NW Tanzania - Minziro Forest (1)

The next morning started early with some birds at the place we stayed with loads of Village Indigobirds, Lesser Striped Swallows and White-rumped Swifts. Next to the bridge over the Akagera River there was a Black-headed Heron breeding colony with at least 3 chicks in evidence. The trip to the forest got us yet some more Broad-billed Rollers, Bronze Sunbird, White-headed Saw-wing, Woodland Kingfisher and some Grey-back Fiscals.

A cracking sighting was a Moustached and a Broad-tailed Warbler displaying almost alongside each other. Scarlet-chested Sunbird was our next sunbird for the list. We were trying to push on to meet the forest guide for our walk but we were being distracted so much, especially by FIVE Great Blue Turacos having a bath next to the road - they scampered off too quick though for the amazing photo it would've made.

Eventually setting off on foot to the forest from a hill, we were descending about 150m through tall grass and past some Ankole cattle.

The clouds were looking rather threatening so we hurried on past the Pin-tailed Whydah, Black-crowned Waxbill, Black & white and Bronze Mannikins. Blue-spotted Wood Dove was calling and Baglafecht Weaver, Tambourine Dove and Yellow-fronted Canary made brief appearances.

The first rain-drops were felt as we entered the forest and it started to rain and while trying to shelter (unsuccessfully) a Red-tailed Ant-thrush showed itself obligingly. The forest was dense and very wet and muddy and sadly rather quiet due to the rain.

A brief respite in the weather got us walking further and a very young, fluffy Wood Owl made its appearance, staring at us in what seemed to be irritated shock.
Crowned and B&W Casqued Hornbills were around as was an African Paradise Flycatcher, Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird, Little Greenbuls and Red-chested Cuckoo. At the forest edge we found a little shelter from the now pouring rain but very soon left it due to its other steroid mozzie inhabitants which would cover one's clothes and/or bare arm in seconds! This also gives a bit of perspective of the forest canopy height.
We set off uphill out of the forest and as we progressed, the rain stopped - naturally! More rain was settling in over the forest further away but we had some great vistas to enjoy.

Akagera River winding its way through the forest on its way to Lake Victoria

The drive back (it was past midday already) wasn't uneventful with a lovely close sighting of a Blue-spotted Wood Dove and a lifer with White-headed Barbet - the latter gave me a chance for a record shot at least.

In town the market was in full swing as well - photo taken as we drove past

Lunch and a couple of Kilimanjaro beers got us in relax mode for a couple of hours before we set off back to the forest, determined to walk the stretch we had driven through about 3 times now.

NW Tanzania - Road to Kyaka & Mutukula PLUS Minziro Forest

The birds weren't being very obliging for photos but managed to get this one of a Bare-faced Go-away Bird. We did have quite a few sightings though with Fan-tailed Widowbirds doing their displays everywhere along with their cousins the Red-collared Widowbirds and one sighting again of Broad-tailed Paradise Whydah, a new record for the area. Sooty Chats were everywhere once again and we saw White-browed and Blue-headed Coucals, heard Ross' Turaco and Black & White Casqued Hornbills. Flappet Larks displayed very audibly and we got some views of them. Red-headed Queleas abounded. Black-shouldered Kites were seen every few kilometres and Little Bee-eaters weren't too uncommon.

We added another Palm-nut Vulture to the list, 7x Southern Carmine Bee-eaters, Thick-billed Weaver, Malachite Kingfisher, Long-crested Eagle, White-headed Saw-wing, Yellow-throated Longclaw (rather common), Singing Cisticola, Grey Kestrel and Broad-billed Rollers.

Kyaka was where we would stay for 2 nights. This building above, well the ruins of it anyway, was on a hill in the town. One of the buildings Idi Amin bombed during the 70's.

At and near the border we had a couple of Meyer's Parrot, 30+ Open-billed Storks soaring, Hooded Vulture again, Yellow-billed Stork, Rock Martin, some more Fork-tailed Drongo, Black-headed Gonolek heard, Black-lored Babblers (who gave me a great call recording and interestingly sound a little higher pitched than those in Rwanda), Marico & Variable Sunbirds and yet another Flappet Lark.

After meeting up with my friends and the birding guide Emmanuel (brilliant guide) from Uganda we set off back to Kyaka to check in to our basic local motel and have a bite before going to Minziro Forest.

