…continued from part 1
23 July
When I left off in Part 1, we were spending the night at Rwakobo Rock, a lovely safari lodge near Lake Mburo, about half way between Kampala and the far south-west of the country. We assembled pre-dawn on the rock, next to the dining area, hoping for nightjars. Gunnar had stayed up the previous evening later than all of us, probably on a high from all the stimulants he’d taken, attempting to stave off the worst effects of a cold (or was it covid?). But he reported zero owls or nightjars.
After breakfast, as the sun was just rising, Herman and a local guide escorted us around the resort where we had some excellent, relaxed birding.
Almost immediately two nightjars flushed from a patch of vegetation. I saw only one, and very little on it, certainly not enough for an ID. The manner of nightjars is that they tend not to flush far, and as we hunted around in various likely looking patches of scrub it flushed a couple more times. At the third time of asking, however, we got a visual on it before it was scared by us, finding a window through the vegetation where it was visible on the deck: Black-shouldered Nightjar. Gunnar and I were able to approach carefully as it stayed put for decent pics. But as I was photographing the nightjar a pair of Black Goshawk cruised through and I missed them. I would not be able to claw them back. Such are the sacrifices one makes for one’s “art”. Convinced of much larger size from his initial views of the other bird, Jon’s list was also augmented by Freckled Nightar, but I had not even seen the bird let alone get anything identifiable on it.
Prior to the trip, the African endemic Turaco family stood out as A-listers in the field guide – big, gaudy, colourful forest dwellers, each seemingly with some unusual feature (the anti-honeyguide, perhaps?) such as the lipstick of Great Blue. We’d dipped on Ross’ Turaco in the Entebbe Gardens, so when one showed well as pretty much our second bird after the nightjars, it was great to clock its crazy red hairdo that stood out from its black plumage and chonking yellow bill and yellow eye wattle.
Gazing down from the rock we located an African Green Pigeon, some Little Bee-eaters and Red-headed Lovebirds (sweet, iconic parrots), while later on Jon found a stunning Sulphur-breasted Bushshrike. The same area yielded a Tropical Boubou and some Meyer’s Parrots, which landed for some nice, perched views. I was gratified to see my lifer Bateleur, a must-see African raptor because of its unique, almost tailless shape
As we worked our way around the area slowly, Herman occasionally played for a couple of trickier Barbet targets. We heard a Crested Barbet calling faintly but distinctly and walked off into the savannah a few hundred metres to track it down to a distant candelabra. A Red-backed Scrub-robin eventually yielded decent views, though was also out of decent range for my 400mm lens. Unfortunately we left empty-handed with regard to the near-endemic Red-faced Barbet, a key target here.
It would have been great to spend more time in this area going into the National Park proper, and taking a cruise on the lake (which would guarantee encounters with Hippos and give a chance of African Finfoot). But our compressed itinerary meant that Rwakobo Rock was really just a stopover to break the long journey from Entebbe to the far south-west of the country, where we were headed today. To make Kisoro by nightfall we would need to drive most of the afternoon.
We continued to bird from the van with the top up as we slowly drove back out to the highway, retracing our steps from yesterday. Mosque Swallows were again prominent, but we also picked out some similar but smaller Rufous-chested Swallows, and a White-headed Sawwing. Searching for bush birds on foot we came across two more Crested Francolin, an African Thrush had us thinking we were onto something more interesting for a while, and we noted more Zebra. I spied a larger bird on top of a distant bush and called for Herman to stop and back up a bit: lucky we did, because this was Bare-faced Go-away-bird, surprisingly our only Go-away Bird of the trip!
The 300km drive to Kisoro was initially fairly flat and straight, but increasingly winding and slow as we hit the mountains in the south. We stopped occasionally to bird from the roadside. We scanned wet areas for Rufous-bellied Heron, previously seen on this route in a few places by Herman. We dipped on this but at one place were able to pick out several distant Grey-crowned Cranes, my first encounter with Uganda’s incredible-looking national bird; another of my pre-trip targets. The distant views were blurred by heat-haze in the scope, but we would see more cranes once the dry savannah and its grazing cattle gave way to lusher agriculture such as the shimmering green tea plantations of the foothills. A very close roadside pair of Grey-crowned Cranes in a tea plantation gave excellent views as a Wahlberg’s Eagle drifted over.
