Turacos in Africa

Turacos are birds unique to Africa, and most people have never seen them. Some live in forests and others in savannas. The ones living in forests are a beautiful green color, while those living in savannas are more subdued and monotone.

Except for a few species that live in the savanna, it is very difficult to see, much less photograph, a turaco. When I was in Kenya, I was not able to take even a single photo of a turaco that I could present to the public, and it was not until I came to Tanzania that I finally succeeded in taking a photo of a turaco that I could identify.

In addition to the ones pictured here, I have also seen and photographed two more species, but the images are so poor, so I won't post them here.

This is called Ross's Turaco. As you can see, it is in a wire fence. Unfortunately, I have not seen one in the wild yet. It is impossible to get this close to a wild one, so I have included it here as a sample of what it looks like.

This is a hard to recognize photo, but it is a Livingstone's Turaco, and was taken near Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. 300mm telephoto lens could only capture this much under cloudy skies and at a distance. It is a bird that is more like a forerunner green.

This is the picture I finally got of Hartlaub's Turaco that shows what is in the picture. It was taken in a forested area in Arusha National Park, Tanzania, using a 500mm zoom lens and a tripod. As you can notice, it is in the shade of a tree, which is very difficult to photograph because it is always in these places.

This photo shows the same Hartlaub's Turaco as above. I tried to capture the intense red color on the underside of the wing, and this is the result. The shutter speed is slow, so it is blurry. But I thought it would give you an idea of the kind of red color, so I decided to post it here.

This is a Bare-Faced Go-Away Bird, which belongs to the more subdued side of the spectrum, unlike the beautiful woodland variety. I think this was taken in Masai Mara, Kenya.

This is a White-Bellied Go-Away Bird and is the most common of the Turacos. They have a loud, strange call that they say sounds like "Go away!