Introduction: Birding Tanzania

Welcome to the birding blog I maintained during the year I lived in Dar es Salaam and traveled throughout Tanzania. Originally, my wife Aimee and I had planned to stay in East Africa for a number of years, similar to our experience in Ecuador, where we lasted for six years, but an opportunity arose for us to pick up yet again and move to Brazil. Although my time was unexpectedly short in the region, I worked hard to make it special, taking advantage of my proximity to visit some of the most fabled nature reserves in the world, including the Serengeti and the Eastern Arc Mountain Ranges. Exploring Tanzania is extremely expensive, and most visiting birders won’t want to risk planning an independent trip, as there is simply too much money at stake to try and figure things out on your own. Still, I wanted to describe my own experiences driving around and birding the country and to share information about my successes and failures. Hopefully, visiting birders will benefit from my accounts, even if they’re working with a tour company to organize their trip.

With over 1100 bird species recorded, including more than twenty country and dozens of regional endemic species, Tanzania is a spectacular country for birding, offering a wide variety of habitats, including montane forest, miombo woodland, savanna, arid plains, and coastline, making it an important migratory passageway as well. Despite all of these attractions, on visits to the many national parks and reserves, birds often take a back seat to the big game on display, such as lions, elephants, and giraffes. A visit to East Africa can indeed be a trip of a lifetime for birders, but it’s far from being in paradise. Here in Tanzania, where poverty and disease are crippling, habitat destruction is widespread, and energy and fuel costs are skyrocketing, birding is even more problematic than usual, giving visitors plenty to contemplate beyond their life lists as they travel between sites. Although I certainly wasn’t always a responsible tourist during my time here, I had my eyes opened to a lot more than a few new birds, and I would encourage visiting birders to plan for a more holistic experience of the country rather than a strategic bird strike.

Although my knowledge of the country remains limited, please feel free to contact me with any questions as you plan your trip. Although I'm excited to be moving on to birding in Brazil, I'm disappointed to leave this compelling and complicated country so soon.

Wami Mbiki Wildlife Management Area: June 4-5, 2011

I figured there was no better way to spend my last weekend in Tanzania than to go birding, but finally making out to miombo woodland habitat gave me true cause for celebration. The word miombo is tossed around a lot in field guides and trip reports, but it’s difficult to get a sense of what the term actually means. Supposedly, miombo woodland is wherever trees of the Brachystegia genus are found, which is often in hilly areas in southern Tanzania and beyond to Mozambique, Malawi, and Zambia. As I can’t identify trees taxonomically, I would characterize miombo woodland as being relatively dry and open, with large small-leafed trees interspersed with shorts bushes and grassland, sort of like a stand of old oak trees in central California. I would also say that miombo woodland is where the tsetse flies dwell en masse, as we were literally swarmed by them at times this weekend (I wore my thick rain jacket in protection but still got bit twice around the waist). Perhaps, you don’t really know you’re in miombo until you start seeing Pale-Billed Hornbills instead of African Grey Hornbills or Racket-Tailed Rollers instead of Lilac Breasted Rollers; that is, you don’t know you’re there until you know you’re there.

While there is miombo woodland in the Selous Game Reserve and Mikumi National Park, both at least five hour’s drive from Dar es Salaam, the Wami Mbiki Wildlife Management Area (Tsh 10,000 per person entrance fee) boasts an outstanding tract that stretches from the Morogoro Road outside of Chalinze north to the Wami River. While there’s not much big game to be readily found (we did briefly encounter a leopard on our night drive, though), the birding proved rewarding as in any national park, and I was thrilled to find half a dozen new birds, including several miombo specialties, such as the Racket-Tailed Roller, Pale-Billed Hornbill, Rufous-Bellied Tit, and Miombo Wren-Warbler. The roller was easily the bird of the trip: long, slender, and a lovely pale blue, two birds swooped through the trees around the road, perching finally in the distance, where their elegant tail streamers could be seen with delicate rackets at the end. If it weren’t for the tsetse flies, I would say the site makes for an easy and rewarding day trip from Dar, but the infrastructure appears unpredictable and the way is unclear, so I wouldn’t recommend trying to visit unless you’re in the company of someone who has been there before (special thanks to Tony Evans for organizing our weekend).