We had one main birding stop, late afternoon, where the road cuts through Echuya Central Forest Reserve. Having driven through many km of horribly deforested foothills we arrived into a valley whose steep slopes were lined with excellent looking rainforest. We would have to bird from the roadside, so Herman identified a suitably wide verge to pull over where we could bird in relative safely from the passing traffic. Immediately the forest was buzzing with small passerines and we began to build a list of higher altitude species, including Rameron Pigeon, and Northern Double-collared Sunbirds, as well as our first Albertine Rift endemics: Regal Sunbird and a few with the desirable moniker “Rwenzori”: Rwenzori Batis, Rwenzori Apalis, and Rwenzori Hill-babbler. I was unable to get onto a sole Scarce Swift that Dave found, but I would claw this back at Rushaga in a couple of days. Prinias are not normally a family to get the juices flowing but a small skulking bird creeping about in dense vegetation looked interesting and certainly new, and was eventually pinned down as superb dark-grey, spotty Banded Prinia: it looks a bit like a mini antbird and definitely breaks the mould of largely uninteresting brown warblers.
We had become accustomed to people walking along the road, in the towns and even in the rural areas we passed through: women in brightly coloured dresses sauntered along with tall baskets and unwieldy, heavy bundles of logs balancing on their heads; kids carried large yellow water cannisters, a stark reminder that no one has running water here; men rode unsteadily on push-bikes laden with unfeasible quantities of green bananas, and had to push them on foot up slopes too steep to pedal; in the towns, blokes in Premier League football shirts hung about smoking (to keep ourselves amused we took to spotting shirts, with Arsenal and ManU shirts taking on the status of Grey-crowned Sparrow as “trash”). After our birding in Echuya, as we approach the outskirts of Kisoro, we came across a throng of people the like of which we had not seen in any other town. Herman pointed out the confronting reality: they were mostly from a huge UN refugee camp that has been set up here to care for refugees from the war in Democratic Republic of Congo. Here was a was a stark reminder of how close we were – barely 10km – from the border to this troubled country.
Our digs for the night, the Travellers’ rest, was a pleasant colonial hotel on the far side of Kisoro. We followed a couple of beers and decent meal by an early night.
24 July
Today was one of the days we had added as our “birding extension”. In my research back in March I had noted Mgahinga National Park as one of the few places in Uganda – and most certainly the best – to see the rare and spectacular Rwenzori Turaco. Perhaps because this park is so far south, it is a bit off the usual birding tourist routes, so the turaco is not often on standard birding lists, adding to its allure. In truth I was also somewhat nervous about today, feeling some personal responsibility for the success or otherwise because it had initially been my idea to change the itinerary.
Mgahinga is the Ugandan part of an extensive area protected area of the Virunga Mountains that straddles the three countries, Rwanda, DRC and Uganda. The scenery is fabulous with views across the forest to the 5 peaks of Mount Sabyinyo, at the point where the countries all meet. Like the more famous Bwindi NP only 40km to the north, Mgahinga is home to Mountain Gorillas, but it also holds a population of the spectacular Golden Monkey. Entry signs were adorned with the catch-phrase “Where silver meets gold” a reference to its two famous primate inhabitants. It is possible to do monkey and/or gorilla trekking in Mgahinga but we were here for the birds and would have to hope we might luck onto a monkey.
During the formalities of registering our visit with passports, organising the local park escorts and the like (all of which Herman took care of), we were kept entertained by a troupe of locals who beat drums, sang welcome songs and danced vigorously (in the case of one young girl, so vigorously I feared she would do herself an injury). I am sure the welcome was officially intended for the other groups on more formal trekking outings than us, but we enjoyed it as a side benefit without the need to give it our full attention. We were eager to get birding, and as the singers and dancers carried on with their pre-trek welcome performance, we headed up a forest trail in single file, armed escorts at the front and rear. The armed guards were fortunately not required because of our proximity to either Rwanda or DRC, but because of the presence of forest Elephants. Ahead of us we heard a rifle being fired, a sign that a guide had encountered elephants too close to our trail for human comfort, so had sent a warning shot into the air to scare them away.
