East Africa - Day 7

Uganda 25 July 2015

I will add my photographs to my blog post once I have working wifi.

We were having a great trip to Uganda organised by ground agents Avian Watch Uganda. Everything was well organised with Robert our fantastic guide (who knew the sites and bird calls which he could whistle) and Paul, our driver and fixer, for who nothing was too much.

This morning we were all a bit tired from our long and bumpy journey.  We were at Kidepo Valley National Park and were looking forward to seeing animals and birds.  The National Park is in the north east of Uganda, not far from the border of South Sudan and Kenya.  Ten years ago you couldn't come here, because of rebel leader being here.  Now they are trying to build it up as a tourist destination.

We had breakfast at 5.30 am before starting our safari drive.  First stop was Pennant-tailed Nightjar, which were amazing birds and new for all of us.

Paul then opened the top of his Toyota Landcruiser vehicle, so that we could stand and have a 360 degree view, perfect for birding and safari.

Animal wise we did really well with fantastic views of a lioness and three young males, Warthog, Zebra, Water Buffalo, two Common Jackal, Jackson Heartbeast, Water Buck, Oribi and a herd of 22 elephants including 6 cute babies.

We also had an amazing morning birding, seeing White-bellied Go-away-bird, Crested and Clapperton's Francolin, Abyssinian Ground-hornbill and Northern White-crowned Shrike, which was even a new bird for our guide Robert.

We stopped at a camp for lunch, picking up a few new birds like Grey-capped Social Weaver, Superb Starling (my bird of the day) and Shelly's Sparrow.

The afternoon was hot and quieter bird wise, but with still a few new birds including Red-winged Lark, Green Wood-hoopoe and sneaked in better views of a Clapperton's Francolin with 3 chicks. We saw a strange looking Cisticola that just didn't fit anything.  One to work out later.

At one point, Dad pointed out 2 small parrots with a long tail.  We saw them briefly as they flew off as Dad called them as Ring-necked Parakeet.  They are originally from India but are an introduced species in the London area.  Robert, our guide, didn't get onto them which ordinarily would not be an issue, but it turned out he had never seen one before, as this was the only place in Uganda you could see one and they were scarce here.  Paul reversed the vehicle, but they were nowhere to be seen.

Then the heavens opened with torrential rain.  As we raced back to the lodge, we were still able to stop for the odd bird.  We arrived at the lodge at 6 pm, exactly 12 hours after we had left.

After a quick very welcomed hot shower, we went for dinner via better views of the Pennant-winged Nightjar and Freckled Nightjar, which was Dad's 5000th bird.

Unfortunately, Digby had been off solo birding and missed the Nightjars.  He reappeared at dinner having not seen anything on his woodland walk so went off with Dad to try and see Freckled Nightjar, with no success.

Dad's 5000th bird was celebrated with a few beers and Sprite that night.

Later, Dad decided that the Cisticola was a Red-pate Cisticola, which changes plumage depending on whether it is in breeding plumage or not.  Digby independently came to the same conclusion!

Trip list - After 7 days of birding, we had seen 301 birds for the trip so far and 122 lifers for me.

About the Writer

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig on Scilly

Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig 

Mya-Rose Craig is a 12 year old young birder, conservationist, writer and speaker. She is based near Bristol and writes the successful Birdgirl Blog, with posts about birding and conservation from around the world. She is looking forward to going Mountain Gorilla Trekking in East Africa and watching Penguins in Antarctica in December 2015, which will be her 7th continent. She has recently been listed with the singer songwriter George Ezra and actress Maisie Williams from Game of Thrones as one of Bristol's most influential young people. Please like her Birdgirl Facebook Page and follow her on Birdgirl Twitter

East Africa - Day 6

Uganda 24 July 2015

I will add my photographs to this blog post when I get properly working wifi.

We were having a great trip to Uganda organised by ground agents Avian Watch Uganda. Everything was well organised with Robert our fab guide (who knew the sites and bird calls which he could whistle) and Paul, our driver and fixer, for who nothing was too much.

So today we were up half an hour earlier, at 5.00 am which was all the harder.  Breakfast was ready included hot buffet items.  The cook must have been working all night.

Digby overslept, having not slept for 2 nights.  This made me feel better as I am bound to be late for breakfast some time and now won't feel so bad about it.

Robert said that hardly any tours came to see the Fox's Weavers here and so no one had gone out scouting to find them.

After a half hour drive, we were back on the boat looking for Fox's Weaver with no success during our 3 hour trip.  We did see lots more Lesser Jacana, one Lesser Moorhen and two African Swamphen which seemed strange that they were so scarce.  I wondered whether water birds were hunted here.

