Hix Does Uganda (Part I) - All But A Shoebill

Day 2

I had a really good nights sleep but was woken at 5am by the African Wild Asses (donkeys) braying in the large Kidepo enclosure next to the bandas. This was followed a short time later by the chimps banging on the metal door of their nighthouse, demanding to be let out onto their island. Although it was still dark I got out of bed anyway and went back to identifying the LBJs I had photographed.

Around 8:00 I headed into the zoo and almost immediately came upon the resident troop of Vervets that live in the zoo (and had been invisible the day before. They could see I had no food so showed no interest in me and were completely unperturbed by my close proximity to them. I couldn't see them all because they were in the forest but there must have been close to a hundred of them, possibly more.

http://www.zoochat.com/1683/vervet-wild-animal-living-zoo-grounds-335558/
http://www.zoochat.com/1683/vervet-wild-animal-living-zoo-grounds-335557/
http://www.zoochat.com/1683/vervet-wild-animal-living-zoo-grounds-335559/

Because I wanted some more photos of it, I visited the chimp enclosure, a large island surrounded by a wet moat. The island was heavily vegetated with a dense understory and some very large trees. I counted 11 of which at least four were adult or sub-adult males (which would explain some of the social tension I could see), however there may have been more animals elsewhere in the undergrowth out of my view.

http://www.zoochat.com/1683/chimp-enclosure-336121/

All of a sudden there was a great commotion amongst the vervets, many vocalising and all running through the forest, and simultaneously the chimps went ballistic. Through all the noise I could hear another sound, a loud and plaintive "mwaaaa". I heard it two or three times, so I started heading in that direction to see what it was, which also happened to be the direction the vervets were all headed. A minute later I came across a keeper and in his hands he was cradling a young duiker calf. Common duikers are wild in the zoo grounds like the vervets but as the keeper said "When the monkeys find an animal in the forest they always want to fight with it".

I don't think fighting was quite what the monkeys had in mind. Anyway, the keeper had managed to rescue it from the monkeys and although there were no obvious injuries he was taking it to the vet just to be sure. I heard another "mwaaaa", as the monkeys discovered the mother duiker, but she took off through the forest much faster than the monkeys could chase her and they gave up after a few seconds.

The rest of the morning was similar to the previous day, but with some interesting new bird species sightings (like grey plantain eater and woodland kingfisher) and a squirrel. I returned to my banda to have some lunch.

http://www.zoochat.com/1683/woodland-kingfisher-wild-bird-335560/
http://www.zoochat.com/1683/striped-ground-squirrel-wild-animal-335556/

While getting ready for the afternoon I became aware of a peeping sound from one of the trees just outside the banda, and I guessed it must be one of the small birds I hadn't seen clearly yet. As I left I realised the sound wasn't in a tree, but was coming from the roof of my banda just above the door. Looking up I could see a hole in the concrete at the top of the wall under the eaves, and sticking out of this hole was the back legs and tail of a small Nile Monitor. There must be a bird's nest in the hole and the lizard was trying to get the chicks, I thought. Getting my cameras out I took a quick photo and then as I was getting set up for a better position the lizard poked it's head out of the hole, and in it's mouth was a microbat. The lizard froze when it saw me, giving the bat a chance to struggle free, and it flew off. The monitor then disappeared back into the hole and I never saw it again.

http://www.zoochat.com/1683/nile-monitor-juvenile-wild-reptile-335554/

After getting directions from the zoo office, I left the zoo on foot and walked for ten minutes to the Entebbe Botanical Gardens. I'm not particularly botanically inclined, but I've found botanic gardens are usually good places to see birds and this one was close by so I thought I'd give it a try (and I'd read good reports about it online). I was not disappointed. Within seconds I had spotted a few White-throated Bee-eaters, some more Black-and-White Casqued Hornbills, a Woodpecker and then a Ross' Turaco. And that was when I met Bright.