Remarkably after barely 100m, still in earshot of the singing, our local guide drew our attention to a Turaco calling. “Which one?”. “Rwenzori Turaco”. “What, already???”. Based on the few trip reports from Mgahinga, I had come to expect we’d have to walk much further up into the jungle than this. I was excited at how quickly this opportunity had come, but now immediately nervous that the success of this bit of the extension depended almost entirely on seeing this one bird. It didn’t seem to respond to some initial playback, and the viewing was difficult through the dense vegetation. Then it went quiet, and we were interrupted a couple of times as non-birding trekkers made their way past en route to the summit(s). Had we missed our chance? My heart sank. Ten minutes passed (it felt like more) and we tried some more playback, this time with an answer – it was still there! I found a spot on the trail-edge where I could get a slightly better view of the canopy some 30-50m back, and as I scanned I landed my bins on the head of a Rwenzori Turaco emerging from dense cover about 40m away. As each of us successively got on it, it came further out into the open, peering around inquisitively, as if to find out where our guide’s playback had come from. Top target in the bag already, vindicating the choice to come here and add an extra day to the trip!
A Dohertys Bushshrike was not so cooperative, but we did not have long to wait for the next stonker – along a small creek-bed just off the main trail out guides located an Archer’s Robin-chat. Soon after we also found a lovely White-starred Robin. Later we would add Stuhlemanns’s (Rwenzori Double-collared) Sunbird another specialty of Mgahinga rarely seen on standard itineraries. Some of the group also saw another endemic, Blue-headed Sunbird, but I would need to wait until the last morning to claw this back. Black-faced Apalis is an Albertine Rift endemic which we ticked off with a flyover bird on our walk up, but which we get better views of later in the week in Bwindi; similarly another endemic, Stripe-breasted Tit, went on the list but would have better view in Bwindi. We also found a smart Albertine Sooty Boubou (also called Mountain Black Boubou) which despite its “Albertine” moniker and small Rwenzori range marked in the field guide, is not listed on albertinerift.org as one of the Albertine Rift endemics. Go figure!
Until 1991 these mountains were inhabited by Batwa Pygmies. For 1000s years they were the only human inhabitats of the mountain forests, but when Mgahinga and Bwindi were gazetted, they were evicted with no compensation or anywhere to go, deemed to be a threat to the wildlife (notably the gorillas) that the parks were established to protect. The Batwa, numbering less than 7000, are now among the poorest people on the planet, dispossessed of their tradition lands, squatters on the land much more recent immigrants’ land, and with poor economic and health outcomes: life expectancy is just 28 years old. I had been unaware of this tragedy, or how recent it happened, until long after our visit. At the top of our walk we visited several shelters, erected specially to showcase to tourists how the Batwa used to live. Not realising the sad history, on the day we took photos and carried on birding.
Around the camp we craned our necks to get views of both White-browed Crombec and – eventually – rift endemic Red-faced Woodland Warbler. This latter bird had been consorting with the crombecs and took both Dave and I an age to find. I had pretty-much reached the point of deciding the others must be stringing Crombec, until I too saw a small, pale but long tailed bird where previously I had been seeing the stunted-tailed Crombecs.
A Chestnut-throated Apalis called, but before we could try to attract it, one of the guides whispered that he had a Francolin. Forest Fancolins and Partridges can be a bugger to see, and this one lived up to that reputation. We hoped to tempt it onto the track with some playback but it decided to stay 10-15m back in the dense forest; I managed a reasonable and tickable view of the head of a hard-to-see Handsome Francolin as it picked its way through the tangle of logs, vines and ferns on the forest floor. Others managed a short flight view as our guide moved in to try and push it towards us. Realising this was the best we’d do, but elated that we’d scored yet another tricky species, we went back for the Apalis and a short burst of playback had it landing atop a nearby tree and posing nicely.
Here we learned about “Elephant beer”. The guide picked up a melon and explained that elephants like to eat them because they ferment in their stomachs and make them drunk! Probably having explained this story many times, our guide was a natural in front of the camera, shooting an explanation for Jon in a single take.
It was now late morning and we descended back to the park entrance. A rustle in the undergrowth next to the trail might have been a small mammal, but was probably a Chubb’s Cisticola. I decided to check it out more closely, and as I approached the spot a Rwenzori Nightjar flushed. It swooped around and landed not far away. Our guide moved to where we thought it was and sure enough it flushed again, this time gliding right past our faces for a fabulous view. It seemed to land again about 30m away, and by clambering up a bank we were able to track it down to a roost on small log. I was beckoning Dave over and helping him get on it as it flushed once more, a second or two before I could get any sort of photo.