Notable birds seen: Black-Headed Heron, Hamerkop, Hadada Ibis, Bateleur, Allen’s Gallinule, African Jacana, Buff-Crested Bustard, Emerald-Spotted Wood-Dove, Ring-Necked Dove, Brown-Headed Parrot, White-Browed Coucal, Striped Kingfisher, Pied Kingfisher, Swallow-Tailed Bee-Eater, Racket-Tailed Roller, Green Wood-Hoopoe, African Hoopoe, Pale-Billed Hornbill, Southern Ground-Hornbill, Black-Collared Barbet, Brown-Breasted Barbet, Cardinal Woodpecker, African Pied Wagtail, White-Headed Black Chat, Rattling Cisticola, Miombo Wren-Warbler, Pale Flycatcher, Pale Batis, Arrow-Marked Babbler, Rufous-Bellied Tit, African Penduline-Tit, Scarlet-Chested Sunbird, Black-Backed Puffback, Brown-Crowned Tchagra, Grey-Headed Bush-Shrike, White-Crested Helmet-Shrike, Retz’s Helmet-Shrike, Fork-Tailed Drongo, African Black-Headed Oriole, Yellow-Throated Petronia.

Udzungwa Mountains National Park: May 28-29, 2011

It’s not a bright idea to visit Udzungwa Mountains National Park as a weekend trip from Dar es Salaam, as it’s a six to eight hour drive depending on traffic and road conditions, but I was eager to bird the region before I left Tanzania. The Udzungwa Range is the second most biodiverse place on the continent, with a remarkably high level of endemism, including over 25% of its plant species. Although the park wasn’t established until 1992, there are still two thousand square kilometers of continuous closed-canopy forest intact, stretching from an elevation of two hundred to over two thousand meters. It’s truly the jewel of the Eastern Arc mountains with many biological discoveries no doubt yet to be made, but it’s also a difficult site to meaningfully explore as access is limited, arduous, and expensive to arrange. With over four hundred recorded bird species, including several that were discovered only recently, such as the unique Udzungwa Partridge and Rufous-Winged Sunbird, the park bears must-see status for birders, even though tracking down these elusive endemics is hardly guaranteed.

Philip Briggs covers the site in his typically excellent way in the Bradt Guide to Tanzania, honestly recommending a visit to the Eastern Usambaras over the Udzungwas due to the superior infrastructure found at Amani Nature Reserve, so my expectations were low from the start. As I awoke early on Saturday morning and stumbled around the grounds of the Udzungwa Forest Camp though, I was in awe of the forested mountains stacked up steeply just behind the boundary of the camp. I could hardly contain my excitement all day as I first visited the Kilombero Floodplains to the southwest of the range in search of another three endemic bird species, the Kilombero Weaver and Cisticola, as well as the White-Tailed Cisticola. On the return trip to camp, I insisted on a quick visit to the park headquarters before dark ($20 per person per 24 hours), despite having to pay the additional ridiculous fee ($10) to have a guide accompany me on a two-hundred meter walk into the forest interior (I had to pay the same fee the following morning). Even on this modest walk, I managed to spot the Uluguru Violet-Backed Sunbird, Yellowbill, and Retz’s Helmet-Shrike.

I walked the same short trails the following morning with the same park guide, Huruma Shao (mobile 0764733674), who knows his birds pretty well and pointed out both Livingstone’s Flycatcher and Black-and-White Shrike-Flycatcher to me while I was focused on other species within mixed flocks. They were terrific finds and I was certainly grateful to have another pair of discerning eyes with me, but these two new lifers couldn’t hold a candle to the group of Livingstone’s Turaco that we encountered shortly afterwards. Since I first laid eyes on this incredible, distinctly African family of birds in the field guide, I have been obsessed with seeing as many of these large, long-tailed, and crested beauties as possible. Hartlaub’s, Fischer’s, and now Livingstone’s Turaco I’ve seen, each one seemingly more stunning than the last, although my photographs hardly do the latter bird justice. From my limited experience, I can say that turacos are often heard but rarely seen well, as they stay high in the canopy and dash squirrel-like along branches into dense cover. We were lucky to linger for ten minutes on this one as it stared us down from its perch high above.

