Red-billed queleas near their roost site at Rigueik in Zakouma National Park in Chad
Found throughout the savannah regions of Sub-Saharan Africa the red-billed quelea is the most common wild bird in the world, in Zakouma there may be as many as 10 million of these little grain eating birds. The birds in this colony are able to find sufficient food inside the national park elsewhere flocks of queleas are a huge agricultural pest able to devastate entire grain crops. Colonies are sometimes destroyed by blowing up their roost trees using dynamite and barrels of petrol and diesel mixed together, flocks are also sometimes killed by aerial spraying with the chemical Queleatox. Fortunately this colony is entirely safe inside Zakouma National Park and provides visitors with one of the most extraordinary wildlife spectacles anywhere in the world.
Red-billed queleas near their roost site at Rigueik in Zakouma National Park in Chad
Found throughout the savannah regions of Sub-Saharan Africa the red-billed quelea is the most common wild bird in the world, in Zakouma there may be as many as 10 million of these little grain eating birds. The birds in this colony are able to find sufficient food inside the national park elsewhere flocks of queleas are a huge agricultural pest able to devastate entire grain crops. Colonies are sometimes destroyed by blowing up their roost trees using dynamite and barrels of petrol and diesel mixed together, flocks are also sometimes killed by aerial spraying with the chemical Queleatox. Fortunately this colony is entirely safe inside Zakouma National Park and provides visitors with one of the most extraordinary wildlife spectacles anywhere in the world.