Back in the car, Robert said that all the birds were hunted here including the weavers and that there had been a man there as we left with 200 weaver nests.  This is terrible.  I don't know which NGO's are working here but I'm sure  Birdlife International are working with Nature Uganda on s project here.

What is needed here, is what I've seen lots of around the world.  The bird hunters are given another source of income (eg fishing boat and nets), tours encouraged to come here and pay a levy to the local community and there being a trained local guide who is also a local researcher who does regular surveys of this localised, rare endemic bird.  I'm going to look up what projects are going on here, if at all.

It was 9.30 am when we left the village, concious that we then had the very long drive to Kidepo Valley National Park, where we were staying a blissful 3 nights.

Four hours later, we stopped at a small town to eat our packed lunch with our first Palm Nut Vulture of the trip, a new bird for Digby and our daily Africa Harrier Hawk.  Paul, our driver, then said we had to leave as we had 300 km more to go today.  That sounded a long way until 200 metres on, the tarmac turned to mud.  300 km on a mud road was a lot more than a long way.

We drove through poor villages, with children in tatty school uniforms and no sign of any shops.

Then, at 4.30 pm it started raining again turning the road to sludge.  I was glad we were in a 4 x 4 Toyota Landcruiser and not one of the cars on the road.  The rain soon passed and we had managed to pick up a bit more speed.

The last 50 km or so was relatively active with birds, with a Little Sparrowhawk, Wahlberg's Eagle, Helmeted Guineafowl, Black-winged Bishop and A stunning Greyish Eagle Owl all seen from our vehicle.

It was 7.30 pm when we arrived at Nga Moru Wilderness Camp, where dinner was waiting for us.  It was pretty rustic with no electricity in the rooms but multiple charges in the diningroom. A quick shower later and I was crashed in bed before 10 pm.  Mum had an interesting chat with an American researcher called Mike Brown, who was researching giraffe, but in the whole context of a place, looking at everything.

Trip list -  256 for the trip by the end of day 6 with 101 new birds for me.

About the Writer

 Young Birder birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig on Scilly

Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig 

Mya-Rose Craig is a 12 year old young birder, conservationist, writer and speaker. She is based near Bristol and writes the successful Birdgirl Blog, with posts about birding and conservation from around the world. She is looking forward to going Mountain Gorilla Trekking in East Africa and watching Penguins in Antarctica in December 2015, which will be her 7th continent. She has recently been listed with the singer songwriter George Ezra and actress Maisie Williams from Game of Thrones as one of Bristol's most influential young people. Please like her Birdgirl Facebook Page and follow her on Birdgirl Twitter

East Africa - Day 5

Uganda 23 July 2015

I will add my photos to this blog post when I have properly working wifi.

We were having the most brilliant trip to Uganda organised by ground agents Avian Watch Uganda. Everything was going well with Robert our great guide (who knew the sites and bird calls which he could whistle) and Paul, our driver and fixer.

Last night we had the luxury of staying in the same upmarket hotel In Mbale for the second night.  There was a dubbed Indian channel on the TV, which was quite funny as that's what my grandmother (Nanu) watches all day long.  I chatted to Paul about it and he said that everyone there was addicted to Indian drama's including his wife.  He said that he never gets to watch things like the news and can't manage to get his hands on the remote, which never leaves his wife's hands.

This morning we were up at 5.30 am again but when we came down at 6.10 am, breakfast was ready.

It was still gone 6.30 am by the time we set off after Paul had sorted the bill.  The set up was the same as when we were in Bolivia.  Robert was from Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, where the Mountain Gorillas live.  He only comes to Kampala when he has a guiding job on and was not used to the city.  He only guided which he was brilliant at.  Paul was our driver and lived in the city. He did all the organising, paying ensuring everything was great for us.  Nothing was too much for him.

We had a long drive to get to Soroti, to try for Uganda's only endemic bird, the Fox's Weaver.  Once in the area, we stopped at a marshy area by a bridge next to the road and saw Golden-backed Weaver, Bar-breasted Firefinch and Zebra Waxbill but no Fox's Weaver.

We then travelled to the local village next to Lake Bisina and picked up a local boatman who knew the areas to visit.  Here we saw Fox's CistcolaIta and Hartlaub's Marsh Widowbird.  It was 11.30 am when we set off by boat and in the full heat of the day. The boat had quite a big leak, so someone worked full time to  scoop the water out. We searched for the Fox's Weaver without any luck, but did see another target Lesser Jacana which we didn't see at Mabamba.  The lake was particularly beautiful this time of year, covered in purple waterlily flowers.

