100 Up!

At the end of September I had 97 bird species for the house survey point (a 500 m circle).  I was well into the nervous 90s.  What would bring up the ton?  Hopefully nothing really common.  I wanted a 'tick' - something I'd never seen before. 
98 turned up on on the 4th October - several Western Cattle Egrets with cattle grazing within the 500 m circle down the hill a bit from the house - boring! 

99 appeared the next day in the form of two European Bee-eaters just arrived to escape the European winter - much better!

On the morning of the 7th I went into the backyard and saw an odd looking bird fly into the neighbour's avocado tree.  It was clearly a shrike but not the Common Fiscal we see here every day or the Grey-backed Fiscal we have elsewhere in the district.  It was quite small and pale greyish.  Fortunately it stayed for an hour or so and allowed me to identify is as an immature Lesser Grey Shrike.  This is another migrant to Africa from Europe and had probably just arrived.  It ate a few of our local bugs and then moved on.

Lesser Grey Shrike (apologies to the unknown photographer)

 
Life and lists go on … 101 tuned up the same afternoon - a Black-necked Weaver.  I think one or two of these have been around for a little while but I hadn't been able to identify them until now.

My similar list for home in Hamilton, Australia is 85 after 25 years - an indication of the amazing birdlife of Tanzania.

Wednesday 13 October, Bukoba