17-18 July 2019: Heading to the Pearl of Africa

For magnificence, for variety of form and colour, for profusion of brilliant life - bird, insect, reptile, beast - for vast scale - Uganda is truly “the Pearl of Africa.”

Winston Churchill 1908

Escape to the Wild had organised an excellent Ghana budget tour with exceptional bird guides. We managed to tick 304 species over a period of two weeks, with the vast majority of these species being West African forest birds. I was able to add 185 new birds to my African Big Year list, the highlight being the rare Yellow-headed Picathartes.

Klaus flew back to South Africa, while I headed to Uganda to meet up with Maans Booysen and Rob Little, both partners in Escape To The Wild. They were exploring the birding opportunities in Uganda for possible future tours using local guides. We were also joined by Henning and Trudi Malan on this ten-day pilot tour of Central and Western Uganda.

Scarlet-chested Sunbird, Entebbe

My flight arrived at Entebbe at three o’ clock in the morning. I waited till after sunrise to book in at the Victoria Lake View Guesthouse and was welcomed by a Ross’s Turaco sitting in a tree above my room. The afternoon, while waiting for the rest of the group to arrive from South Africa, I birded the Entebbe Botanical Gardens and ended the day with 36 species on my Uganda list. The guesthouse had an excellent dinner menu, and I totally ignored the chicken and rice. Just another good day of birding in paradise!