Back at the park entrance we noted a friendly adult and juv of African Dusky Flycatcher and ate our packed lunches. About 30 minutes earlier I had remembered that this place is also good for another iconic species, Rwenzori Three-horned Chameleon. Herman explained that we should have asked the guards at the entrance to look for one for us before setting out. It was now probably too late, but he sent a message ahead of us just in case they could find one while we were eating our lunch. This seemed pretty low probability, but the locals came good again, with one of our men at the gate finding this stonker, a mini colour-changing triceratops!
We returned to Travellers’ Rest to pick up some medicine Gunnar had left in the fridge, and Jon had the sterling idea we should indulge in a lunch-time beer as we waited for the next part of our journey to commence. Lunchtime drinking will often result in a headache later, but on this occasion I decided it was worth the risk, and indeed it was. Cracking idea, JP!
Our trip to Rushaga, on the south side of Bwindi NP, was not far as the crow flies – barely 20 km, but was on slow windy roads so took us two hours. Of course we birded along the way, stopping to note various weavers and bishops and waxills and other birds of the open maize fields. Bronze Sunbird is a large, impressive looking sunbird and we saw a few on our drive; they were present at most spots we stopped. Other birds noted on the drive included Grey-capped Warbler, Brimstone Canary (chunkier than its smaller cousin Yellow-fronted, that we’d seen a couple of days earlier), Streaky Seedeater, Black-crowned and Common Waxbill and several Yellow Bishop. In amongst the black and yellow bishops, I found another different yellow and black bird, identified for me by Herman as Black-billed Weaver. Jon heard us announce it, but never got on it, and Dave didn’t even hear us call it. It would be the only one of the trip (sorry Dave!).
Our lodge at Bwindi, Ichumbi Gorilla Lodge was exquisite. Rooms were all named after African birds; Jon and I shared “Turaco”, and appropriate assignment. The dining area and bar had a wonderful view over to the primary forest of Bwindi with a few Scarce Swift cruising past (grip back), the rooms comfortable and the staff friendly and very attentive (if not a little obsequious in their attempts to be “professional” and welcoming). There was no time for much birding, and it was certainly impossible get even to the forest edge, but we walked to the helicopter pad – a flat area of grass that stretched out like a tongue into the valley, and noted more than twenty species in only about 30minutes. These included new birds Black-and-white Mannikin, Yellow-bellied Waxbill, Western Citril, and Pin-tailed Wydah (sadly without its ridiculous tail). As we walked back a couple of kids were bothering us, trying to get out attention. After ignoring them as best we could, Jon eventually turned and realised why they were chasing us: one of the boys had a long stick with a Chameleon on it that they wanted to show us! We admired their discovery, encouraged them to look after it and put it back (they are smart enough to know it’s in their interests to be able to show to future tourists again!), then gave them a small tip – which is presumably why they’d been chasing us all along.
At dinner we planned the next day. It had emerged that Herman was expecting that we would be going birding on the forest edges tomorrow, before heading into Bwindi proper on Day 3 (Day 2 was our designated Gorilla Trekking day). This was the first sign that our plans and the ground agent’s were not well aligned for the “extension”, and I wished that I had taken more personal responsibility prior to the trip. Dave, Jon and I pointed out that as the paying punters, we should get to set the itinerary, and we had not added extra days to look for forest edge birds, but to “penetrate the Impenetrable Forest” to look for its specialties like Grauer’s Broadbill and Grey-chested Babbler (Kakamega). Initially Herman resisted this, but we found out later it was because to head into the forest you need armed escort, and none had been arranged. Fortunately he was able to make a phone call or two, and get a last-minute escort arranged for us.
25 July
The park itself is not open to punters until 7am, so we convened for breakfast around 6am — a relative lie-in. While we waited for the van to take us the short distance to the park entrance a White-browed Robin-chat popped out onto the lawn by the restaurant. My camera setting were all wrong for the early morning dim light so I managed only a horribly blurred record shot, and sadly I would not have another better opportunity.
Once we got to the park itself and crossed the stark border between deforested agriculture and primary forest, we birded around the reception area while Herman sorted out formalities. A Black-billed Turaco called from a nearby tree. Though we saw several Sharpe’s Starling, we struggled to find the turaco until it decided to change trees and we had excellent flight views of our 4th turaco species.
