Northern Queen Elizabeth

There are many drab flycatchers in Africa, and throughout the world. They are all elegant to me. This is a Swamp Flycatcher, another lifer for me.

Many geographical races of the Yellow Wagtail congregate together in Uganda during the winter months. I dont even try to distinguish between the various sub-species. This individual is more colorful than many of them.

This is another photograph of the first bird species that I identified in Uganda. A Scarlet-chested Sunbird.

Similar in appearance and name to the previous bird, this is a Red-chested Sunbird. If anything it is even more attractive. I done good with the sunbirds on this trip. Not only do they look like hummingbirds, their behavior and voices are very similar as well.

I done good with weavers too. This is a Yellow-backed Weaver.

There is a pleasant open air restaurant on the Mweya Peninsula, inside the park. It is where I saw the previous bird species. There were also wild, but people habituated Warthogs lying about in the shade next to the restaurant.

We liked that restaurant and ate there several times. One evening after we had placed our orders, we took a short stroll across from the restaurant. We saw a group of forty or fifty Banded Mongooses. When they saw us, they rushed forward like a bunch of puppies.

They ran all around us just out of reach. Tom used to live in Zimbabwe years ago and raised an orphaned Banded Mongoose. He said that it was a wonderful pet.

They were very pleasant meals we had at that restaurant. Good food, sunbirds in the trees all around, Warthogs, and Banded Mongooses running around under the chairs and tables.

Further on we saw good things like this male Pin-tailed Widow, also called Whydah. The females lay their eggs in the nests of waxbills.

A new species of mousebird for me, Blue-naped Mousebird.

A diminutive male, Black-headed Batis.

This is the female on her tiny, lichen-covered nest.It looks exactly like a hummingbird nest, and is about the same size.

A male Blue-headed Agama. The previous photos were all shot on the grounds of the upscale, Queen Elizabeth Bush Lodge, located just outside the park. They served very good food. We could'nt afford to stay in their rooms but they let us use their campground for a reasonable fee. At night Gary almost walked into a Giant Forest Hog. The hippos were squabbling with one another and running all around the campground. They are really quite loud. We also heard lions roaring, and hyenas laughing in the distance. I was happy to be sacked out in the car.

One of the lodge employees was an excellent bird guide. His name was Bonnie. His brother was Belinda, who worked for Hillary, another man who was an excellent birder. Next post will be about the nearby, Kazinga Channel, which has the reputation for being one of the best wildlife viewing places on earth.

The Untamed Border

From Bwindi we turned northward to Queen Elizabeth National Park. We entered the park from the south and stopped at the Ishasha Headquarters. Gary scans the savannah in the photo above.

Queen Elizabeth is one of Uganda's most popular parks. It has all the big African animals except rhinos, giraffes, and Zebras. The antelope above is a Topi. Most people who visit the park are part of organized safaris and they visit the northern section only. We saw very few people in the Ishasha section.

A thrilling new bird for me, Western Banded Snake Eagle.

Africa's largest vulture, Lappet-faced Vulture.

Fork-tailed Drongos were the only species of drongo that we saw on this trip. They are graceful fliers as they snatch insects out of the air.

There are no Impalas in Queen Elizabeth. Instead there are the slightly stockier, Uganda Kobs.

A Flappet Lark. They make a rapid clapping sound with their wings when they fly.

A common sight on the African savannahs, Helmeted Guineafowl.

A park ranger informed us that this is the most beautiful spot in Uganda. It was closed for many years because it lies on the banks of the Ishasha River, which forms the border between Uganda and the DRC. You can see the DRC on the right where the pale tree trunks are. In past years there was constant danger from various guerilla groups and outlaws.

We had the place to ourselves except for two armed guards that protected us at night. They were sent by the park staff and slept in the open under a tree. Along with mosquitos and all the other insect pests, we had hippos and who knows what wandering the camp at night. I felt sorry for them.

Because of restrictions and fees concerning luggage limits by the airlines, Tom opted not to bring a tent. I looked at the hippos in the river at our feet at generously offered to let him use my tent while I slept in the car. That became the pattern wherever we camped. I felt so much more secure whenever I heard large animals moving about in the dark. Tom and Gary were much more alert to night sounds than I was.

Early the next morning our nocturnal campground guests headed back into the river.

Our guards left at first light and about 30 Olive Baboons came for breakfast. They tried to raid our tents but we fended them off without much trouble.

There were many birds around including this Ring-necked Dove and female Violet-backed Starling. Only the males have violet backs.

A colorful bird if seen in the right light, African Green Pigeon. There were also Red-tailed Monkeys across the river on the Congo side, and B&W Colobus Monkeys on our side.

After leaving the Ishasha section of the park we headed north again. We saw some good raptors along the way like, Long-crested Eagle, Black-shouldered Kite, Common Buzzard, and this magnificent sub-adult Martial Eagle. After I put down my camera a Bataluer Eagle flew in and dive bombed the Martial Eagle. I was too slow on the draw to get any photos.