Having arrived at 10pm on Friday night after eight hours of driving, much of it through Mikumi National Park in the dark, where trucks and busses barrel blindly past elephants and giraffes, I thought it would be prudent to return to Dar in the daylight. A more meaningful visit to the Udzungwa Mountains should at least include the half-day hike to Sanje Waterfall, which starts ten kilometers back along the road from park headquarters and climbs to a stunning series of cascades. A true expedition into the Udzungwas would necessitate a multi-day journery up to the park’s montane forest near an elevation of two thousand meters, where the sunbird, various forest robins, and perhaps even the partridge can be seen. As Briggs describes in his guidebook, the best chance for spotting the three localized endemics (I haven’t mentioned the Iringa Alkalat yet) actually involves accessing the park from the remote western side, necessitating at least five days to travel there, arrange a permit, and reach the high-altitude site on foot. It’s no wonder these species weren’t discovered until recently. Perhaps with another year living in the country, I might have worked up the desperation for just such an expedition.

Notable birds seen: Palm-Nut Vulture, Yellowbill, Trumpeter Hornbill, Livingstone’s Turaco, Green-Backed Woodpecker, Livingstone’s Flycatcher, Black-and-White Shrike Flycatcher, Grey Cuckoo-Shrike, Uluguru Violet-Backed Sunbird, Olive Sunbird, Retz’s Helmet-Shrike, Fork-Tailed Drongo, Dark-Backed Weaver.

Kilombero Floodplains: May 28, 2011

Despite already having achieved my modest goal of observing four hundred bird species in Tanzania this year, I simply had to visit the Udzungwa National Park before I left this country for good (it’s the continent’s second most biodiverse place in terms of bird species). With less than two weeks remaining in Africa for me, it was now or never, and so I got in the car on Friday afternoon and drove for eight hours until I reached Udzungwa Forest Camp, which would be my base for a final weekend of birding in East Africa. If you’re going to come all this way, though, it’s a shame to skip the Kilombero floodplains, which is a flat, swampy region home to three endemic bird species: the Kilombero Weaver, Kilombero Cisticola, and White-Tailed Cisticola. The site is just a few hour’s drive beyond the eastern entrance gate to the national park, although it’s a rough road depending on the season; in fact, on the return trip Saturday afternoon, we passed a half-a-dozen large trucks stuck in the mud. The weaver is an easy tick at the Kilomero River, but the cisticolas proved more difficult for me to find, especially without the knowledge of an experienced guide.

Having arrived a few hours short of midnight on the previous night, I was rather grumpy the following morning, and the miserable road conditions and cloudy weather further soured the day’s prospects in my mind. Despite driving past long kilometers of gloriously full-grown reed beds and rice and cornfields, all simply littered with stunning bishops, weavers, whydahs, and widowbirds, I couldn’t shake my negative attitude, which worsened as we arrived at the ferry across the river. Here we would board a dugout canoe for a few hours to explore the marsh and search for the weaver and the Kilombero Ciscticola, which inhabits the flooded reedbeds of the region, according to the field guide. Our boatman, Anthony Hermani (mobile 0684 598 907; price Tsh 40,000), looked shaky though, and within minutes it was pouring rain. “Ten hours of driving for this mess,” I muttered miserably. But after an hour or so, the weather cleared and we were soon in hot pursuit of the resurgent birdlife along the river’s many flooded islands and inlets.

The Kilombero Weaver is almost assuredly a guaranteed tick, as every flooded island and reed bed apparently hosts a dense colony of these colorful, vociferous birds. Photographing them proved a bit more challenging, but there’s little suspense to be found in their straightforward identification. The cisticolas proved significantly more difficult, even after I learned from the field guide that the White-Tailed Cisticola prefers the drier habitat surrounding the floodplains. We regularly found the Winding Cisticola, which isn’t an easy identification in itself, but had neither sight nor sound of the relatively distinctive Kilombero Cisticola (it probably would have helped had me or my guide had an audio recording of the bird’s unusual call). There was still plenty of excitement to be had in the dugout though, despite whiffing on two-thirds of the site’s endemic species.

