It’s a long drive back to Kampala from Bwindi National Park, especially if you take advantage of the last morning to do some final high-altitude birding. Instead of pushing ahead and arriving in the capital after dark, we decided to stop over for the night at Lake Mburo National Park. On our previous visit, Aimee and I had been rained out for much of the time and didn’t have the opportunity to take a boat ride on the lake. Amazingly, it rained again on this visit, although we managed to sneak in a quick boat ride in the morning before the downpour started. Our boat driver was remarkably efficient, getting us onto both site specialities within fifteen minutes. A pair of White-Backed Night-Heron was nesting at the edge of the papyrus swamp near the boat launch, and ten minutes of searching along the forest fringed shore yielded a confiding African Finfoot. There are no doubt many sites in Uganda containing both birds, but nowhere are they as accessible as Lake Mburo.
Notable birds seen: African Finfoot, White-Backed Night-Heron, Common Squacco Heron, Striated Heron, Black Egret, Purple Heron, Hamerkop, Sacred Ibis, Hadada Ibis, Egyptian Goose, African Fish Eagle, African Harrier-Hawk, Tawny Eagle, Long-Crested Eagle, Helmeted Guineafowl, Crested Francolin, Red-Necked Spurfowl, Black Crake, African Jacana, Grey-Crowned Crane, Water Thick-Knee, Long-Toed Lapwing, African Wattled Lapwing, Common Sandpiper, African Green Pigeon, Brown Parrot, Bare-Faced Go-Away-Bird, Levaillant’s Cuckoo, Diederik Cuckoo, Pied Kingfisher, Woodland Kingfisher, Malachite Kingfisher, Broad-Billed Roller, European Roller, African Grey Hornbill, Lesser Striped Swallow, Yellow-Throated Longclaw, White-Browed Robin-Chat, Grey-Backed Fiscal, Papyrus Gonolek (h), Yellow-Billed Oxpecker, Black-Headed Weaver.
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