Once Herman had sorted out permits and returned our passports, we were able to start walking up the mountain while the Gorilla trekking punters were still having their briefing session and welcome songs. An early excellent find by the guides was endemic Dusky Crimson-wing a stunning – and surprisingly skulking – grey and crimson forest finch. Not long after we were trying to track down a Mountain Iladopsis (which we did – cracker!) when an orange bird appeared at the base of a gully. Dave and I got on it – not sure if anyone else did – and it was clearly an Equatorial Akalat. We then had an extended (IMO far too long) battle with a few Black-faced Rufous-warblers which steadfastly refused to show themselves despite calling from vegetation seemingly right at our feet.
The rest of the day felt slightly odd to me. It was enjoyable, the scenery in primary forest was superb, and of course we saw some cracking birds. But I was also twitchy to get to where I thought we’d have best chances for the two key targets as I saw them: Grauers’ Broadbill, because it is rare, beautiful and only ever seen in Bwindi, and Grey-chested Babbler (or Kakamega), which is not confined to Bwindi but does sit in a family of only three that includes Dapple-throat and Spot-throat, hence desirable from a family listing perspective. I’d expected that we would target these and get other stuff along the way. Perhaps that was what was happening but it didn’t seem that way to me, and according to the field guide (and my altimeter) we never got high enough for the Broadbill. Perhaps I was being too much of the twitcher. Herman reassured that the gnarly old trees covered in lichen and wispy hanging moss were prime Broadbill habitat, but it is rare and unobtrusive. I had flashbacks to Wattled Broadbill in Mindanao, similarly rare and unobtrusive, and one of my worst ever dips.
A big raptor cruised over and we were all on it quickly. Huge barred, bulging wings meant this was a superb Crowned Eagle. It was close, and gave a superb view, but before I could wield the camera it disappeared behind a large tree (there were a few of these in the forest, inconsiderately blocking our view from time to time – if only I’d had a chain-saw 😉 ). I lined up with the camera where it would emerge, confident of a great picture using my new R6’s super-fast autofocus, but it changed course while out of sight and we didn’t relocate it until it had drifted much further over the valley. I managed a record shot but not the frame-filler that the occasion deserved. Some Great Blue Turacos called and were conspicuous but distant. We also connected with both a stunning orange and black Luhder’s Bushshrike and smart, but less impressive, Grey-green Bushshrike (also known as Bocage’s Bushshrike), but not our most-wanted, Lagden’s Bushskrike.
Around lunchtime Herman had been calling for Many-coloured Bushshrike and seemed to be getting a response. Suddenly he dropped his hands and turned to us: “Guys, it’s not a bushshrike. That is Rufous-chested Owlet!”. It was close but the vegetation was ridiculously dense. Amazingly, a few minutes later he beckoned us over – he’d got the little fucker! Successively he was able to get Dave and Jon on it, but it took me ages of increasing frustration as they tried repeatedly to give directions, until eventually I too was able to find a tiny window through to a small patch of rufous that betrayed the bird’s presence. As I watched the same place, the leaves and branches swayed back and forth, gradually revealing various bits and pieces – notably the streaked white belly (the local race has rufous chest above a paler belly) and piercing yellow eyes — of the superb tiny owlet. It carried on calling and we must have spent at least 30mins or more trying to get Gunnar onto the bird but it simply would not show itself to him and I started to grow impatient that we were seemingly wasting time trying to find a bird for the “guide” when the paying punters had all had our fill. In the end, as Gunnar slid down the slope from our trail to try for a different angle, the owlet flushed and I selfishly relaxed a bit because he would be forced to give up (that did not stop him continuing playback for another 5-10 minutes in the vain hope it would come back). Remarkably, this was our fifth night-bird species, one per day since we started, and all had been found in daylight (African Wood Owl, Pearl-spotted Owlet, Black-shouldered Nightjar and Rwenzori Nightjar)!
We accumulated a decent list of “padders” including various Greenbuls: Shelley’s (previously the local race was split as Kakamega Greenbul, but they are now lumped with Shelley’s), Eastern Mountain (which we’d had at Mgahinga also), Yellow-whiskered, and Yellow-streaked. Likewise a few Cuckooshrikes: Grey, Black and Petit’s (I am used to grey, white and black cuckooshrikes in Australia, but Petit’s a glossy deep purple male like a starling, and a yellow and grey female: quite the cracker); and we did well for Apalises also: Rwenzori Apalis, Black-throated Apalis, Black-faced Apalis (better views today so able to untick flight views from yesterday), Buff-throated Apalis and Grey Apalis. One of the first birds called for the morning’s trek was a small honeyguide that I saw perched before it flew, never to be seen again. Herman thought it was Dwarf Honeyguide, but he and I were, I think, the only ones on it, and I was not happy counting this just on the basis of Herman’s ID. But we did also find two unequivocal members of the family, Willcock’s Honeyguide and Greater Honeyguide.
