Langata Nature Centre, Nairobi, Kenya
Variable Sunbird (male, left, and female, right)
Going off on a bit of a tangent, which regular readers have probably come to expect by now, one of the predominant bird sounds here is the very odd call of the endemic and beautiful Hartlaub’s Touraco. It’s a very hard call to descibe, but if you’ve ever seen the film “Crocodile Dundee 2″ (stay with me - this will make sense) there’s a section where Mick “Crocodile” Dundee whirls a wooden blade on a long cord around his head to contact his aboriginal buddies: he calls it the “bush telephone”. This “instrument” makes an unwordly “skwaww, skwaww” sound that echoes across the Northern Australian plains - and sounds like a |
