. Say hello to a boisterous little black-throated wattle-eye (Platysteira peltata)

Here’s another look at that bright red wattle above its eye.

Finally, here’s a stunning scarlet-chested sunbird (Chalcomitra senegalensis) in the early morning light, who I am sure stopped in just for a second to wish us safe travels.