A few birds from Katuuso Primary School

No proper birding of late but I’m always looking of course.

Katuuso school is so quiet at the moment that I can hear interesting calls.  Yesterday I was attracted out of the office by a ‘different’ Starling call.  The standard Starling here is the Splendid and they have easy to recognize calls and pale yellow eyes.  I managed to chase two Starlings away but a third lingered long enough for me to see a glossy starling with deep orange-red eyes and to get a couple of photos.  

The field guide app I have showed no Starling with such eyes but the only possibilities were Greater Blue-eared, Purple or Bronze-tailed.  My photos weren’t showing much of the bird’s body so subtle differences in tail and belly colouration weren’t any help.  A Google image search for each species leads me to the conclusion that my bird was a Bronze-tailed Starling but I can't rule out Greater Blue-eared.  Here is the bird in question compared with a Splendid Starling taken nearby today:

Bronze-tailed Starling or Greater Blue-eared Starling?

Splendid Starling

This morning I wandered to the same area to see if I could find the birds again.  No luck but I kept walking and eventually found some remnant forest trees amid vegetable/banana plots that held some interesting birds.  I was able to add African Blue Flycatcher, Violet-backed Starling, Olive-bellied Sunbird, Woodland Kingfisher, Grey Parrot, White-headed Saw-wing, Little Greenbul and Tree Pipit to the school list and managed to get a few decent photos of some.  I’m (almost) particularly pleased with the Sunbird.  It would have been easily the best Sunbird photo I’ve taken - if only it’s head and bill were fully in shot!

So here are some birds I've seen and photographed in the last week - mostly today - and all at Katuuso PS.

Olive-bellied Sunbird

Violet-backed Starling

Northern Grey-headed Sparrow

Crowned Hornbill

Red-billed Firefinch

Great Blue Turaco

Tree Pipit

White-shouldered Black Tit