While Lesser Swamp Warbler, White-Crowned Lapwing, and Malachite Kingfisher were all good ticks, the highlight of the excursion was definitely being attacked by a territorial hippopotamus. Approaching a flooded island while standing in the canoe with binoculars raised, we were startled by the roar of an aggressive hippo, or kiboko in Swahili. Within seconds, it was bearing down on us, swimming just under the surface like a shark in attack with an impressively tall bow wave. The boatman violently slapped the water with his pole while my bird guide dove to the back of the boat. Meanwhile I crouched in shock, wondering if I should jump out of the way and into the water. Just before it rammed into the dugout like a torpedo, it ducked under the boat and made a wide circle around us. Needless to say, we got the hell out of there, but I would start shaking later in the morning whenever we heard the hippo reasserting his territory with powerful grunts.

The rest of the morning we spent searching fruitlessly for the Kilomero Cisticola, which neither my guide nor boatman had any knowledge of. I was pleased to find several groups of Zebra Waxbills, but ultimately I was irritated that I failed to procure the necessary resources and information for all three ticks. Visiting birders should thoroughly do their homework on the cisticolas’ habitats and habits, as well as bring their own audio recordings and the services of a verifiably knowledgeable bird guide. If you’re happy with a leisurely canoe ride and a plethora of water birds, then it’s certainly worth the few hours’ drive from Udzungwa National Park and the lodges and camps in the area. The views themselves along the road past the mountain range and into the floodplain are worth it, especially if you’ll only be in country for a short while longer.

Update: I was discussing my observations with some other birders who know the region quite well, and they said that the cisticola I saw from the canoe on several occasions was almost certainly the White-Tailed and not the Winding Cisticola. In fact, no one has recorded the Winding Cisticola in the area. You'll have to look carefully at the tail, then, for the white U-shape around the sides and base.

Notable birds seen: Common Squacco Heron, Striated Heron, Black-Headed Heron, African Open-Billed Stork, African Fish Eagle, Lizard Buzzard, Water Thick-Knee, White-Crowned Lapwing, White-Browed Coucal, Speckled Mousebird, Striped Kingfisher, Pied Kingfisher, Malachite Kingfisher, Little Bee-Eater, White-Fronted Bee-Eater, Lilac-Breasted Roller, Crowned Hornbill, Lesser Swamp Warbler, Winding Cisticola, Grey-Headed Sparrow, Kilombero Weaver, African Golden Weaver, Red-Collared Widowbird, Fan-Tailed Widowbird, Yellow Bishop, White-Winged Widowbird, Black-Winged Bishop, Zanzibar Red Bishop, Zebra Waxbill.

Pugu Hills: May 22, 2011

A short Sunday morning trip to Pugu Hills yielded a few new birds, including the Mouse-Colored Sunbird, my four-hundredth bird seen in Tanzania. The highlight of the morning came early on as Tony and I sifted through a mixed species flock that included both Grey-Headed and Sulphur-Breasted Bush-Shrikes. Although I wasn’t able to linger long on either bird, I first glimpsed the Grey-Headed Bush-Shrikes unmistakable profile as it flew up into a tall tree and then watched a pair of Sulphur-Breasted Bush-Shrikes surface occasionally from a dense tangle of vines as they scrambled for prey. The Mouse-Coloured Sunbird was seen and heard well, although the pectoral patches weren’t visible, as it called distinctly in the open from an unobstructed perch. Also new for me was an Ashy Flycatcher, another nice find in this modest forest patch located just outside of Dar es Salaam.

Notable birds seen: African Cuckoo-Hawk, Tambourine Dove, Brown-Hooded Kingfisher, Crowned Hornbill, Trumpeter Hornbill, Yellow-Rumped Tinkerbird, Yellow-Bellied Greenbul, Terrestrial Brownbul, Grey-Backed Camaroptera, Ashy Flycatcher, African Paradise-Flycatcher, Little Yellow Flycatcher, Olive Sunbird, Mouse-Coloured Sunbird, Black-Backed Puffback, Brown-Crowned Tchagra, Sulphur-Breasted Bush-Shrike, Grey-Headed Bush-Shrike, Fork-Tailed Drongo, Black-Bellied Starling, Dark-Backed Weaver, Peter’s Twinspot, Red-Billed Fire-Finch, Black-and-White Mannikin.