As well as the padders, we also carried on adding to our list of rift endemics. Yellow-eyed Black-flycatcher seemed relatively easy – we saw two today and would see at least one on each of our forays into the forest.
We returned to the park entrance after several hours, bade goodbye to our patient but extremely bored-looking armed guard, then walked beyond the park entrance, through a small village and down a side-track. Mosque and Angola Swallows were using electricity wires through the village as convenient roosts, as as we walked downhill through agricultural land we noted Baglafecht Weaver and Northern Puffback among other birds of the farmland and forest edge.
As we descended we came to a lovely looking camp where a raised platform gave a lookout over a swampy area. A Red-chested Flufftail responded to Herman’s playback and seemed incredibly close, but would simply not show itself. Once I saw a shape move behind dense grass, but that was as close I got. Jon might have seen a bit more, but Dave was also unhappy with untickable views.
I realised that the double-dip on my top two targets Grauer’s Broadbill and Grey-chested Babbler, meant much would rest, from a birding perspective, on our walk in two days’ time. Tomorrow would be all about Gorillas and we could not count on much birding. Over another excellent meal back at Ichumbi, the staff entertained us with a special performance and some cake for Gunnar’s birthday.
26 July
Today was really only about one non-avian target, Mountain Gorillas. These impressive apes are the main reason 99% of punters come here. When Attenborough filmed his iconic sequence in Rwanda nearly 40 years ago for Life on Earth, only 500 remained on the planet. Since then, conservation efforts have seen the population grow to a still precarious 1000, of which around 600 live in Bwindi. Around half of the families in Bwindi are habituated to humans and so can be visited (with a suitable escort) regularly by tourists such as ourselves. Families have no fixed location, but move around in large areas of the forest. Trackers stay with a family ’til dusk, and return early the next morning to exactly the same spot, picking up the trail to follow and relocate the family if it has moved overnight (which they often have). Once located, they radio back to base to let the guides and their punters know.
Of course, while waiting for permits to be sorted and other punters to arrive, we birded. Initially we played a tape for Snowy-bellied Robin-chat hoping it would hop onto a dark, narrow trail that led away from the reception area. After a minute or so, the guys saw a shape drop onto the the track “There it is!”. We all locked on, but it turned out to be a (still good) Red-capped Robin-Chat. As we watched, it flushed as a large red beast came trundling towards us. A superb Red River Hog got to within 5m then looked up, saw us, stopped dead in its tracks, then turned and bolted away back down the track. It was like something from a cartoon and I half expected the sound of bongos as its little legs pumped the ground trying to get away.
After an overly long and slow briefing session and welcome songs (ok, so it was very sweet and a great performance by the locals, but it did go on a bit) we were joined up with an Indian family: father, mother and two sons, both of whom work in Silicon Valley for big tech. We were assigned a guide, XXXX, and two armed guards. The guide explained that we would be trying to visit a family with four babies and a “Black-back”, a young, 13 year old male who had not yet developed the classic silver patch on his back that gives the alpha-males their name. Excited to see babies, but privately, we each were disappointed that apparently there was no Silverback in the group we had been assigned. At first I kept this thought to myself and resolved to enjoy the experience to the full. Perhaps we had we misunderstood anyway?
Gunnar’s unconventional footwear attracted the attention of the guide, who started to insist he change into boots, until Herman intervened, explaining to the guide there was no way he could persuade Gunnar to change out of his Vibram5Fingers.
We loaded back into vehicles for a short drive back out of the National Park to a new spot, closer to “our” family, then we set out on foot for a couple of kilometres following a stream. The stream marked one of the starkest boundary contrasts I’ve ever seen, open fields to our right, dense rainforest on our left. Part-way along our guide gave us some negative news – the trackers had not yet relocated the family this morning – ratcheting up the tension another notch. A small bridge led across the stream into the forest and we dropped into single file and shuffled along. Fresh, still steaming Elephant droppings were a reminder of why we had armed guards with us at all times.