http://www.zoochat.com/2036/entebbe-botanic-gardens-336141/
http://www.zoochat.com/2036/entebbe-botanic-gardens-336142/
http://www.zoochat.com/2036/lake-victoria-336143/
http://www.zoochat.com/2036/white-throated-bee-eater-336156/
http://www.zoochat.com/2036/black-white-casqued-hornbill-pair-336138/
http://www.zoochat.com/2036/grey-woodpecker-336157/
http://www.zoochat.com/2036/ross-turaco-336152/

Bright is a volunteer guide at the Botanic Gardens, and very knowledgeable about the plants and trees growing in the gardens. But he is also very knowledgeable about the birds in the gardens too, and was an excellent spotter. His eyes could pick out a cisticola one-hundred metres away and he could then identify it from its call. And he could also see birds in a tree four metres in front of me that I was completely oblivious too - even when he told me what branch it was on - until the damn thing flew away.

For three hours Bright showed me the gardens and it's bird life, as well as the spiders, Colobus and Red-tailed monkeys that call the gardens their home. The dense forest in the middle of the park was, apparently, used in some of the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies of the 40's and 50's.

http://www.zoochat.com/2036/queen-spider-336150/
http://www.zoochat.com/2036/colobus-336146/
http://www.zoochat.com/2036/red-tailed-monkey-336151/

At around 4pm I decided to head back to the zoo, so I could get to the restaurant before it closed and have something to eat. After dinner, I started to pack my bags because the next day I would be leaving the UWEC and joining the tour I was a to be a part of. I wanted to have an early night, but I'd taken about 500 photos that day and I needed to make a start sorting and labelling, so I ended up going to bed about 11pm when I couldn't keep my eyes open any more.

http://www.zoochat.com/2036/african-fish-eagle-336145/

New Birds: Red-chested Sunbird, Grey Plantain Eater, Splendid Starling, African Harrier Hawk, African Fish Eagle, Woodland Kingfisher, Redbilled Firefinch, African White-eye, White-throated Bee-eater, Ross' Turaco, Bronze Manakin, Grey-backed Fiscal Shrike, Spurwinged Plover (or Lapwing), Broadbilled Roller, Common Sandpiper, African Jacana

New Mammals: Common Duiker, Striped Ground Squirrel, Colobus (Guereza), Red-tailed Monkey, Redfooted Sun Squirrel

New Reptiles: Nile Monitor

http://www.zoochat.com/2036/red-footed-sun-squirrel-336154/



Hix

 

Very, very nice Hix! You should have had Bright identify some of your LBJs!

~Thylo

 

He actually gave me some LBJs - he pointed them out to me, I photographed them, and then forgot what they were!



Hix

 

Oh my!

Do you have any specific goal species you want to see aside from the Mountain Gorillas and the Shoebills (which you already saw, as I'm sure you know).

~Thylo

 

You gave Bright some money and encouragement to start a tour company right?

 

Day 3

This is the day the main tour starts. I got up early and continued my packing. At around 9:00am I went into the zoo to the main entrance to talk to the staff there, to ask a few questions and to thank them for their hospitality. Some of the people I wanted to see weren't there yet so I waited around. I had not planned on staying long in the zoo so I hadn't taken my camera, only my pocket camera (a Canon IXUS). Which was a mistake. While watching the ostrich in the Lake Mburi exhibit a large Nile Monitor wandered through the exhibit over to the fence-line near me. I was able to take some photos of it with the IXUS, but they would have been better with the other camera. Then I saw an Hadada Ibis sitting on a nest, and a bit later a pair of Hamerkops actually building a nest. Unfortunately, both nests were too far away for good shots with the IXUS.

After speaking to my contact I walked back through the zoo to my banda and completed my packing, then went back to working on the computer. At around 12:30 my guide from Churchill Safaris arrived to collect me. His name was Joseph and he would be our driver and guide for the next two weeks. We put my luggage in the back of his 4WD and headed off to the airport to meet the others, as their flight was landing at 1:00pm.