Mikumi National Park: May 13-15, 2011

With less than a month left in Tanzania, my trip to Mikumi National Park last weekend will probably be my final safari in East Africa. Considering how traumatic my recent experiences have been in the savanna due to sand flies, ticks, mosquitoes, and tsetse flies, I'm actually relieved to be leaving and to no longer have any prospects for further travel. Similar to my last trip to Tarangire National Park, I suffered a crippling allergic reaction to a tsetse fly bite that rendered my left arm swollen over twice its normal size. The severity of these reactions has increased dramatically over the year, and my doctor advised me to take an EpiPen on safari in addition to regular doses of Claritine, an antihistmaine, and Prednisone, a steroid. As my colleagues like to jokingly point out, if I had been one of the early European explorers in the region, like Stanley or Livingstone, I certainly would have died within days upon arrival.

Typically a safari to a national park during the rainy season is a dodgy prospect, but Mikumi is a reasonably short drive from Dar (it's less than 5 hours on a tarmac road), and the main roads in the park are well constructed and maintained. Plus, this trip was the annual "Mankumi" weekend, a legendary event for male IST faculty, who camp out in the wilderness for two nights sharing space with the lions and elephants. I'm generally wary of large congregations of men unless there are referees involved, but the prospect of camping and birding for an entire weekend seemed too good to pass up. Also being just a few birds short of four hundred on my country list, I simply had to man up and join the rowdy crew.

Despite the ridiculous antics that ensued during the weekend, I managed to do some productive birding, highlighted by a few new birds, including the gorgeous Zanzibar Red Bishop and the odd Woolly Necked Stork. Around camp, I regularly noted a Brown Snake-Eagle perched watchfully in a tree and a number of Flappet Larks displaying in flight over the surrounding grasslands. Other good savanna birds included Black-Bellied Bustard, Grey Kestrel, Brown-Headed Parrot, Beautiful Sunbird, and Broad-Tailed Paradise-Whydah. I expected to take some good-natured ribbing from the guys about wearing my binoculars around camp and scanning constantly on game drives, but everyone seemed appreciative of my identifications and would linger an extra moment on an unusually colorful bird.

Mikumi is a great park for lion sightings, and we eventually found a group of young males in the tall grass near the airstrip on our Saturday morning game drive. One lion had a large, fresh head wound that was probably the result of a defensive hoof to the head during an attack. It stalked the car unabashedly as some of the guys scrambled down from the roof. Later in the afternoon, we found the same lions closer to camp, one of which had climbed five meters high in a tree, perhaps to take shelter from the rainy weather; we found it in a classic feline pose, head resting on one paw as the other swung freely from the branch it was sprawled out on (I guess the tree-climbing lions of Lake Manyara National Park aren't that unique after all). Despite these excellent observations, I'm still hesitant to ever go on a similar type of safari again, and were I to stay another year, I would almost certainly focus solely on birding montane forests of the Eastern Arc Mountains instead of further exploring the classic East African savanna.

Notable birds seen: Hamerkop, Saddle-Billed Stork, Open-Billed Stork, Woolly-Necked Stork, Bateleur, Brown Snake-Eagle, Black-Headed Heron, Grey Heron, Black-Bellied Bustard, Red-Necked Spurfowl, Long-Tailed Fiscal, Southern Cordon-Bleu, Egyptian Goose, White-Faced Whistling Duck, African Grey Hornbill, Southern Ground Hornbill, Grey Kestrel, Grey-Headed Kingfisher, Striped Kingfisher, Crowned Lapwing, Blacksmith Lapwing, Flappet Lark, Yellow-Throated Longclaw, Red-Billed Oxpecker, Yellow-Billed Oxpecker, Brown-Headed Parrot, Three-Banded Plover, Green-Winged Pytilia, Lilac-Breasted Roller, Fischer's Sparrow-Lark, White-Browed Sparrow-Weaver, Greater Blue-Eared Starling, Superb Starling, Marabou Stork, Beautiful Sunbird, Scarlet-Chested Sunbird, Water Thick-Knee, Crimson-Rumped Waxbill, African White-Backed Vulture, Broad-Tailed Paradise-Whydah, Pin-Tailed Whydah, Fan-Tailed Widowbird, Green Wood-Hoopoe, White-Winged Widowbird, Zanzibar Red-Bishop.