In a small clearing we regrouped and the guide informed us that he now had news that the trackers had found our Gorilla family, so we would head directly there, perhaps another 20min walk. We headed upwards into a valley with fewer big trees, but overgrown with nettles, the jungle floor became denser and we pulled fingers and hands into sleeves to avoid being stung. Gunnar’s unconventional footwear was not well designed for the conditions and he was stung repeatedly on the soles of his feet as we walked through increasing dense vegetation up a slope. He was surprising stoic about it. After another 10 minutes we stopped and regrouped once more. We were close, and the guide instructed us to don masks, because Gorillas are susceptible to human diseases. As were doing so we realised we could already see our first Gorilla, young one playing on a vine, barely 15m away.
Walking up beyond the young gorilla the guide stopped. I moved up behind the others and was blown away to realise that our group of 8 humans was now standing in a tight group, right amongst the gorilla family. I’d imagined we’d be close, but not this close. To our left a mother and baby sat quietly, baby tucked tightly under her arm away from us, while in front, barely 3m away we had walked right up to 4 or 5, huddled together either sleeping or grooming each other. As the biggest of these shifted position we could see a large grey back an realised this was the group’s Silverback. Yes, the group had a testosterone-fuelled Black-back, but he was still subservient to the alpha male, around 20 years old. He was the one being groomed by his favourite ladies. He even gave us a tremendous comedy moment, letting out the longest and loudest fart I have ever heard. It’s good to be the King!
We stayed with this group for at least 40 minutes, then they started to move up the slope. We followed and moved into a position just above them. I was now looking down on a mother and baby, as well as the Silverback. The rest of the (human) group had moved a bit further up the slope and I was left with one of the guards. He suggested we move down closer to the baby for better photo ops, but I didn’t want to leave my group so instead I edged up the hill closer to where Gunnar and Dave were standing. As I did so I turned to see the Silverback walk on a similar trajectory, but a little lower down the slope. “Are we ok here? Am I safe?” I questioned the guard. Even if I wasn’t safe, it was too late as the huge beast emerged between some overhanging vines barely a metre from me. He lingered with his back to me, and then just as it seemed he would carry on away from us, without warning he turned and decided – probably as a show of strength – to walk directly between Gunnar and Dave, almost brushing them as he strode past. No argument from us: as Dave pointed out later, if the Silverback says it’s Wednesday, it’s fucking Wednesday!
With our allotted hour with the gorillas now nearly up, the animals themselves were clearly used to this being the limit and were starting to move off into the forest, not expecting to be followed. We walked off in the opposite direction down the hill, on a high from an experience that we had known would be good and once-in-a-lifetime, but had still managed to exceed expectations. We ate our picnic lunch in a clearing, but didn’t do a great deal of birding. The only notable birding came as we departing the forest: I was unable to get onto an Emerald Cuckoo that Dave found, but I did manage some pics of what we suspect is/was our only Dwarf Honeyguide of the trip, important because it is an Albertine Rift endemic.
Once out of the forest we travelled back to Rushaga in the vans then birded the forest edge down to N’Shongi Camp and the swampy area.
The highlight of the birds on the way down to N’Shongi was a stunning Doherty’s Bushshrike. I heard it call unprompted by our tape and once Herman played for it became superbly inquisitive and posed for cracking views. A real stunner in Ugandan flag primary colours, red, yellow and black. We’d seen Cinnamon-chested Bee-eater at a few places but in the same spot as the bushshrike, one gave its best photo ops of the trip.
Once at N’Shongi itself we enjoyed a very civilised 40 minutes, drinking cold beer on the viewing deck, and this time getting excellent views of a superb Red-chested Flufftail (though it was still too quick and sneaky for photos). Meanwhile an African Paradise Flycatcher posed nicely. What a brilliant way to end a superb day!
27 July
We returned to the forest for a full day’s birding today. Our guard seemed even less interested today, positively pissed off at being with us apparently. I have to admit, once or twice I too felt like we could be doing more or moving faster to give ourselves more chance at our missing targets. Today we walked a slow loop up to around 2200m, clawing back some species we’d missed two days ago, finding some nice ones, but still missing the top 3 (Grauer’s Broadbill, Grey-chested Babbler and Lagden’s Bushshrike). I still don’t really know if we just had not conveyed our priorities to the guides clearly enough or perhaps this was just Remi’s way of birding and Herman didn’t want to get involved. Of course we still had an excellent day. Highlights of the morning included another Black-billed Turaco, more Great Blue Turacos (hard to tire of such a gaudy, beautiful taxon), a flock of White-headed Woodhoopoe, and both Yellow-billed and Grey-throated Barbets. We were finally able to get tickable clear views of a mega-skulking Black-faced Rufous-warbler. An African Broadbill sang, but we could not tempt it any closer unfortunately, so it stayed in the heard-only basket, and Elliot’s Woodpecker eventually revealed itself to all of us.
