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Visit to Southern Akagera Fringe |
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Written by Jason Anderson
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Thursday, 04 March 2010 |
With the help of Google Earth I managed to plot a walking route from the village of Nyankora (1°56'16.86"S+30°40'9.40"E) due east to the south eastern corner of Akagera National Park (1°56'32.75"S+30°41'51.22"E) about 5 kilometres east of the village, and on Sunday I tried it out. Although a fairly large hill stood in the way, the top of the hill marked the edge of the cultivation, and from there on down it was acacia-dominated savannah with wooded copses gradually thickening into forest by the bottom of the hill near the edge of Lake Ihema. Despite numerous tsetse files, tics and sweltering temperatures, I had a really good day's birding, and luckily I didn't bump into any of the buffalo or snakes that the local kids had warned me about as I descended into the woodland!
On the way up the hill, I had already bagged two new species for me in Rwanda; Common Whitethroat (an easily identifiable male feeding low in a bush – although Stevenson & Fanshawe [hereafter S&F] don't mark it as present in Rwanda, ABC list it as recorded here) and, finally, confirmation of Black-crowned Tchagra, after numerous Brown-crowned Tchagras. 3 sightings of the former today indicated that it might be more suited to the drier, more natural habitat on the park fringes than the Brown-crowned. Separating them was much easier than I'd expected. The Black-crowned has a clear orangey wash to the back of the supercilium and white face that is absent on the Brown-crowned (S&F show this well), and the photos showed up several other more subtle differences, too.
Both these birds were before I reached the park fringes, and as I started descending I was rewarded by a party (although only 1 seen) of Green Wood-hoopoe. 20 minutes later, further down the hill, a mixed feeding flock produced some smashing birds; African Moustached Warbler, Sulphur-breasted Bush-Shrike, and 2 migrant species - a pair of Common Redstart (male in breeding plumage) and a party of 3 Wood Warblers, one of my favourite birds ever since I found an early migrant on my local patch in the UK in my teenage years.
The highlight of the day was a pair of Black-collared Barbets (a first for me), which turned out to be breeding in a tree hole about 2.5m off the ground. One of the pair, and the nest hole showed well for reasonable photos – a very handsome species. About 20 minutes later, a pair of Sooty Chats were hanging around a tree where a Red-headed Weaver male was building a nest about 3.5m off the ground. He paid no attention to my arrival, and allowed me to get some lovely photos of him lining the inside of the nest with the cottony seeds that were common in the long grass. On two occasions when he flew off to collect nesting material, a single Bronze Mannikin raided the nest (presumably for materials), and then another first for my Rwandan list – African (or Grey if you prefer) Penduline-Tit. A single bird moving busily through the canopy of medium-size acacia bushes, showing a more yellow forehead than the illustration of the roccatii subspecies in S&F. The Sooty Chats were the first of a stream of black birds in a short space of time, with Black Cuckoo-Shrike, a pair of Slate-coloured Boubous producing their R2-D2 type calls, and then a party of 3 White-winged Black Tits. I wonder if there is some significance here – several species all with black (and white) plumage in the same habitat. It definitely wasn't to keep warm. By this time it was 11am and even the Cuckoo-Shrikes were panting to keep cool!
The next good bird was a single Broad-billed Roller, who flew in close and posed for photos on a branch fairly nearby, my first record for Rwanda. I spotted it while I was trying to pin down a couple of apalises that I could hear in the top of an acacia tree, but not see. I suspect that they were Yellow-breasted, given the galloping horse-type call, but they didn't respond to playback by coming closer, so I left them unconfirmed.
Other birds of interest included Crowned Hornbill, Bateleur, Emerald-spotted Wood Dove, Lesser Masked Weaver, Violet-backed Starling, Trilling Cisticola (everywhere), White-browed Scrub-Robin, Meyer's Parrot, Blue-naped Mousebird (fairly common), Cinnamon-breasted Bunting, Helmeted Guineafowl, Yellow-fronted Tinkerbird and Pale Flycatcher. The only `unconfirmed' was a high-soaring raptor that was probably a Black-chested Snake Eagle, but too far off to be sure. There was also a species of lark that I flushed several times from the long grass of the park fringes, but was never able to get even reasonable views of… next time perhaps. Wildlife, fortunately didn't include any buffalo, but I flushed two bohor reedbuck from bushes and I also came across two parties of Olive Baboons.
A late afternoon rainstorm sent me back to Nyankora and home by moto taxi. Akagera all-in for $10, 6 free tics included! A definite location for a return trip in a month or two.
Jason
» 3 Comments
1Comment
at Friday, 05 March 2010 16:53
this really sounds like it was a super birding walk! LOL@R2-D2sounding call, that will guarantee I remember it!
2Comment
at Tuesday, 09 March 2010 14:29
lovely stuff Jason! thanks so much for sharing...
yup! R2-D2 has now stuck in my head!
3Comment
at Wednesday, 10 March 2010 13:50
Aaaahhh Google Earth.
He is our friend.
Lovely sightings you had there!
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