Private guided Tanzania Birding tour
Day 1-: Arrival at Julius Nyerere Airport, Dar es Salaam
This was a private birding tour for a single traveller. We met him at the Julius Nyerere Airport. After loading the bags, it was time to head on to our hotel. On the way we spotted some roadside birds such as Feral Pigeons, we chatted about the long adventure ahead of us.
Day 2-: Selous
The tour officially started this morning, with a drive out of Dar es Salaam. We slowly worked our way through the city and caught the road to the famous Nyerere National Park. This is Tanzania’s largest park, with an amazing wilderness habitat. Formerly part of the greater Selous Game Reserve, this great park protects amazing habitat around the mighty Rufiji River.
Birds were abundant on our drive. We scored species such as Chestnut fronted Helmet-shrike, Ruvu Weaver, White-crowned Lapwing, Malachite and Brown-hooded Kingfishers, Miombo Blue-eared Starling, Zanzibar Red Bishop, White- fronted and White-throated Bee-eaters and many others.
Day 3-: Selous
We had early breakfast at Rufiji River camp and left with our packed lunch for the day. As we started driving, we saw a feeding flock and immediately had to stop here. The first bird we spotted was Böhm’s bee-eater that we had actually missed on our arrival day. This is a special bird and one of the main target species in this part of the world. Other species we enjoyed here included the rare Livingstone’s Flycatcher, Eastern Bearded Scrub-Robin, Collared Palm-Thrush and Swallow-tailed Bee-eater.
From here, we drove onwards and explored deeper into the park. On our drive we had luck with Dickinson’s Kestrel, Stierling’s Wren-Warbler, Eastern Black-headed Batis, Green-backed Woodpecker, Northern Carmine Bee-eater, Grey Go-away-bird, Shikra and many others.
We also enjoyed mammals across the day, such as Maasai Giraffes, Common Impalas and Common Hippos. The day passed very quickly and soon enough, it was time to head back to camp for dinner and overnight.
Day 4-: Selous to Gairo
We left very early from Nyerere National Park with both packed breakfast and lunch heading towards Ukaguru. This was mainly a traveling day, but we still managed to enjoy some good birds along the road.
We got birds such as Black-crowned Tchagra, White-throated and White-fronted Bee-eater, Dark-backed Weaver, Yellow-fronted Canary, White-headed Black Chat, Burchell’s Coucal, Southern Cordon-Bleu, Southern Ground Hornbill and Trumpeter Hornbill.
Day 5-: Gairo to Morogoro
Once again we leave our hotel very early this morning heading to the special Ukaguru Forest. The road was very wet and many sections were literally impassable. This did not break our spirit though, as we were helped by the locals and eventually, we managed to get all the way to the forest.
Whilst at the forest we managed to get some stunning birds such as Barred Long-tailed Cuckoo, Rubeho Warbler, Dark Batis, Rubeho Akalat, African Hill Babbler, Black-fronted Bush-Shrike, Yellow-bellied Waxbill, Red-faced Crimsonwing, African Tailorbird, Olive-flanked Robin-Chat, Orange Ground Thrush, White-tailed Crested Flycatcher, Moreau’s Sunbird and Livingstone’s Turaco.
Our difficulties with the road were more than made up for by this assortment of unique birds. At the end of the day, we were very grateful and spent the night in Morogoro.
Day 6-: Uluguru Mountains
This morning, we were up early, and with our packed breakfast and lunch boxes we were on our way from Morogoro heading to the Uluguru Mountain. The road was not good, once more, due to the rain from several days earlier. This region was experiencing a very wet month and the same was being observed in other parts of Tanzania. After a very long dry season, many places had excessive rainfall this month. We had to revert once more to local means of transport for this leg of the trip.
Finally, we made it to the forest, and we were rewarded for our efforts. We connected with the stunning Uluguru Bush-shrike, Green Barbet, Loveridge’s Sunbird, Square-tailed Drongo, Evergreen Forest Warbler, Sharpe’s Akalat, Placid Greenbul, Olive sunbird, and many more forest birds. On the way out, we searched for more species in the farms and bushes surrounding the forest. We were lucky with Bertram’s Weaver, Southern Citril and Black-throated Wattle-eye.
Day 7-: Uluguru Mountains
We once again left very early, as had become our trend, and drove to the opposite side of the vast Uluguru Mountain at Bunduki area. The day was very successful. It was a better road though still wet.
