Kenya - Beautiful Five: Lilac-breasted Rollers (and other birds)

The final creature on the Beautiful Five list is the lilac-breasted roller - it's a gorgeous bird, but I also thought I'd expand this post to include many birds we saw on safari. The lilac-breasted roller has a turquoise wing span that looks spectacular when spotted flying over the savanna! Please note that it is hard to get good photos of birds - especially in flight - but you can scroll through the ones I was able to capture. The lilac-breasted roller is the national bird of Kenya. You can learn more about it here https://animalia.bio/lilac-breasted-roller

The next bird may not have made any of the "five" lists, but it's the largest bird on earth - the ostrich! We saw ostrich in both Nairobi National Park and Masai Mara. In fact, in the Mara, I became attached to a group of 3 (2 male, 1 female) who were camped out near our camp. Our guide, Kifa, informed us that ostriches are not territorial, but these 3 were consistently in this one field near our camp all 4 days we drove around, so I named that stretch of dirt path, Ostrich Road - our last morning drive we almost didn't spot them on our way out of camp, but they didn't disappoint, they had just moved a bit down the hill. So, in my mind - that little piece of the earth will always be Ostrich Road to me!

Female ostriches are gray in color, and males are black - you'll easily spot the difference in my photos. We also learned that the pink flesh on males legs and neck turns bright red during mating season - we saw a few males in the Mara starting to darken up. We crossed paths with a few herds of the flightless birds on our drives, we also saw the occasional single ostrich and smaller groups of 3 as well. Their eyes are larger than their brains! You can learn more here https://animalia.bio/ostrich

We were fascinated by the Widowbirds - and didn't get a good photo or video despite seeing them everywhere! (there is one photo below) The males grow their tail feathers long during mating season and jump straight up in the grasses to attract females - we saw this all over the Mara, so I guess April is their mating season! They lose the long tail feathers after mating season - they weren't very aerodynamic, but definitely interesting to spot in the savanna. https://ebird.org/species/jacwid1

Another unique bird is the gold-crowned crane (should be obvious in photos). I will talk more about these birds once I get to the Rwanda part of our trip, but I did include a few photos of the cranes we spotted in the Mara - including a pair with the male doing a mating dance.

I almost forgot about the weaver birds - they are bright yellow birds and construct their nests as ball shaped baskets that hang on the end of branches. You can see a tree full of these nests in one of the photos.

We also saw hornbills (like Zazu), storks of different varieties, herons, and more. Starlings are a beautiful iridescent bird that were one of our faves. Jason became quite interested in the birds as our game drives progressed, and he has a couple apps on his phone that can identify bird songs, etc. Maybe he'll have some photos or songs to share

There are SO many birds in Kenya - we saw a whole room full of them in the Nairobi National Museum!

Tomorrow I'll introduce you to the Ugly Five...