African Birds Encountered – 2008

Cameras have come a long way since I took these photographs. I am amazed at how much better the quality of my photographs are with my new camera. But….I am infinitely grateful that the day before I left on my trip to Africa I purchased a new Canon and a telescopic lens specifically for this trip. I was reading the instructions on the flight over and literally learning on the “fly”. The telescopic lens tried valiantly to give me the close-ups I wanted, but the vastness of the African continent, the sheer size of it all, can dwarf an elephant and effectively hide a giraffe in plain view.

But here are a few of the birds I was lucky enough to see and capture on film even before I knew I was going to be a birdwatcher.

And the bird with which we spent most time interacting, was a very light wing bush puddle jumper that served us well throughout our entire adventure. Flying was never so much fun and being up in the air yet close to the earth, we had a bird’s-eye view of everything and it was magnificent.

Africa must be seen to be believed. I will be forever grateful that I had the opportunity to visit this continent and to observe nature at its finest!  Happy bird searching!!!