Kenya has well over a thousand species of birds. We would awaken in the morning to their calls, and see them all day long in the air and on the ground.

This page has a few of the more interesting ones. At the end of the page we have a sequence of a martial eagle, the biggest in Africa, flying off its nest. This page also has a phenomonal set of photos where an eagle attacked a vulture in mid-air.

One of our goals is to teach photographers how to capture the colors some of these birds exhibit. Another goal is to practice shooting birds in flight (BIF), which is quite a challengedue to their speed and erratic movements. In addition to lots of practice, our equipment made a big difference here.

This is a yellow billed stork taken at Rokero camp just after lunch. He is looking for his lunch, and today’s menu happens to have a special on frogs.

A stork fishing for frogs in Kenya

A Secretary bird. It eats snakes and eats small mammals, large insects, lizards, and snakes. You oftentimes find them on the ground, although occasionally you will see them in a tree.

Lappet faced vulture. It is the largest vulture in Africa, and is the first one to arrive at the kill and open the carrion for other vultures.

A beautiful bird called a striped kingfisher

A colorful bird found throughout the Mara is this lilac-breasted roller

Its lots of fun trying to capture them in mid-flight when they dart all around

Male ostrich on the lookout for a mate

A female ostrich on the lookout for a free ride to visit a friend in Nairobi

A martial eagle, the largest in Africa, putting on a show for us. This is where the Canon 1D Mark III camera came in handy.

Vultures are good to practice your shooting technique on flying birds. They glide in slowly and do not have many erratic movements. This paid off big time for Peter when you see the next sequence of photos.

No biggie here, just a few photos of vultures gliding through the air so people can get a feel of shooting them in flight

Lots of practice, and being in the right place at the right time sometimes yields phenomenal results. Notice the bird in the background at the right of this lapet-faced vulture?
Can you guess what it is? At first glance we assumed it was a vulture also.

Its an tawny eagle

And it is literally attacking the vulture because the vulture got too close to its nest

Different day, different tawny, eating a breakfast of rabbit in the tree right above us