tags: African Orange-bellied Parrot, African Red-bellied Parrot, Poicephalus rufiventris, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] African Red-bellied Parrot, Poicephalus rufiventris, photographed at the Pangani River Campground, Tanzania, Africa. This bird flew in with a few friends, hung around for only a minute, then went on. The Pangani River Campground is a wonderful rustic campground along the Pangani River, a couple hours south of Moshi. Fee is $5 per person per night. Lots of birds in the area, and Greater Galagos come out every night. They spent the night eating palm nuts and screaming at each other, all right above your tent! [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]
Image: Dan Logen, 7 January 2010 [larger view].
Nikon D300s, 600 mm lens, ISO 640, f/8, 1/1000 sec, Exposure compensation +0.7.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
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Nifty. I have no idea, but it's a great shot.
With only five species, Tanzania doesn't host a great diversity of parrots. This bird doesn't appear to be one of the commonly cultured psittacids - we're not looking at a Lovebird (Agapornis sp) or a Gray Parrot (Psittacus erithacus. This leaves us with two species of Poicephalus, only one of which, the African Orange-bellied Parrot (Poicephalus rufiventris), has solid brown wings as shown in this image.
The bright red eyes and green legs confirm Michael's conclusion.
Hey Michael,
I think you'll actually find that there are at least 11 species from the family Psittacidae that can be found in Tanzania- five are indeed lovebirds (Agapornis), the Gray you mentioned, as well as the Red-bellied (Poicephalus rufiventris), but there are also four more from that genus: the Brown-necked (Poicephalus robustus ), the Brown-headed (Poicephalus cryptoxanthus), the Red-fronted (Poicephalus gulielmi), and Meyer's (Poicephalus meyeri).
I think you are indeed correct with your id, the green "leggings" not necessarily a stand-alone field mark (others in the genus share green underparts) but the red iris certainly indicative of an adult Red-bellied although we can't see enough of the belly to determine if this is a male (orange belly) or a female (all green)... given the location, this is the nominate subspecies rufiventris found from central Ethiopia down to northern Tanzania.
Absolutely gorgeous specimen.
Definitely the African Red Bellied Parrot! Looks identical to mine! Only, its so beautiful to see them in the wild! :) I wasn't lucky enough to see this parrot while I was in tanzania.