The three people whose tour I was joining were Janet (Orangeperson on ZooChat), Angela (who isn't registered on ZooChat but lurks a lot) and Linda who doesn't do the internet. All three are good friends from England who have travelled together many times before. After the introductions we piled into the car and Joseph drove us to our hotel in Kampala, the Grand Global, where we would be spending the night.

The UWEC was only a seven minute drive from the airport, and what I had seen of Entebbe was what I was expecting - a city in a developing nation, with a modern part of town and other parts looking very poor. It reminded me a little of Apia in Samoa. The traffic wasn't too bad either. I knew Kampala was bigger and busier, but I didn't realise exactly how much until we got there.

To start with, Joseph told us that Kampala was 39 kilometres away, but it would take us two hours to get there, and he wasn't wrong. The main road from Entebbe to Kampala is one lane in each direction all the way, but it was in the capital that the traffic really became bedlam. During the day Kampala has a population of around three million people, and a good number of them own motor cars. But there appears to be even more motor cycles on the streets than cars, plus a lot of people on bicycles, and the usual number of pedestrians. Thin in itself is not a problem, but the fact that all the drivers appear to be pushy, with no consideration for other drivers, is what amazed the four of us. The simple rule appears to be "If you see a gap, go for it", and if that means heading towards oncoming traffic on the wrong side of the road, then so be it. Behaviour that would have drivers yelling and honking their horns in the Western World is acceptable here and nobody seemed upset about it. The result was that our going was slow as cars/cycles/bikes and pedestrians pushed through the traffic or in front of us willy-nilly. It's amazing they don't have more accidents. At one intersection a traffic policeman held up his hand to stop oncoming traffic, and all the cars stopped. He then directed the cross traffic to enter the intersection, and a group of motorcycles from the stopped traffic went around the stopped cars and pushed their way through the cross traffic completely ignoring the policeman. If they had traffic cameras in Kampala they could probably make a TV show from the footage.

I should also point out that most of the motorcycles are taxis. Called boda-boda, they will take passengers wherever they like for a fee. In Kampala the driver wears a helmet; outside Kampala you occasionally see a helmet, but usually they don't. Passengers very rarely wear a helmet. I've seen boda-bodas with two passengers, one with a passenger nursing a slaughtered pig on his lap, and one where the driver was sitting on the fuel tank because he had three passengers. There appears to be no OH&S where boda-bodas are concerned.

The main roads in Kampala are sealed, but there were a lot of dirt (and very muddy) roads making up the backstreets, and we eventually turned onto one of these to get to our hotel. I was a little concerned looking at the shabby buildings, but I needn't have worried. The Grand Global is not shabby at all, a great hotel with marble tile floors and just as good as any decent hotel in the West. After settling into our rooms we headed down to the restaurant for a meal, then retired to our rooms as we had an early start the next morning. As this was the first opportunity to get online since arriving in Uganda I logged onto ZooChat and Facebook, and uploaded some photos. I ended up going to bed at midnight.

New Birds: Pinkbacked Pelican, African White Ibis.



Hix

 

I know. He's still seen it, though. I understand that he's main goal for the species is to see it wild but he did still see if and got a wonderful photograph.

~Thylo

 

I've seen Shoebill's in captivity before - the first time back in 1984; seeing one in the wild is soomething completely different. Today we tried at Lake Edward Flat, but were unsuccessful.

I'm currently in Bwindi and tomorrow morning we climb for Mountain Gorillas. I hope we have more success.



Hix

 

Day 4

Note: At this point I thought it only fair to create a new thread titled "ZooChat in Uganda" or something similar, and both Orange Person and I could post alternatively about the safari. However, she did not bring a laptop and has no way to post, so at this point I'll continue on with my narrative and we can create a new thread later.

Despite a conference in the hotel doing its best to keep everyone awake at night, I slept well and we all met downstairs at 6:30am for breakfast, before departing at 7:15.

