East Africa – Day 30

Rwanda 17 August 2015

I have not been able to upload photographs to my blog without wifi or decent band width but will add my photographs to my blog post as soon as I can.

We are having the most brilliant time in Uganda and Rwanda with everything being great. Our trip was organised by our local ground agents Avian Watch Uganda. Everything is going really well with Robert, our fantastic guide (who knows all the sites and calls and can whistle birds in) and Paul, our driver and fixer, for who nothing was too much.

This was our fifth day birding in Rwanda.

Today we were staying at the luxurious Akagera Game Lodge, Akagera National Park in South East Rwanda, on the border with Tanzania. The border was really close, just a few miles across the border. We were so close that first Dad’s phone and then Paul’s and Mum’s phone switched to the Tanzania mobile provider with messages saying “Welcome to Tanzania”!

We were up at 5.00 am for a 5.30 am breakfast and leaving at 6.00 am to go birding on a game drive.

We saw lots of birds new for Rwanda, some new for our trip and a few lifers. Some of the good birds from the morning were Long-tailed Cisticola, Blue Quail, White-headed Black Chat, Brown-backed Honeybird and Crested Barbet.

We went back to the lodge for lunch, but first Dad and I went for a swim in the pool. That was brilliant, just to have a little time off. We couldn’t have seen much as it was hot here.

There were hardly any animals and we only saw our first and only animal all morning, a lone Buffalo at 10.00 am.

Back in Savannah, we were plagued by Tetsi flies again, so I refused to take off my fleece in 90 degrees of heat.

We were back at the fancy lodge at midday, to have a swim and lunch. Paul and Robert were heading somewhere cheaper with local food. It was a lot hotter down here, as we were further south and low down.

In the afternoon, at 3.15 pm, we were back out on a game drive, when we saw a Green-winged Pytilla, Black-lored Babbler, with amazing views of a male and female Hilderbrandt’s Francolin and Emerald-Spotted Wood Dove (trip tick).

At 4.30 pm we glimpsed our second animal, the backend of a Warthog. You would. really disappointed if you had come here to see animals, though met people seemed to be here to just enjoy the pool for the bank holiday weekend.

We were back at the lodge by 6.00 pm, to get sorted for tomorrow when we leave Rwanda and the amazing Paul and Robert.

Trip List – List for Uganda 585, 152 lists for Rwanda, 608 trip lists and 289 lifers for me.