One Day Birding Mabamba Wetlands and Mpanga Forest Tour

One Day Birding Mabamba Wetlands and Mpanga Forest Tour Overview

• Birding for Shoebill at Mabamba

The day begins with an early pick-up by our guide at your hotel/residence from Entebbe or Kampala, to transfer to Mabamba wetlands. Arriving at the wetland landing, you will pick up a community guide and take a motorized local canoe to access the marsh interior through a maze of papyrus edged water channels. Our top target will be the Shoebill that favor Mabamba’s low-oxygenated waters which are stocked with mud fish, catfish and several fish species that are its favorite prey.

Other good species in the marsh to look out for include Lake Victoria biome species Papyrus Gonolek, Northern Brown-throated Weaver, Carruthers’ and Winding Cisticola, Lesser Jacana, Blue-breasted Bee-eater, Blue-headed Coucal and more. Other papyrus species include Black-crowned Night Heron, Striated Heron, Pygmy and Spur-winged Geese, White-faced Whistling Duck, Black Stilt, Purple, Reed Cormorant. Purple and Grey Heron, Malachite Kingfisher, Lesser Reed Warbler, Black Crake, African Jacana, Pied Kingfisher,  and many others.

The marsh attracts seasonal congregations including Gull billed Terns, White-winged Black Tern, Whiskered Tern, Ruff and several Sandpipers. Resident Grey-headed Gulls, Little Stint, Yellow Wagtail, Eurasian Marsh Harriers and Osprey occur seasonally while African Marsh Harrier, African Fish Eagle, Palm-nut Vulture are resident raptors.

• Birding at Mpanga Forest

After a hot lunch overlooking the Mabamba marsh, we head out to the 45km² Mpanga Forest, a mid-altitude rainforest hosting some 180 bird species and several primates. Highlight species to look out for include African Pied, Crowned and Black and White Casqued hornbill, Toro Olive and Spotted Greenbul, Green-tailed Bristlebill, Western Black-headed Oriole, Cassin’s Hawk-eagle, Shikra, Weyn’s Weaver, Common Waxbill, Red-chested Cuckoo, Fraser’s Flycatcher Thrush, White-tailed Ant-thrush, Green Hylia, Green Crombec, Grey Throated and Yellow-spotted Barbets, Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird, Black-necked and Grosbeak Weavers and several primates.