As much as a want to call this an Ethiopian (aka Abyssinian) oriole, I find it impossible to accurately judge the colour of the edge of the secondaries (and the more reliable inner webs of secondaries isn't visible from this angle). Sure it does look quite grey, which would support Ethiopian, but can we say with a decent level of certainty that it isn't actually whitish, which would support Eastern black-headed oriole instead? It's the most blurry part of the photo and placed within shadows, too.
I've got Helm's Horn of Africa book to hand and it definitely looks like monacha to me by their illustrations - I think we'd be able to see the yellowish/white edges to the secondaries more clearly if it were Eastern Black-headed. Hard to say for sure from one photo though, I agree. Should probably have been a bit more circumspect!
You can compare these:
- Eastern (O. larvatus) with its whitish secondary edges: https://www.flickr.com/photos/glenda_sparkes/9584284306 (note that the bird on LaughingDove's photo has its back turned even more, making inner web colour unreliable).
- Ethiopian aka Abyssinian (O. monacha) with its grey secondary edges: Image:Oriole ethiopian.jpg
Having seen both in person, I still can't say I'd feel completely confident calling LaughingDove's one or the other, though I most definitely would lean most towards Ethiopian. I've been fooled by minor differences in colour hue on photos before, which is one of the reasons for my hesitation in this case, but others may feel more confident calling this definitely grey (=Ethiopian) or definitely whitish (=Eastern).
