Beautiful Birds over here!

I will start off with a pair of Glossy Starlings on top of a pine tree.

The Glossy Starling usually nests in tree cavities and fence posts and they eat fruit, insects and nectar.
Although their habitat is riverine bush and wooded savannah in drier regions, they have now also invaded city suburbs in search of food. Their metallic colors change shades, as they move around in the sunlight!
Here is a collection of some of my vast collection of bird shots that I have taken over the last 3 years.
Let's have a look!

The Grey Lourie, also called the "Go away" bird by the locals due to the sound of its loud alarm calls "Kwee-h" sounds like it is screaming "Go-away" to intruders!

Here we have the "Grey Crowned Crane" and it frequents marshes, farm lands and moist grass lands. Whenever a few of them gather they put on a dance display which I am yet to get on video!

This is a colony of "Lesser Flamingos" and they breed in mud flats in saline pans. We have many of them in a pan near the Southern Whale watchers town of Hermanus in the Western Cape Province!

This big guy is an "African Spoonbill" and he wades in shallow inland waters spooning with his bill from side to side to catch crabs and fish.

The "Green Wood-hoopoe" is covered in glossy metallic colors with red legs and a red bill. They are very noisy birds that forages for insects under the bark of trees. A group of them together in a tree sounds like a party of drunk revelers!

And finally, my shot of the year! A "Spotted Eagle Eye" caught in broad daylight in a tree next to our cottage. This is one of the "Hu-hooo" guys that we heard every night and I managed to make a sound to get him to open his eyes in his slumber.

Note: I have posted some of the shots on my Facebook page before, a;; of the shots are unedited, apart from downsizing them for loading purposes and they are all my own shots!
Some information about the birds were taken from; "Roberts Bird Guide" by Hugh Chittenden.

We hope that you have enjoyed the pictures and thank you for visiting a post by @papilloncharity

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