Joesph had wanted to leave early to avoid the morning traffic, even on a Saturday, but despite this it was still very slow going. Again we saw the absolute chaos of the Kampala motorists that we had seen the day before. There was a lot of traffic on the roads, and there was also a lot of roadworks, and several times we had to stop and wait in a queue for many minutes until we could continue. After an hour or so we were finally out of Kampala.

Our destination was Murchison Falls, but we were stopping along the way at the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary. Ziwa was only a few hundred kilometres away, but it took about 4 or 5 hours because of the state of the road. Although it was a sealed road, it had big potholes in it. Joseph was a good driver, and quite adept at avoiding the potholes and other obstacles we found on the roads (including other vehicles).

Along the way we stopped at a small town called Lewero, because Joseph wanted to buy some pineapple, and there were street-side vendors with tables full of pineapples. As soon as we stopped, around six different vendors all rushed over to the car, each with at least half-a-dozen pineapples in their arms, to try and get Joseph to purchase their product. Joseph eventually bought 5 pineapples, and when we ate them we found them very sweet and quite delicious.

I noticed in the towns the shops were all very similar in construction - a building with three small rooms, each with one heavy metal door at the front. The buildings were made of brick. Some were rendered with concrete and painted. Houses were also made of brick, some rendered, but some were also made of re-used wood panels and corrugated tin. And some were bandas.

In a previous post (titled Day One) I said that the banda is a traditional home, and it is. But the banda I stayed in at the zoo was a palace compared to what the local people live in. Small and low, they are made of mudbricks and then the outside is coated with mud. Obviously, bandas for tourists need to be of a certain standard, but I was shocked to see exactly how different my accomodation was to the real thing. The further we got from Kampala, the more bandas we saw. And we also started seeing villages comprised of bandas.

It was a hot and humid day like the previous days, but I saw on the northern horizon very dark grey storm clouds that didn't look too inviting. I remember thinking that I had never considered that southern Sudan might have thunderstorms. But it was still quite sunny when we arrived at Ziwa.

Ziwa is a rhino sanctuary that covers about 70 square kilometres of natural Ugandan woodland. The sanctuary was created a few years ago for white rhinos, a species which had become extinct in Uganda in the 1980's. They originally started with four animals, received a couple more a few years later, and there have been seven successful births so they now have 13 in total. A male was born in 2009 - his father came from Kenya and his mother from the USA, so they named him Obama. The last was born earlier this year. These animals roam throughout the park at their leisure. They are not tame in any way, but are habituated to small groups visiting them. And they have armed guards with them 24/7.

When we arrived we were given a briefing by our guide, and then we drove for about five minutes down a track before we parked the car and followed our guide on foot. Along the way he told us a bit about the park, and introduced us to the Euphorbia cactus - a nasty plant that is native to this part of the world, and is very common because nothing eats it, not even elephants. Apart fro the sspines it has a nasty milky white sap. He scratched the thin outer back with a twig and copious amounts of the sap immediately appeared and started to drip. This sap burns the skin on contact, and if it gets in your eyes will turn blind permanently. Definitely a plant to avoid.

After only a few minutes walking our guide stopped and pointed. Under a small grove of low trees, in the shade, were four rhinos sleeping. They were only about 15 metres away. Out guide allowed us to get closer to take photos, and although they were only dozing and sort of half-awake, they gave us a cursory glance and then ignored us. We spent about twenty minutes with them, listening to them occasionally snorting and farting, and at one point a young male half got to his feet and looked at us. I thought he was going to come over and either check us out or challenge us, but he looked at us and then fell over on his side and went back to sleep.

We returned to the main camp where we had lunch before leaving for Murchison and another four hours in the car. Not long after we left it started to rain, not too heavily, but enough for Joseph to put on the windscreen wipers. It soon stopped though. After a couple of hours we came to a bridge crossing the Victoria Nile River, and saw Kuruma Falls which was about a kilometre upstream from the bridge. Some time later, as we came to the turnoff into Murchison Falls National Park, we came across a large herd of Ugandan Kob, elephants, Waterbuck and warthogs on a grassy field, several hundred metres back from the road. But there were a few elephants right next to the road in a small swamp and we stopped for a good ten or fifteen minutes photographing them.

