Yellow-billed Oxpecker Buphagus africanus
Yellow-billed Oxpecker, near Mole, Ghana, June 2011 - click for larger image

near Mole, Ghana
June 2011

The Yellow-billed Oxpecker is distributed in tropical Africa south of the Sahara in open savannah where there are suitable mammals to act as hosts. See the distribution map at Birdlife International.

Yellow-billed Oxpecker, near Mole, Ghana, June 2011 - click for larger image It is dark brown above with a paler rump and pale brown underparts. The bill is yellow with a red tip and the eye is red.

It is intimately associated with mammals and can spend almost all its time perched on the host mammal even sleeping there though it will also roost on nearby trees.

Yellow-billed Oxpecker, near Mole, Ghana, June 2011 - click for larger image It feeds on parasitic ticks, fleas and flies on the mammals as well as on the mammal's blood. The mammals concerned are principally cattle and donkeys but they are also to be found on African buffalo, rhinoceros, giraffes, antelopes and other larger wild mammals.

It makes a hard, rasping metallic call.

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