Birdwatching: The Elusive Narina Trogan

Last month we had the pleasure of spotting the rare and elusive Narina Trogan while on safari. She perched on a branch just two meters from us for her photo shoot at Hilltops Camp in Hluhluwe Game Reserve, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

This beautiful trogon, Apaloderma narina, was named after Narina, the Khoikhoi mistress of the French ornithologist François Le Vaillant.

It is a medium-sized (up to 34cm long) largely green bird of the Trogonidae family. The male has vivid green upperparts, greyish wing, bright red underparts and patches of blue skin on the face. The female has a brown face, purplish green plumage, a blue circle around each eye and duller red below. The Narina Trogon is distributed in forests across Africa, from Sierra Leone to Kenya and eastern South Africa. It nests in a tree hollow. The diet consists mainly of insects and small invertebrates. Widespread throughout its large range, the Narina Trogon is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narina_Trogon

Thanks to Dominique Lenfantin who was traveling with Roar Africa and kindly shared the photo with us.