Dear All,

I have just completed a remarkable East African Meg-Month for Sarus Bird Tours, visiting Tanzania, Kenya, one night in Uganda and five days in Rwanda. This is perhaps the most frustrating time to head out after a considerable list of birds in this region. Firstly apart from early waders/terns/gulls and Barn Swallows, there are no palearctic migrants to boost the totals. Secondly the breeding is for the best part over, most having been in the wet from March to May and into June. In July birds are either in the last stages of dependence, or they have gone off on their own. Thirdly because breeding is over for the season, birds are quiet, in non-breeding dress, non-territorial and unresponsive to “intimidation.” Fourthly, the mornings in July are very cool at altitude, but cloudy over much of the region. Sunny mornings are scarce, and the birds are not physically active in the early mornings, preferring to get into mixed feeding assemblages well into the morning. In the afternoon, the cool and cloud roll back and the birds react by just “disappearing!” Fifthly, the convenience of finding birds with the use of owlet imitations is a waste of time, apart from the chance of calling in an owlet! Pearl-spotted mimicry resulted in absolutely nothing throughout the entire region, Red-chested mimicry only resulted in a dry mouth after whistling fruitlessly, apart from calling up the only Red-chested Owlet of the tour, and even though there were birds in the neighbouring trees, and the bird was vocally responding…. not one bird went anywhere near it!

So with all these disadvantages, it just goes to show the incredible variety in the region when we finished the tour having recorded 838 species of which 807 were physically seen!

THE STATE OF THE NATIONS FROM A BIRDERS AND TRAVELLERS PERSPECTIVE

I know that friends who are also on this net are planning trips to Uganda and Rwanda, so offer this as a help, rather than they be surprised at the other end. I hope that it is also of use for anyone planning a visit to this region.

Because we had so much ground to cover in a limited time, locations where under normal tour conditions multiple nights would be spent in a given area, we would just stay one night. We were in fact “skimming”  what was near the surface, rather than having the time to search out specialities that were not themselves target species.

The tour started off when the clients (3) arrived the previous evening and transferred to Red Court in Nairobi. A very convenient and comfortable hotel. On the 1st we left Nairobi for Namanga, and because it was the first time birding in East Africa for all three we took our time getting there as there were so many distractions. The road to Namanga was in good condition, and the border crossing a painless exercise.