Despite the heat, we saw some good species for the trip like Madagascar Squacco Heron and Lesser Swamp Warbler.

After the two hour boat trip, we got back to shore to find our driver Paul was still in town getting a strap fixed on our Toyota Land Cruiser vehicle.  The joys of driving in African mud roads.

It was 2 pm and very hot but we walked across the fields searching for Fox's Weaver. The main boatman, Owinyi, walked with us as he knew where previous tours had looked and seen the Weaver.  He said he had not been out with a group since January, when he last saw the Weaver.  During our walk, we did still saw Black-and-White Cuckoo and Shikra.

It was a steamy 3.30 pm by the time we arrived at the road Weaverless and another half an hour before Paul arrived with a repaired vehicle.  Not to give up so easily, we drove back along a now muddy and skiddy mud road to the bridge on the main road. Here our friend Digby met up with us.  His flight had arrived in the middle of the night, he had then seen the Shoebill at Mabamba before driving all day straight to meet us.

Within a few minutes of starting to bird at the bridge, we had more torrential rain.  We would have carried on looking, but the Weavers had disappeared.  Disappointed, we drove to our hotel.

Our guide, Robert suggested an early breakfast at 5.30 am and then to go back to the lake to try for Fox's Weaver again.

So after a hot shower and dinner I was off the to bed, especially as the wifi did not work properly (again), so no photos yet on my blog posts.

Trip list -  239 birds for the trip by the end of day 5 and 96 lifers for me.

About the Writer

Young Birder birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig on Scilly

Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig 

Mya-Rose Craig is a 12 year old young birder, conservationist, writer and speaker. She is based near Bristol and writes the successful Birdgirl Blog, with posts about birding and conservation from around the world. She is looking forward to going Mountain Gorilla Trekking in East Africa and watching Penguins in Antarctica in December 2015, which will be her 7th continent. She has recently been listed with the singer songwriter George Ezra and actress Maisie Williams from Game of Thrones as one of Bristol's most influential young people. Please like her Birdgirl Facebook Page and follow her on Birdgirl Twitter

East Africa - Day 4

Uganda 22 July 2015

We were up at 5.30 am again this morning which was really hard as I didn't sleep well during the night.

Breakfast was meant to be at 6.00 am but again wasn't ready for another 45 minutes.

By the time we had cereal and toast and had collected our packed lunch it was 7  am.

It was a two hour drive to our birding destination at the furthest part of Mount Elgon on the South East border with Kenya.  I felt much better after another two hours sleep and 9 am was a much more civilised time of day.

We did a bit of birding around the gate house whilst we waited for the forest guard to appear.  Here we saw Mountain Wagtail, Chubb's Cisticola and Green-headed Sunbird.

Once we actually got going it was 9.45 am a very late start to an 8 hour walk up a mountain.  Roger, an armed soldier was with us for the day.

After 3 days of birding, even with my really light Swarovsku CL Campanion 8 x 32, I had really bad binocular neck.  I had bought some shoulder straps when I was eight at Angel Paz in Ecuador but they were too big until now.  Dad put them on for me and they made my bins weight nothing. Lots of American birders use them but virtually no one in the UK, as they would not be considered hard enough and a bit dudey.

Soon after we started, we were passed by 3 Belgium guys overtook us followed by lots of porters with massive packs  as apparently they were going trekking for a week. I did really feel sorry for the porters.

Roger said hardly any birders come here, which is a shame.  We saw some brilliant birds including Black-faced Rufous Warbler, Abyssinian Ground Thrush and Black-throated Apalis.

Not far from the furthest point we were gong, it started to pour with rain.  The kind of torrential downpour where even with a waterproof and an umbrella you get soaking wet.  I had new boots last summer which were waterproof but I grew out of them within 3 months.  The boots I have are ones I won from BBC Wildlife Magazine, which I found out weren't waterproof!  We sheltered in the path under trees for two hours and were ready to turn back but Robert was not letting us get away with that.  He encouraged us on and eventually it stop raining.  Further along we saw Hartlaub's Turaco, Black-collared Apalis and Mountain Yellow Warbler.

There had been a river along the path, but now it was a slimy mush.  What was ok on the way up was treacherous on the  way down.

On the way back I was behind Robert, when I saw a Scaly Francolin sitting in the path before it ran off left into the vegetarian before I could call it.

When we finally arrived at the car, Paul our driver was ready to call out a search party.  He thought that maybe something had happened.

Back at the hotel, Mum put the air conditioning on even higher than normal to try and dry my boots and everything else from today.  

My quote of the day "one day you are going to wake up and find me under the covers dead from frost bite from the air conditioning".