Pugu Hills: May 8, 2011

On Sunday morning I tagged along with Neil Baker and the gang to do some birding at Pugu Hills, where there is some remnant forest just outside of Dar es Salaam. Niel has three decades of birding experience in the country and heads the Tanzania Bird Atlas project, which has recorded over a million bird observations to map a detailed distribution of every species. It was a great learning experience to bird with him, however casually, and he injected a lot of enthusiasm into our observations, several of which proved to be extraordinary. Our primary target was to catch a migratory African Pitta or Spotted Ground-Thrush in transition back north, although we were easily satisfied with clear weather and decent bird activity.

Arriving at dawn at a clearing off the main road, we listened to the Pale-Breasted Illadopsis and African Wood Owl begin and end their days, respectively. Working over the clearing with half a dozen pairs of eyes, we soon had Great Sparrowhawk, Yellow-Rumped Tinkerbird, Brubru, and Pallid Honeyguide. Wandering off on my own a few times, I found a delightful group of Little Yellow Flycatchers and a good-sized mixed flock with Yellowbill, Black-Headed Apalis, Eastern Green Tinkerbird, and Black-Throated Wattle-Eye, among others. The highlight of the morning was making a rare breeding record of the Uluguru Violet-Backed Sunbird, a pair of which was actively constructing a nest in a tall tree about twenty meters overhead. Neil explained it was almost certainly a first for Tanzania, which gave me a nice sense of accomplishment for an otherwise quiet weekend.

Notable birds seen: Palm-Nut Vulture, Black-Chested Snake-Eagle, African Goshawk, Great Sparrowhawk, Yellowbill, Little Swift, Brown-Hooded Kingfisher, Trumpeter Hornbill, Yellow-Rumped Tinkerbird, Eastern Green Tinkerbird, Lesser Honeyguide, Pallid Honeyguide, Yellow-Bellied Greenbul, Red-Capped Robin-Chat, Yellow-Breasted Apalis, Black-Headed Apalis, Black-Throated Wattle-Eye, African Paradise Flycatcher, Little Yellow Flycatcher, Uluguru Violet-Backed Sunbird, Brubru, Brown-Crowned Tchagra, Dark-Backed Weaver, Black-and-White Manikin.

Selous Game Reserve: April 22-24, 2011

The long rains began in earnest as soon as I returned from my trip to the Eastern Usambara Mountains, and the unpaved roads in Dar es Salaam quickly deteriorated. My gentle commute to work by bicycle became a mud bath, and while driving was cleaner it was hardly any easier as my car bounced along painfully through flooded potholes. Originally, I had hoped to fly to a remote park or reserve in Tanzania for the Easter holiday weekend, but many of the landing strips were closed for the rainy season, and the remainder of flights to Arusha, Pemba, and Mwanza were already sold out. Even accommodation at nearby Mikumi, Sadaani, and Udzwunga National Parks were booked, which didn’t leave me with many palatable options. I could take the long highway to Ruaha Naional Park (12 hours), brave the dirt road to Selous Game Reserve (7 hours), or hang out in Dar. Although I wanted to make the best of the short vacation, it was with considerable trepidation that I set off to Selous Game Reserve for five days, knowing that the road conditions would be formidable and the chances for good wildlife viewing slim.

I had made arrangements to stay at Selous Mbega Camp, which is located along the Rufiji River just outside the Mtemere Entrance Gate, asking the manager to reserve a particular park ranger named Apollo to accompany me on my game drives. Aimee and I had had a peaceful stay at the same camp in October, and Apollo had worked effectively with our student group while on walking safari for three days in February. During the latter trip I was impressed with how well he knew the birds of the reserve and had discussed the possibility of exploring the reserve with him further, focusing on finding bird species unique to the Miombo forests of southern Tanzania. Having a park ranger with me would also reduce the likelihood that I would get lost, stuck, or both and have to sleep in the reserve while waiting perhaps a day or longer for rescue. The setup certainly had potential, but the margin of error would be slim.