We were surprised to again score the endemic Uluguru Bush-shrike which was a rare record for this part of the vast Ulugurus. We added many more species here including, Uluguru Mountain Greenbul, Mrs. Moreau’s Warbler, Sharpe’s Akalat, Olive-flanked Robin-Chat, Chapin’s Apalis, Dark Batis, Loveridge’s Sunbird, Stripe-cheeked Greenbul, White-starred Robin, and more.
We also enjoyed roadside birding as we hiked these mountains. Here we added species such as Broad- tailed and African Yellow Warblers, Trilling Cisticola and many others.
Day 8-: – Mikumi National Park and Iringa
This morning after breakfast at the lodge we left Morogoro at around 7:30am with our packed lunches and moved farther West to the famous town of Iringa.
We had several stops on the way for birding and managed to see Eastern Paradise Whydah, Black-necked Weaver, White-browed Scrub-Robin, Tanzania Red-billed Hornbill, Striped Kingfisher and Broad-billed Roller.
Day 9-: Ruaha National Park
We left Iringa at around 8am after a great breakfast, heading to Ruaha National Park. On the way we saw nice birds such as Tanzania Red-billed Hornbill, Ashy Starling, Yellow-collared Lovebird and Miombo Wren-Warbler. We continued birding through the park on our way to the lodge. This was another full day with many bird sightings.
Other notable species seen across the day included Purple-crested Turaco, Holub’s Golden Weaver, Bare-faced Go-away-bird, Orange-breasted Bush-Shrike and Green-winged Pytilia.
Day 10-: Ruaha National Park
This day was dedicated to enjoying the wonders of Ruaha National Park. We aimed to scout various roads that we had not birded yesterday. The weather was not friendly as it was still raining, but we kept going. We decided to take a lunch break back at camp today. This provided some well-deserved rest after a rather tight program over the past few days. Some of the exciting birds seen on this day included Hildebrandt’s Francolin, African Crake, Greater Honeyguide, Southern Black Flycatcher, Southern Ground-Hornbill, Vitelline Masked Weaver, Mottled Spinetail, Black-faced Sandgrouse and Brown Snake-Eagle.
Mammals were great here too and we had notable sightings such as African Wild Dogs, Common Zebras and African Elephants.
Day 11-: Ulti Forest – Kisolanza area
We left very early from camp after breakfast with our lunch packs heading to Uluti Forest. The road was the worst we had seen on the entire tour and even our now famous local transport could not save us this time.
We agreed to head back and drive to the area around Kisolanza. We still had a few target birds we had not seen, and some were possible here. We scored the Brown-headed and Yellow-breasted Apalis, White-eyed Slaty and African Paradise Flycatcher, Olive sunbird, Crowned Horbill and Yellow-fronted Canary.
Day 12-: Off to the East Udzungwa Mountains
We wanted to maximize this area and thus decided to do some birding in the woodlands here. We added Western Miombo Sunbird, Brimstone Canary, Reichard’s Seedeater, African Golden-breasted Bunting and Black-collared Barbet. We then started our journey to the famous Udzungwa Mountains. We had a few stops on the way and managed to get Red-throated Twinspot which was one of the top targets for us.
Day 13-: Kilombero Swamp and off to Mikumi National Park
Today we dedicated the morning to a special habitat around Ifakara, the famous Kilombero swamp. This area hosts three Tanzania endemic species and was worth the visit.
At the main swamp we got Kilombero Cisticola and White-tailed Cisticola easily. Farther on, Kilombero Weaver, Fawn-breasted Waxbill, Coppery- tailed Coucal, Lesser Swamp Warbler, White-winged Widowbird and Village Indigobird were added.
We then took a break and enjoyed our lunch. From here we headed to Mikumi, where we birded the local Miombo woodlands and scored Yellow-bellied Hyliota, Rufous-bellied Tit, Reichenow’s Woodpecker, White-breasted Cuckoo-shrike, Crested Barbet, Cabanis’s Bunting and many others.
Day 14-: Full day birding at Mikumi National Park
We continued birding Mikumi National Park, as we still needed more species from this beautiful area. In the park we saw Pale-billed Hornbill, Northern Pied Babbler, Parasitic and Lesser-masked Weaver, Croaking and Desert Cisticola, Dark Chanting-Goshawk, Cinnamon-breasted Rock Bunting and many others.
It was a much easier time for us after the tough mountains and birds seemed much easier here to view than we were used to. There were also some nice mammals to see like Maasai Giraffes and Common Zebras.
Day 15-: Back to Dar es Salaam and departure flights
We had breakfast at our hotel this morning and started the drive back Julius Nyerere International Airport. This was the last stretch on our long adventure, and we were grateful for what nature had provided.