Common Scimitarbill

Description:

This is a common resudent bird of Southern Africa and beyond, and can be found up to eastern Africa. It is roughly the size of Hoopoe (or a pigeon), but it is much smaller and lighter, since the half of its length is that beautiful long tail. Sexes are alike, these are all black birds, wing spectacular white patches on tail and wings - these patches are only visible in flight. The signmark helping the ID is the long, narrow and curved, really scimitar-like and black, bill. You can't miss the ID if you see that bill... ... ... Now, when I say you can't miss it - I actually did miss it that day, which is the reason I got only one good pic. The birds were in their feeding frenzy, while me, I was in my shooting frenzy and mistook these two for Pale-winged starlings - and paid them only a two-three courtesy shots (starlings are everywhere) without much interest. My surprise was really huge when I saw pics on a larger screen, and realised that my ubiquitous starlings were actually something else, and a lifer for me. In the end, I was lucky that at least one shot came through relatively clear - but will probably end up checking my eyes soon...

Habitat:

Here observed during a dinner frenzy - we went to a nearby forest, or better said, open woodland - birds were feeding everywhere, hardly paying attention to us. Seen in Kunene region of Namibia (northwest), around Sesfontein town, in arid open acacia tree-and-shrub landscape. Very dry (but still magnificent and rich in wildlife) at the moment, following a three-year dry-spell.

Notes:

There is still some confusion and ongoing discussion about the taxonomic place of members of this group. Most of the time, Hoopoes, Scimitar-bills and Wood-hoopoes are lumped together with hornbills under order Bucerotiformes. Moreover, under this system, Scimitarbills are lumped together with Wood-hoopoes in the family Phoeniculidae. However, in a newer classification based on DNA, a separate order, Upupiformes, was created. This order includes three families, hoopoes (fam Upupidae), wood-hoopoes (fam Phoeniculidae ) and Scimitar-bills (fam Rhinopomastidae).