First, I had to complete the long drive from Dar, which proved wet, muddy, and treacherous in parts. The worst section was along the final three-hour stretch, where the road drops down into a floodplain and circumvents a bridge in a state of interminable repair. Here, groups of men from the village nearby were escorting the occasional vehicle across a two hundred meter stretch of mud and through a deep but narrow stream. As it hadn’t rained for a few days, the mud was relatively dry and I snaked through it without trouble, but I had to reflect a few minutes at the water’s edge before attempting to complete the passage. The water came up over the hood as I plunged the car blindly forward over a few thick boards that had been lined up underwater over the deep mud. A bit surprised I had made it across, I continued on into a powerful thunderstorm that persisted for over an hour, leaving the regular dips in the road overflowing with water.

With the feeling of having dodged a bullet, I slid across the mud into a parking spot at the camp and unwound over a late lunch. The river was swollen and flowing fast, and all the grassy islands that had harbored a variety of bird life in the dry season were now submerged. A boat safari would be pointless in these conditions, where as in the dry season it had been remarkably rewarding. While the woodland along the river was more verdant than before, I saw very few birds as I patrolled around the camp that afternoon, aside from a White-Browed Robin-Chat and a pair of Terrestrial Brownbuls. It was great to relax on my tent platform in the evening though, reading with the aid of a kerosene lantern and listening to the chatter of the Bush Babbies in the trees nearby. Even later that night as I listened to the rain in my tent, I was glad I had come and optimistic about exploring the reserve over the next few days.

Although the weather was clear and sunny in the morning, I felt terrible by the time I met Apollo at the entrance gate. I had already changed a tire that morning, and my left arm was swollen painfully from the hand all the way above my elbow thanks to the bites of a tsetse fly. My stomach was also reeling from the salad I had foolishly eaten at dinner the previous night. Explaining carefully to Apollo my hopes for the next few days and stating the birds for which I was searching, I agreed to drive to several different sites in the reserve, where we would explore on foot. After paying the entrance fee ($50 per person per 24 hours) and negotiating his price ($35 per day), we set off on a nearby circuit along the Rufiji River. The grass was high and green along the road, but we saw a variety of large game, including Greater Kudu, giraffe, elephant, as well as warthog and impala.

Stopping at a viewpoint above the river, we admired a large group of African Skimmers flying in v-formation low over the water. There was plenty of bird activity in the vegetation along the riverbank, including a group of wary White-Crested Helmet-Shrike and a single Bohm’s Bee-Eater. Red-Billed Quelea, Pin-Tailed Whydah, and Eastern Paradise Whydah males were all dazzling in their breeding plumage as they displayed in flight and on treetops. Along Lake Mzizmia we also found Water Thick-Knee, Scarlet-Chested Sunbird, and Brown-Hooded Kingfisher, all good birds but ones I’ve also seen in Dar. The majority of our time was spent navigating through difficult stretches on the road, as Apollo would scout a path for the car through the saturated black-cotton soil. After half a dozen risky but successful dashes through the mud, we finally got stuck only a few meters from the main road. Fortunately, a Land Rover soon passed by and within thirty minutes we were back on the road feeling fortunate.

In hindsight, I can see that I should have asserted myself at this point, scaling back on our risky driving and focusing more on watching birds. Apollo had his own ideas though, and took us deep into the reserve at a site he claimed was good for Purple-Crested Turaco. Three hours later and at least five kilometers off the main road we finally arrived at a deserted camp along Lake Manze. The site was indeed good for birding; however, it was already late afternoon and the western sky was darkening with clouds. I tried to enjoy myself for a while, watching a pair of Green Wood-Hoopoes scour over a massive Baobab tree, but I had a growing sense of dread. I noted Brown-Breasted Barbet, Chin-Spot Batis, Green-Winged Pytilia, Collared Palm-Thrush, and Village Indigobird as we walked slowly through the ruins of the camp. Whenever we were on foot Apollo always took his rifle, and he cautiously surveyed the environment before moving ahead, especially as we passed through closed areas.