Getting Arrested in Bwindi

Luckily, I did'nt get arrested, it was those miserable desperados Gary and Tom that got arrested. We spent a night at Ruhuja Headquarters in a nice safari tent camp that had excellent food at a very reasonable price. The next morning we left Ruhuja and started down the road. Immediately we came to a nice patch of forest where some villagers were chopping wood beside the road.
We assumed that we must be out of the park boundaries and stopped to look for birds. There was a steep trail leading downhill and Tom and Gary started following it. My heart does'nt do steep hills very well so I decided to stay where I could keep an eye on the car. I walked back and forth along the road seeing mostly Cinnamon-breasted Bee-eaters.
A half hour later Gary and Tom returned being accompanied by several angry park rangers. They explained that they were being arrested for walking down the main gorilla trail without a guide or a permit. We returned to Ruhuja Headquarters and I waited in the car while Gary and Tom pleaded their case.

Twenty minutes later they got in the car accompanied by an armed park ranger named Samson. He explained that we were being ordered to go to the main entrance, Buhoma Headquarters across the park. It was an uncomfortable drive at first until we saw some monkeys and birds in trees beside the road. We stopped to look at them and asked Samson if we could get out for a better look. He hesitated for a moment then nodded his consent. After several times of stopping to bird we all relaxed and Samson proved to be an excellent bird guide.

A beautiful but somewhat shy, White-browed Robin Chat.

Cisticolas are a group of very non-descript, nearly identical birds that often can't be identified. With some expert help we determined that this is a Chubb's Cisticola.

Brown-crowned Tchagras are related to shrikes. This bird enjoys a grasshopper for breakfast.

Another example of a shrike relative, Sulpher-breasted Bush Shrike. This bird is stealing nesting material from another bird's nest.

 A true shrike, Mckinnon's Fiscal. Africa is the very center of shrike diversity. There are many species of shrikes and their near relatives.

A lovely pair of Bronze Sunbirds at a banana flower.

Although it is not as colorful as some, this male Bronze Sunbird holds his own in the looks department.

The Cinnamon-breasted Bee-eater is the common bee-eater in the mountains of Bwindi. The bee-eater that I really wanted to see most of all is a less common species found in deep forest along streamsides.

While we drove along with Samson, we came to just such a habitat and I remarked that this could be a good place to see a Black Bee-eater.

We stopped beside the beautiful stream and Samson's sharp eyes soon pointed out a Black Bee-eater. Although the photo above is terribly out of focus, it displays the bee-eater's wonderful colors.

The Black Bee-eater was one of my most wanted species in Uganda. We saw several but I never could get a satisfactory photo.

We eventually made it to Buhoma Park Headquarters. We paid Samson for his help with spotting birds and teaching us about the forest ecosystem. He never mentioned our arrest to the park administrators. We gratefully left Samson and found a banda at the community owned lodge, just inside the park boundaries.

This lizard, (skink?) was at Buhoma Park Headquarters.

An attractive little, Black-throated Apalis gathers moss for it's nest.

The apalis was being accompanied by another moss gathering bird, Brown-capped Weaver. These weavers are unlike most other species. They inhabit forests and are less gregarious than other weavers. Their beauty is only surpassed by the Red-headed Weaver in my opinion.

Tom ignores nearly being trampled by goats while he studies a bird inside the park. Local people dont hesitate to utilize the park all around it's boundaries. Because of the dense human population on all sides, the park is under constant exploitation.

Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Nshongi Camp

After we left Mburo we headed Southwest to the far corner of the country and wound our way up into the Rwenzori Mountains. These hills are completely developed outside of a few protected areas like Bwindi.

People farm the terraced hillsides and live in small villages scattered amoung the fields. Children often have to walk miles to attend school.

We stayed in Bwindi for 5 days and stayed in 3 different places. The first was a newer lodge called Nshongi Camp, which can be seen in the photo above. It is nestled in a little hollow below a village at the edge of the forest. We stayed in rustic huts called bandas. We parked the car up in the little village, where outsiders are still a novelty to the locals.

Some of the easiest birding was outside the forest along the road. We drew a crowd everywhere we went. I doubt these children really comprehended what Tom was doing.

Shy siblings.

A large swallow called a Black Saw-wing. They were nesting in holes dug into a bank beside the road.

One of my favorite photos of the whole trip. It was a lucky shot to get this female Bronze Sunbird in flight.

To me the best things we saw at Nshongi Camp were not birds but this pair of chameleons. The male on top was trying to mate with the female below him, who was only trying to get away.

The cryptic female advertizes her disinterest in the male by her colors.

The three-horned chameleons that I'm familiar with are called Jackson's Chameleons. This magnificent male was bigger and more colorful than any Jackson's Chameleon that I've seen. I think it is a related species.

Bwindi is most famous for it's Mountain Gorillas. Since a one hour visit with gorillas cost $500.oo US , that's on top of the $50.oo vehicle fee, $30.00 per person per day park entrance fee, plus lodging costs, we decided to pass. We contented ourselves with admiring other primates like L'Hoest's Monkeys and the above, Black and White Colobus.

We saw plenty of these small Black-crowned Waxbills and the look-alike Black-capped Waxbills.

There were many confiding but non-descript gray flycatchers like this African Dusky Flycatcher.

Also this Grey-throated Flycatcher.

The most common weavers we saw at Nshongi Camp were Baglafecht's Weavers. The individuals that we saw all had bumps on top of their beaks. The field guides Don't mention such a feature on this species.

Stay tuned for more about Bwindi and my favorite bird of the place, the incredible Black Bee-eater.