Crake hunting

Today I went back to the site just north of Juba where I'd flushed an African Crake a few weeks ago.  This time I struck lucky, flushing three birds.  This does suggest they are breeding.  The habitat looks fine. The only photos of the birds are blurrs, so not reproduced here.

African Crake habitat north of Juba

Other highlights included lots of Fan-tailed Widowbirds coming into breeding plumage.  This species inhabits marshy grassland.  Northern Red Bishops are still roving in large feeding flocks though some males are holding territory.

Fan-tailed Widowbirds

Eastern Paradise-Whydahs have arrived in numbers, with several flocks seen. The males are in advanced moult or in full breeding plumage. 

Eastern Paradise-Whydah

Whilst looking at them, I found several Chestnut Sparrows and, very surprisingly, what appear to be two female Straw-tailed Whydahs, a species which is described by Nikolaus (Birds of South Sudan) as occuring in semi-arid acacia savanna east of Torit. [EDIT: correction - these are actually Red-billed Queleas, which I've seen here before].

Chestnut Sparrow

Red-billed Queleas

Other birds included a confiding singing male Croaking Cisticola, some Helmeted Guineafowl, an African Spoonbill perched atop a large tree (its favoured marsh was full of people fishing), a Hamerkop feeding on small fish, and a Greater Painted-snipe.

Croaking Cisticola

Helmeted Guineafowl

African Spoonbill

Hamerkop

Male Greater Painted-snipe (unusually for birds, the male has a much duller plumage than the female)

There was also a beautiful Dark Chanting-Goshawk with the trademark reddish cere, but also another Chanting-Goshawk with a yellowish cere.  It was tempting to call this an Eastern Chanting-Goshawk, which would be a new species for South Sudan I believe, but it is more likely a sub-adult Dark C-G.

Adult Dark Chanting-Goshawk

Sub-adult Dark Chanting-Goshawk?

Lastly, some coucals.  I saw another problem bird, though it should be easy.  The coucal below looked quite small, so should be Senegal Coucal, but I'm reluctant to rule out Blue-headed Coucal, which Nikolaus considers to be commoner in this area.

Senegal or Blue-headed Coucal

By contrast, Black Coucals, which I'm now seeing in most marshland, are easy to identify.

Black Coucal