His judgment turned significantly worse once we were back in the car as he guided us toward the main road, at one point directing me through a trackless field of tall grass. Driving into it, I knew we were headed for trouble, but he had successfully pushed me through dozens of muddy stretches so I just let go and followed his command. Within minutes we were bottomed out in a swampy patch of black-cotton soil, barefoot and up to our knees in mud as we tried to dig the car out with our hands. We had seen a total of five cars all day, and none of them had been off the main road, so we understood very clearly that we were going to spend the night in the car if we didn’t extricate ourselves within the next hour. After collecting stones and branches, desperately digging, and wildly shifting gears, we were back on track only to get stuck again five minutes later. Although we worked furiously, the car stubbornly slid back into the mud each time we almost had it back on track. It wasn’t until it was dark and had begun raining were we finally free.

Even this feeling proved to be illusory, as we headed back to the entrance gate over fifty kilometers away. The rain quickly drenched the main road, leaving it in a retched condition similar to the side roads, and we barely skidded through muddy sections with speed, not traction. As we careened recklessly through the night, we encountered hordes of birds and animals that seemed to be in an equally frenzied state. Large groups of impala dashed back and forth across the road, hundreds of thick-knees and nightjars flew up into the headlights at the last possible moment, and several massive hippopotamus raced at impossible speeds as they fled from the car on way to their feeding grounds. We even came within meters of a menacing Spotted Hyena that boldly stared us down as we passed. With the rain pouring down and the lightning flashing, the scene beyond the muddy windshield was terrifying, and the nightmare didn’t begin to subside until we reached the gate just before 10pm.

I finally made it back to camp that night, but not before getting the car stuck one last time, ten meters short of the parking area, where I simply left it. It had been a long and traumatizing day, and my confidence behind the wheel was deeply shaken. It’s not that I would have been that scared or uncomfortable sleeping in my car in the reserve; it’s that I would have rather spent the day observing birds than pushing my car to the limit. I appreciate taking the occasional risk and feeling adventurous, but I had learned that going on driving safari in the rainy season is only for the most fearless drivers and toughest vehicles. The other guests at the camp were still up gossiping about the road conditions and discussing how they were going to get back to Dar by Wednesday (it was only Saturday). Myself, I decided to leave the following day after hearing about the worsening situation at the bridge, where I had barely made it across in dry weather (the other alternative would be to drive twelve hours through the reserve to Morogoro). It would take four hours and six determined men to get my car through those two hundred meters of deep mud, and I wouldn’t arrive back in Dar until midnight, but I would need the remaining two days of vacation to recover from the physical and psychological wounds of the trip.

Notable birds seen: Hamerkop, Marabou Strok, Little Egret, Palm-Nut Vulture, African Fish Eagle, African White-Backed Vulture, Eastern Chanting-Goshawk, Tawny Eagle, Helmeted Guineafowl, Black-Bellied Bustard, Water Thick-Knee, White-Crowned Lapwing, Crowned Lapwing, Three-Banded Plover, African Skimmer, Speckled Mousebird, Brown-Hooded Kingfisher, Bohm’s Bee-Eater, Little Bee-Eater, White-Throated Bee-Eater, White-Fronted Bee-Eater, Blue-Cheeked Bee-Eater, Lilac-Breasted Roller, Green Wood-Hoopoe, African Hoopoe, Von der Decken’s Hornbill, Crowned Hornbill, Trumpeter Hornbill, Brown-Breasted Barbet, Crested Barbet, Nubian Woodpecker, African Pied Wagtail, White-Browed Robin-Chat, Thrush Nightingale, Spotted Morning-Thrush, Collared Palm-Thrush, Chin-Spot Batis, African Paradise Flycatcher, Terrestrial Brownbul, Purple-Banded Sunbird, Scarlet-Chested Sunbird, Black-Backed Puffback, White-Crested Helmet-Shrike, Yellow-Billed Oxpecker, White-Browed Sparrow-Weaver, African Golden Weaver, Red-Billed Quelea, Green-Winged Pytilia, Southern Cordon-Bleu, Red-Billed Fire-Finch, Eastern Paradise Whydah, Village Indigobird, Black-Winged Bishop, Pin-Tailed Whydah, African Golden-Breasted Bunting.