As it was getting late we had to continue on to our lodge in the park, and along the way we saw more kob, waterbuck and warthogs, also Rothschild's Giraffe, Hartebeest (or Lelwel) and Cape Buffalo, this time much closer. We finally arrived at Pakuba Lodge just before sunset and after all day in the car we were glad to settle into our rooms. I had a room to myself and the three ladies shared a room. At dusk they discovered some giraffes just outside their room, which was certainly a thrill for them.

The original Pakuba Lodge burnt down a few years back and a new lodge has been built nearby. It's in the northern part of the park where most of the wildlife is found, and has beautiful views of Lake Albert. We were very happy with the large rooms, and the food was first class. And we appeared to be the only people staying there.

After dinner we all retired to our rooms as we needed to be up in time for our early morning game drive the next day. And what a full and exciting day it turned out to be!

New Birds: Black-headed Weaver, Ruppell's Longtailed Starling, Laughing Dove, Golden Weaver, Pin-tailed Whydah, White-browed Coucal, Piapiac, Abyssinian Ground Hornbill.

New Mammals: Oribi, Olive Baboon, Patas Monkey, Ugandan Kob, Rothschild's Giraffe, Lelwel Hartebeest

 

Day 4 Saturday

Note: At this point I thought it only fair to create a new thread titled "ZooChat in Uganda" or something similar, and both Orange Person and I could post alternatively about the safari. However, she did not bring a laptop and has no way to post, so at this point I'll continue on with my narrative and we can create a new thread later.

Despite a conference in the hotel doing its best to keep everyone awake at night, I slept well and we all met downstairs at 6:30am for breakfast, before departing at 7:15.

Joesph had wanted to leave early to avoid the morning traffic, even on a Saturday, but despite this it was still very slow going. Again we saw the absolute chaos of the Kampala motorists that we had seen the day before. There was a lot of traffic on the roads, and there was also a lot of roadworks, and several times we had to stop and wait in a queue for many minutes until we could continue. After an hour or so we were finally out of Kampala.

Our destination was Murchison Falls, but we were stopping along the way at the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary. Ziwa was only a few hundred kilometres away, but it took about 4 or 5 hours because of the state of the road. Although it was a sealed road, it had big potholes in it. Joseph was a good driver, and quite adept at avoiding the potholes and other obstacles we found on the roads (including other vehicles).

Along the way we stopped at a small town called Lewero, because Joseph wanted to buy some pineapple, and there were street-side vendors with tables full of pineapples. As soon as we stopped, around six different vendors all rushed over to the car, each with at least half-a-dozen pineapples in their arms, to try and get Joseph to purchase their product. Joseph eventually bought 5 pineapples, and when we ate them we found them very sweet and quite delicious.

I noticed in the towns the shops were all very similar in construction - a building with three small rooms, each with one heavy metal door at the front. The buildings were made of brick. Some were rendered with concrete and painted. Houses were also made of brick, some rendered, but some were also made of re-used wood panels and corrugated tin. And some were bandas.

In a previous post (titled Day One) I said that the banda is a traditional home, and it is. But the banda I stayed in at the zoo was a palace compared to what the local people live in. Small and low, they are made of mudbricks and then the outside is coated with mud. Obviously, bandas for tourists need to be of a certain standard, but I was shocked to see exactly how different my accomodation was to the real thing. The further we got from Kampala, the more bandas we saw. And we also started seeing villages comprised of bandas.

It was a hot and humid day like the previous days, but I saw on the northern horizon very dark grey storm clouds that didn't look too inviting. I remember thinking that I had never considered that southern Sudan might have thunderstorms. But it was still quite sunny when we arrived at Ziwa.