Around lunchtime we came to a more open area that, despite the time of day, was alive with birds. Initially these were mainly Common Bulbuls – there must have been 30-40 chasing each other around vociferously – but we also found an excellent array of other species. In some cases it was better views of earlier birds, such as Banded Prinia, Black-faced Apalis. But we also accrued a good list of new birds as well: Tullberg’s Woodpeckers, Dusky Tit, Little Greenbul, Rwenzori Hill Babbler, Tiny Sunbird, Red-headed Malimba, White-breasted Nigrita. All the while we strained our ears for the faint, high-pitched song of the Broadbill, but it was no to be, even though this now seemed like our best chance. In fact I was so keen to concentrate on this 3-star taxon, I made a point of showing mock disgust at how much attention the rest of the group was paying to the field guide in their attempts to identify the small, non-descript Honeyguide.
On our way down the hill in the afternoon we further found Velvet-mantled Drongo another Grey-throated Barbet. One of the few birds that I managed to find (most were found by one of Dave, Jon or Herman) was a cracking Emerald Cuckoo, one of Africa’s prettiest birds. Further down, in a superb bit of birding, Jon announced that he’d just seen a bird fly “trogon height” into a distant thicket. This seemed a pretty big call (though he’d been sure not to announce the species itself), but as we got closer Dave locked his bins on a cracking Bar-tailed Trogon. It was disappointingly distant for photos, but I bagged a record shot.
We descended this part of the loop trail, initially along a ridge, then down into a shaded, damp valley. Ahead of the group with Herman, all of a sudden I heard one burst of song that was unequivocally the Grey-chested Babbler (or Kakamega). I looked beyond a fallen long but could see nothing. We had been playing it a bit higher up, partly to get to know it, and partly in the hope we’d get a response, so it was imprinted on my brain. This song may well have been in response to Gunnar’s phone, but as the others arrived we played again and all was silent. That single burst of song was the closest we would get to the Modulatricidae family. Herman explained that this was the main area where Kakamega is seen, and once we realised how close to the reception area we were – barely another 15mins walk, we questioned why we had not come here first thing this morning, or even first or last thing yesterday before or after Gorillas. Our playback did get a pair of Mountain Iladopsis excited and we had nice views of the skulking chats – though of course this was not new, because we’d seen one well two days earlier. Chubb’s Cisticola, common but generally a bit skulking, posed very nicely for photos.
Back at the reception area we had one more half-hearted attempt for Snowy-bellied Robin-chat without success. We were all rather birded out after our triple dip again, so we returned to Ichumbi Lodge for beer, shower, and an excellent dinner to revive the spirits. Over dinner, I had one more attempt to adjust the plan, maybe to give us final crack at the Broadbill.
Looking at ebird I had noticed all the red pins for Grauer’s Broadbill were in the Ruhija area, where our original itinerary had us staying. We never really got a satisfactory answer for why we ended up in Rushaga, not Ruhija where most birding groups go. I assumed it was because of our late booking, only a few months in advance, so Ruhija was full — but this was never confirmed. Perhaps if we set out early enough tomorrow we would we have time for a detour to Ruhija, and a frog-march up the mountain, before travelling north? Not worth it according to Herman – the chicks from the nest site where all those pins were located had fledged, so all the birds would now be just as difficult there as in Rushaga. Or at least that’s what we were told and accepted at the time. I relaxed, knowing we’d given it a decent crack. Birding goes like that sometimes.
However in a rather masochistic move, once back in Adelaide I checked ebird over the coming weeks. It was galling to see several subsequent reports of a pair of Grauer’s Broadbill, still at that same site. In all likelihood, the detour would have been a success. Once again I reflected that had I taken more control of the itinerary earlier, instead of relying on the tour organisers to understand our priorities, perhaps I could have insisted on one of our “extension” days/nights being spent at Ruhija. Rushaga itself was great, the lodge beautiful, and the forest had delivered a superb gorilla experience and some other great birds. But to have added a day at Ruhija instead of both at Rushaga would probably have aided our quest.
To be continued and concluded…