Trip list - 208 as of the end of day 4 and 81 lifers for me.

About the Writer

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig on Scilly

Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig 

Mya-Rose Craig is a 12 year old young birder, conservationist, writer and speaker. She is based near Bristol and writes the successful Birdgirl Blog, with posts about birding and conservation from around the world. She is looking forward to going Mountain Gorilla Trekking in East Africa in the summer and watching Penguins in Antarctica in December 2015, which will be her 7th continent. She has recently been listed with the singer songwriter George Ezra and actress Maisie Williams from Game of Thrones as one of Bristol's most influential young people. Please like her Birdgirl Facebook Page and follow her on Birdgirl Twitter

East Africa - Day 3

Uganda 21 July 2015

Last night, we were staying in a nice hotel in Jinja.  I think there had been a large sikh community before and my friend Shinda had told me that her relatives used to live here.  This morning we arrived for breakfast at our hotel at 6 am to find they were not ready for us. Mum chivvied them them along and eventually we were leaving at almost 7 am. There is no point getting too stressed as things seem to happen at their own pace here.

On our way to Mabira Forest, we passed over the River Nile again, which was dammed here.

The Nile River, Jinja, Uganda
Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Then we drove back to Mabira Forest Reserve but to a different section where we birded until 11 am.  The morning was quite slow but we just dug out each bird.

Mabira Forest, Jinja, Uganda
Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig, Mabira Forest, Jinja, Uganda
Photograph taken by and copyright Helena Craig

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig, Mabira Forest, Jinja, Uganda
Photograph taken by and copyright Helena Craig

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig, Mabira Forest, Jinja, Uganda
Photograph taken by and copyright Helena Craig

We had to be careful, as there were motorcycle taxis ferrying villagers back and forth along the forest track really fast.

Monkey sp, Mabira Forest, Jinja, Uganda
Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Yellow-mantled Weaver, Mabira Forest, Jinja, Uganda
Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

It was a great morning's birding with lots of Greenbul species (including Slender-billed, Yellow-Whiskered, Honeyguide, Cabanis's and White-throated), Blue-shouldered Robin-chat, Brown and Scaly-breasted Illadopsis and Little Green Sunbird.

Black-and-white-casqued Hornbill, Mabira Forest, Jinja, Uganda
Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Great Blue Turaco, Mabira Forest, Jinja, Uganda
Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Ant trail, Mabira Forest, Jinja, Uganda
Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Ant trail, Mabira Forest, Jinja, Uganda
Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

We then back to the Flufftail pool to check for Shining Blue Kingfisher with no luck.

Back to the vehicle, we had a quick packed lunch before starting our four hour journey to Mbale Town.

On the way we made a quick roadside stop at some open crop habitat where we picked up Black Bishop and Black-Bellied Firefinch.

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig, Mabira to Mbale, Uganda
Photograph taken by and copyright Helena Craig

Shortly afterwards we stopped at a roadside river stop where we saw two Rufous-bellied Heron and White-Rumped Swift which was a catch up bird for me, which are always extra special.

Between Mabira and Mbale, Uganda
Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Between Mabira and Mbale, Uganda
Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Between Mabira and Mbale, Uganda
Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

African Open-billed Stork, between Jinga and Mbale, Uganda
Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Woodland Kingfisher, between Jinga and Mbale, Uganda

Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig between Jinga and Mbale, Uganda
Photograph taken by and copyright Helena Craig

Next stop was at some paddyfields next to the road.  Not much here except. A large flock of White-faced Whistling Duck and African Open-billed Stork.

African Open-billed Stork, between Jinga and Mbale, Uganda
Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig between Jinga and Mbale, Uganda
Photograph taken by and copyright Helena Craig

It was a long journey with lots of sleep, blogging and reading to catch up with. At our hotel in Mbale we did some birding around the grounds and I managed to get photos of a showy Black Bishop as well as seeing Grey-capped Warbler.

White-browed Robin Chat, Mbale, Uganda

Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Black Bishop, Mbale, Uganda

Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Trip list - 175 total birds by the end of day 3 and 56 lifers for me.

About the Writer

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig on Scilly

Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig 

Mya-Rose Craig is a 13 year old young birder, conservationist, writer and speaker. She is based near Bristol and writes the successful Birdgirl Blog, with posts about birding and conservation from around the world. She is looking forward to going Mountain Gorilla Trekking in East Africa in the summer and watching Penguins in Antarctica in December 2015, which will be her 7th continent. She has recently been listed with the singer songwriter George Ezra and actress Maisie Williams from Game of Thrones as one of Bristol's most influential young people. Please like her Birdgirl Facebook Page and follow her on Birdgirl Twitter