There is a plethora of birds in Uganda which boasts over 1,000 species. If you’ve recently developed an interest in birds and their bird calls, you will know the great difficulty of searching the web for a bird name when all you have is its call.

I have a voice recording of my sister and I imitating the sound of a particular bird which we wanted to check with others to see if they might know the name of the bird. Getting the family involved, no one knew the name, so we did the next logical thing and went online. On the web, we discovered a page of tropical birds listed by name, scientific name, recording of the song, the works ... we digressed and sang our way through this new information.

Our bird song had been heard in a non-tropical part of the world, on a different continent to the list we consulted, and anyway, the sounds we made are likely not to have been recognized by the bird which we were looking for. Having temporarily put on hold the attachment to bird calls, being in Uganda, it is now the plumage on display that amazes the senses. The Malachite kingfisher photographed has a rather shrill sounding call; you’ll be pleased to know that there is a recording on the web of this beautifully colored bird.