Marsh Tchagra opened our trek followed by Great Blue & Ross' Turaco, Red-chested Cuckoo and Crowned Hornbill. Afep Pigeon was a cool lifer for me. On way into and through the forest the sightings and calls came thick and fast with only an opportunity for a photo of the Black & white Casqued Hornbill.

A Yellowbill (Green Coucal/Malkoha) was trying its best to stay hidden as were the Toro Olive Greenbuls. The Little Greenbuls were only slightly more obliging with a few seconds longer view. The Nigritas came in pairs as well with great views of White-breasted and Grey-crowned Negrofinches. Yellow-spotted Barbet (a stunning steroid version of a Tinkerbird), Black-throated Apalis, Olive-bellied & Little Green Sunbirds, Green Crombec and Black-necked Weavers. The Black-billed Turaco was calling but refused to show itself.

Later some Red-headed Lovebirds gave me another lifer and we had some more weavers like Baglafecht and Holub's Golden Weaver. Driving back in the dark we flushed some nightjars which the driver had frustratingly no experience of dealing with, so some records lost there. A pair of Water Thick-knees was our last species for the day.

Fish Eagles going for gold! (Lake Mburo Part 3)

With heart rates slowly returning to a state of what would be considered sort of normal, Moses angled the boat toward another section of papyrus and reeds, going nice and slowly. Malachite and Pied Kingfishers abounded to the point they made sparrows and house crows seem rare, although their numbers were never remotely near the number of Fish Eagles.

As far as one could see along the shores there were pairs, individuals and immatures perched - pairs were max 100m apart, so the call of Africa was in "super theatre" surround sound, occasionally shattered to embarrassing smithereens by the breaking and untrained voice of a youngster (not a dissimilar interruption to that of a single strum of a loud un-tuned electric guitar in the middle a choral choir's performance!)

We slowly crossed this section of lake to where the shore was lined with large fig trees and acacias - in addition to overhanging vegetation and some papyrus and reeds here and there. After the heron's blaze of glory, I remained silent about the possibility of African Finfoot, not wanting to jinx the possibility of a sighting. The perched Fish Eagles provided for some relaxing photography of pairs as well individuals flying and calling at the same time which rather looked like a Boeing plane with a Concorde nose upside down - don't these flippen birds care to look where they're flying, heads pointed at the sky and calling yet hurtling through space like kamikaze pilots?!! A nice scoop for me was a sequence of photos of a pair mating (missed out only on photos of some Fish Eagle laying eggs I think)

Let's do it like they do it on the Discovery Channel darling!

Hang on love!! Nearly there (thinks... "damn, almost losing my balance here!")

Phew!! Male: "That was hard Work!" Female: "THAT's IT??!"

Pushing this avian exhibitionism reluctantly to the back of our minds we approached the outer edge of the comfort zone of a buffalo relaxing on the shore with a small retinue of attendees including Little Egret, 6x Water Thick-knees, Pied Wagtail and at a safer distance, Common Sandpiper.

The 'upstanding' member of the retinue

Common Sandpiper preferring the safer option a bit further away

Slowly drifting past this scene of inactivity, I almost did a back somersault out of the boat when Moses hissed "quick!! Photo!! Finfoot!!!". My eyes wide at this sudden excitement, searched and saw nada! "Where Moses?" "In front of us!!" came the tolerant reply. ahhhhhhhh!!! oh WOOOW! The sound of rapid shutter fire dominates the air waves for a few seconds, then quiet - gets rather difficult taking photos when your grin is halfway around your head! Heart now again racing, palms sweating and adrenaline pumping, Moses makes the understated and softly spoken comment of "Oh, and there's a crocodile" Hmmmmm! the visible parts about about 3m but can't see the tail - this thing was &^%$&*(read "VERY") huge! Oh, and there's a hippo yawning. HUHHHH??! about 10m away!

At this stage it appeared we had intruded on Hippoville's monthly council meeting and the whole district's members were attending. The channel is narrow with hardly any space (to me it seemed it like none) to turn around, only go forward. Moses calmly (I think) finds a wee dent of penny-sized space in the papyrus and makes a perfect 180 degree U-turn with the rear end passing only a couple of metres from an irritated council member. We exited quietly yet with some haste from here but not before Moses had pointed out both the Striated and Squacco Herons. Oh yes, I had forgotten - International Heron Day or something today as well!?!

Part 4: MORE suprises!

