Silver Teal

Fairly small, slim, long-tailed hornbill. Note the red bill, dark eye, pale face, and heavily spotted back. White patches on the wing and outer tail are conspicuous in flight. Found in arid savanna, often in lusher woodland along dry riverbeds. Call is a series of clucks that starts with single notes, then becomes louder and more emphatic, with doubled notes. Has a small area of overlap with the very similar Southern Red-billed Hornbill in northern Namibia. Separated by the unstreaked white face and dark eye, though beware of hybrids. Somewhat like Monteiro’s Hornbill, but smaller and slimmer-billed, with bolder white spotting on the back.

An elongated matte-black bird with black legs and a slender, strongly-decurved black bill. Females and juveniles are browner on the front. In flight it has white tail tips and a single band of white towards the end of the wing. Avoids forest; singles or pairs are found in arid and broadleaved woodland, where they are found clambering around on trunks, probing for invertebrates, and often joining mixed-species flocks. It is most easily detected by its plaintive, whistled, three-noted “wheeep, wheeep, wheeep” call. The very similar Black Scimitarbill differs from tby having a shorter, less decurved bill and a shorter tail. Abyssinian Scimitarbill has an orange bill. Woodhoopoes are larger, with chunkier reddish bill, more social habits, and glossy iridescent plumage.

Large, mostly white stork with a distinctive yellow bill and bright red facial skin. It is more tied to wetland habitats than most other storks, and it forages with its bill partially submerged and open, stirring up prey in muddy pools with its feet. When it encounters prey it snaps its bill closed. It is a resident and partial migrant throughout its range, and although not particularly gregarious, it will congregate when food is abundant. The similar White Stork has a white (not black) tail, and it lacks the red facial skin and yellow bill of the Yellow-billed Stork.