MrKremerScience.com

Below is a list of the bird species I’ve encountered and been able to positively identify during some of my travels throughout Tanzania, Spain, Finland, the USA, Europe, and now Cambodia. I’m not an expert birder by any stretch of the imagination, but I do enjoy observing, identifying, and learning about the birds I see.

Until recently, I didn’t have a fancy camera with a zoom lens, so all identification was done in the field in real time using Bushnell 8×32 binoculars and my field guides. Now that I own a mirrorless DSLR and a telephoto zoom, I photograph birds in the wild and identify them once I get home.  I also use the Merlin Bird ID app for iOS by Cornell and the iNaturalist iOS app for cross-referencing. English common and Latin names provided here are based on the following field guides:

1. Birds of East Africa, by Terry Stevenson and John Fanshawe, Christopher Helm Publishing, 2013
2. Ber van Perlo’s A Field Guide to the Birds of East Africa, HarperCollins Publishers, 2009. It is my understanding that some of the names have changed since publication of van Perlo’s guide in 2009, so I have included the updated names from Stevenson and Fanshawe when possible.
3. Birds of Europe, 2nd ed., by Lars Svensson. Translated by David Christie and Lars Svensson. Princeton University Press, 2009.
4. Birds of South-East Asia, 2nd ed., by Craig Robson. Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2014.
5. The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America: Second Edition. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, 2016.

I’m learning that there is tremendous diversity in the bird life of SouthEast Asia. Almost every time I go birding for more than a few hours, I encounter at least one species I’ve never seen before. I’ve been lucky enough to see the endemic Cambodian Tailorbird (Orthotomus chaktomuk) a couple of times in my wanderings near Phnom Penh.

For additional information and resources regarding the wonderful bird life found in East AFrica, please consult Neil Baker’s superb Tanzania Bird Atlas as well as Tanzaniabirds.net. If you’ve got the time and a good ear, you can check out common bird songs from East Africa at the xeno-canto website, which is an immense database of recordings from all over the planet.