Uganda: Lake Mburo National Park (Part 1)

On 29th March we left Ruhengeri via the Cyanika border, the most SW border with Uganda, and proceeded over a rather wet and muddy mountain pass through Kibale and on to Mbarara. Filling up with fuel we realised the weather was a bit more favourable than that in the SW although the hint of rains remained. Another 50km brought us to the turnoff for Lake Mburo where the road to the gate (9km - allegedly) is dirt/mud/slush-puppy but not severe.

Getting to the gate at 3.15pm we were well beyond the missus' off-hand prediction we'll be in time for lunch at the lodge - still approximately 12-15km away. Anyway with not much time to spare (and potential rain looming) we 'rushed' on, stopping I think 3x for a bird (including a Green Sandpiper) or animals - by far the most frustrating way of driving through such a fantastic park.

Sod's law, at the lodge the sun was out and it was lovely and warm. Here I got to take my 1st photos in the NP -a Spotted Bush Snake. Eventually we'd come across 4 just around the pool and the bar.

View from the pool, bar & restaurant was certainly nothing to complain about...

Some of the birds we did manage to see through the rush and at the lodge included Yellow-billed Oxpecker, Ruppell's Long-tailed Starling (zillions), Black-headed Gonolek, Double-toothed Barbet, Bare-faced Go-away Bird and Green Pigeon. Nightjars heard included Black-shouldered (very very similar call to Fiery-necked), Square-tailed (Mozambique) and Freckled.

Ruppell's Long-tailed Starling

Morning kicked off with a cacophony of nightjars, Go-away Birds, Doves, Starlings, Francolin and Spurfowl and some seriously loud Ross' Turaco (I always forget how loud these lovely looking twats are) This morning we were also booked for a 10am boat trip on Lake Mburo with a drive to park HQ of 45min (wildly under-estimated if you ask me). The missus realised that with me driving this was impossible as we would need minimum 2 hours given that she knows I wasn't planning on doing a repeat of the previous day's scan of the park.

We set off with more than 2hrs to get there but alas the last half hour had to be "rushed" again - at this stage I was seriously grinding my teeth. Before the rush some animals and birds did happen along including Slender Mongoose (a very hasty one - was he also on the way to/for the missus?), Palm-nut Vulture (spotted by the chief spotter in the passenger seat aka the Missus) Some other sightings along the way;

Defassa's Waterbuck

Lesser-striped Swallow

A warthog trying its best to get rid of as much grass as possible at Park HQ

Part 2: The Lake Mburo Boat trip

Birding at Bujagali Falls, Jinja (UGANDA)

Last week I spent a few days in Bujagali Falls where I stayed at Nile River Explorers. Located outside Jinja town, this area is not only the hub for kayaking and white-water rafting activities but also provides a great diversity in bird species. For those keen on the more obvious of insects, dragonflies and butterflies, there's a host of species and rather easy photo opportunities.

I didn't need to go far for some impressive sightings with the highlight probably the not often seen migrant Common/European Cuckoo although seeing the African Grey Parrots (photo on right) virtually everyday is always a special is my book. There was widespread evidence of successful breeding with immatures everywhere with adults, the most notable being the number of young with some pairs of Scarlet-chested Sunbirds who have clearly had a good breeding season. Red-chested Sunbirds were busy nesting in one of the large acacia trees. The Collared Sunbird pair also had one youngster with them.

Migrants in addition to the cuckoo were seen regularly with European Bee-eaters flying over, Olivaceous Warblers foraging in the acacia trees and a couple of sightings of Common Sandpipers in the eddy below the camp.

As far as numbers go the Long-tailed and Great Cormorants top as usual followed by the Sand Martins who appeared occasionally in flocks varying between 40 and 100. Although common, the Black Kites and Pied Crow never come close in numbers to the Cormorants and Martins. At one stage the Openbill Storks were around 20 birds with some soaring and others perched near the river.

Birds of prey are always great here with the most prominent (and verbal) being the African Fish Eagles. Long-crested Eagle and African Harrier-hawk made brief appearances overhead as did a Shikra (Little Banded Goshawk). A Lizard Buzzard perched close to the viewing deck with some prey and offered a great photo opportunity, albeit through the leaves and branches - not unlike the skulking but loud Black-headed Gonoleks.

Black-headed Gonolek

Other species seen here; Eastern Plantain-eater, Yellow White-eye, Little and Baglafecht Weavers, African Blue Flycatcher, Little Egret, Lesser Striped-Swallow, Grey-backed Camaroptera, African Darter and Black-headed Heron.

Eastern Plantain-Eater