Ziwa is a rhino sanctuary that covers about 70 square kilometres of natural Ugandan woodland. The sanctuary was created a few years ago for white rhinos, a species which had become extinct in Uganda in the 1980's. They originally started with four animals, received a couple more a few years later, and there have been seven successful births so they now have 13 in total. A male was born in 2009 - his father came from Kenya and his mother from the USA, so they named him Obama. The last was born earlier this year. These animals roam throughout the park at their leisure. They are not tame in any way, but are habituated to small groups visiting them. And they have armed guards with them 24/7.

When we arrived we were given a briefing by our guide, and then we drove for about five minutes down a track before we parked the car and followed our guide on foot. Along the way he told us a bit about the park, and introduced us to the Euphorbia cactus - a nasty plant that is native to this part of the world, and is very common because nothing eats it, not even elephants. Apart fro the sspines it has a nasty milky white sap. He scratched the thin outer back with a twig and copious amounts of the sap immediately appeared and started to drip. This sap burns the skin on contact, and if it gets in your eyes will turn blind permanently. Definitely a plant to avoid.

After only a few minutes walking our guide stopped and pointed. Under a small grove of low trees, in the shade, were four rhinos sleeping. They were only about 15 metres away. Out guide allowed us to get closer to take photos, and although they were only dozing and sort of half-awake, they gave us a cursory glance and then ignored us. We spent about twenty minutes with them, listening to them occasionally snorting and farting, and at one point a young male half got to his feet and looked at us. I thought he was going to come over and either check us out or challenge us, but he looked at us and then fell over on his side and went back to sleep.

We returned to the main camp where we had lunch before leaving for Murchison and another four hours in the car. Not long after we left it started to rain, not too heavily, but enough for Joseph to put on the windscreen wipers. It soon stopped though. After a couple of hours we came to a bridge crossing the Victoria Nile River, and saw Kuruma Falls which was about a kilometre upstream from the bridge. Some time later, as we came to the turnoff into Murchison Falls National Park, we came across a large herd of Ugandan Kob, elephants, Waterbuck and warthogs on a grassy field, several hundred metres back from the road. But there were a few elephants right next to the road in a small swamp and we stopped for a good ten or fifteen minutes photographing them.

As it was getting late (and starting to rain again) we had to continue on to our lodge in the park, and along the way we saw more kob, waterbuck and warthogs, also Rothschild's Giraffe, Hartebeest (or Lelwel) and Cape Buffalo, this time much closer. We finally arrived at Pakuba Lodge just before sunset and after all day in the car we were glad to settle into our rooms. I had a room to myself and the three ladies shared a room. At dusk they discovered some giraffes just outside their room, which was certainly a thrill for them.

The original Pakuba Lodge burnt down a few years back and a new lodge has been built nearby. It's in the northern part of the park where most of the wildlife is found, and has beautiful views of Lake Albert. We were very happy with the large rooms, the food and service was first class. And we appeared to be the only people staying there.

After dinner we all retired to our rooms as we needed to be up in time for our early morning game drive the next day. And what a full and exciting day it turned out to be!

New Birds: Ruppells Longtailed Starling, Laughing Dove, Black-headed Weaver, Golden Weaver, Pin-tailed Whydah, White-browed Coucal, Piapiac, Abyssinian Ground Hornbill.

New Mammals: Oribi, Olive Baboon, Patas Monkey, Ugandan Kob, Rothschild's Giraffe, Lelwel Hartebeest



Hix

 

Sorry about the double post, the internet keeps dropping out.

 

Thanks for the updates, Hix. Murchison Falls sounds like a groovy place.

 

This sounds like a truly amazing trip Hix!

~Thylo

 

It's third world traffic - every man for himself.

 

I just found a chameleon!!!



Hix

 

What species?

~Thylo

 

Rwenzori Side-striped (Chameleo rudis)



Hix

 

What's the Internet like there? You seem to be uploading photos - something I never dreamed of doing when living in a third-world country with dial-up a few years ago.