May 26 and 30, 2014.
Red-billed Queleas are small grain eating birds who live in flocks. They are known as crop-raiders in the villages as they can cause a lot of damage in planted fields.
It is very common to see them in the South Luangwa National Park, usually in open plains. They tend to all perch on the same bush which may really well collapse from the accumulated weight. Although they are tiny, when in hundreds it starts to weight a bit.
Their numbers vary over the years, and usually at the peak of the dry season (October) we see huge flocks of them, dancing in the sky in humongous waves. It is less usual to see them do that early in the safari season, but we have already seen very large numbers – as shown by Meyam’s pictures below (May 26th and May 30th). It is a great spectacle to watch them.
Izzy