"True African Wilderness"
This is what we anticipated from Kidepo Valley national park, the most anticipated destination of our entire trip.
But before we could enter this park, we had to do the formalities at the park gate. I have to say, this park has one of the most stupidly complicated fee structures of any park I've ever seen, which is saying a lot for Uganda. It was the ultimate nickel-and-diming of a tourist, with many sneaky unexpected fees which I had to just eat. Just one example was an extra fee for 'birding'. My surplus contribution to Uganda's parks was now out of the way and dealt with, and we could proceed to start the game drive which was our ultimate purpose for making the long journey here.
Despite its asinine fee structure, I have to say that Kidepo is totally epic. The park's slogan is "True African Wilderness" and it is completely accurate. About 15 minutes into our drive, we spotted a cheetah sleeping under a tree. It was joined by a second male and we got some nice photographs as they sprayed their scent markings on the tree trunk, yawned and stretched. Then a trio of clown-like Abyssinian Ground Hornbills gave us a show, ever- minding the ground in front of them.
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| Abyssinian Scimitarbill |
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| Kidepo is a wide, shallow valley flanked by short mountain ranges |
As sunset approached, we set ourselves up at the public campsite/bandas, which had a restaurant where we could order delicious food. Wildlife surround the camp and filled the campground itself. Elephants and waterbucks roamed just outside, while inside the camp, we found Fawn-coloured Waxbills and as it got dark, a Swamp Nightjar. Black-backed Jackals and warthogs scrounged for scraps behind the kitchen. Buffaloes and waterbucks grazed out on the lawn.
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| Swamp Nightjar in the camp |
In the morning, we got an excellent specialist birding ranger by the name of Zachary. There seems to be an unofficial rule that each park in Uganda is only allowed to have one knowledgeable bird guide on staff, and he was the one. He took us first to a pair of isolated hilltops in the north of the park, near the South Sudan border. This was his stake-out for the Orange River Francolin. We first played a couple of calls. We used the Shelley's Francolin, because it is pretty much identical, and my app doesn't have a call for Orange River. We quickly got a response and figured that they were at the top of a dry seasonal streambed, at the top of the hill. We very slowly crept our way toward their position and concealed ourselves behind a huge rock. I was scanning with my binoculars, hoping one would pop into view. Instead, Wilson spotted one a bit closer than I expected, and as he made it vocally known, the pair got started and burst into flight. Not the views I'd hoped for, but at least I conclusively saw them. Now that they were spooked, it would be impossible to get them again, at least for some days. We returned to Emmy who was waiting for us in the car, and went out to find some Black-breasted Barbets.
We had quite the search by car and by foot, escorted by Zachary with his AK-47. At one point Wilson and I startled a buffalo (or it startled us). We moved very quickly to shelter behind a tree trunk, but the buffalo was more interested in running away. Zachary watched on, ready to intervene. Eventually, we caught up with a group of about 3 Black-breasted Barbets feeding on some small fruits in a very large tree, as expected for barbets. A pineapple was slaughtered in honor of what was, according to my tally at the time, my 1000th bird for East Africa!
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| Black-breasted Barbet - #1000!!! |
Along the road, we could not stop bumping into great birds. Abyssinian Rollers dazzled us while cisticolas perplexed us. An Orange-winged Pytilia made an ephemeral appearance in a bush. The rest of the day is a blur of so many sightings of birds, elephants, and those same cheetahs from the day before.
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Yellow-billed Shrikes
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Swallow-tailed Bee-eaters
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| Abyssinian Roller |
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| Flappet Lark |
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| Hartbeest just given birth |
At night, Zachary took us on a short night game drive. Leopards and lions were the main quary, but no predators were to be found. Instead, an abundance of buffaloes and Hartbeests, and three Porcupines! Just as it got dark, Zachary took us to a rocky outcrop where we located a couple of Freckled Nightjars singing from the exposed rock. We also saw a monster Puff Adder at the same spot, its head as big as my flattened fist.
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| Puff Adder! |
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| Freckled Nightjar |
The next morning, we had considered a strenuous hike up one of the mountains, where Orange River Francolin might be possible, but Emmy said that returning to the same area as yesterday would be more productive for birding. That is what we did. The Orange River Francolins were wise to our presence, only permitting us to flush them out of the grass without even getting close to a view. But there birding potential was only just being tapped. In some burn grass, we flushed a pair of Four-banded Sandgrouse. We spotted where they landed and carefully approached them for good views. After lots of walking, we heard a group of Black Scimitarbills at quite a distance. We called them in, eventually coaxing them to land at the base of the rocky hill. Just as we raised our bins on them, in the background, we could see spots. It was a small leopard hiding against a tree. Immediately it scrambled up the rock face. We pursued it stealthily, following the angry bird noises. We startled it again, this time prompting it to leg it across the plains until it was a decent distance from us, maybe 3 or 400m away. It was very cool to see a leopard on foot! We tried the neighboring hill, which is smaller and has less cover. There was very little bird activity but we did flush a Mountain Reedbuck, which was a lifer to me!
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| Spot the leopard |
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| Four-banded Sandgrouse (male) |
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| Black Scimitarbill |
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| The small hill seen from the big hill |
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| A desert rose in its habitat |
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| Here's another one of the leopard, more cropped |
From there, we proceeded to an abandoned lodge which was being renovated at the time. Apparently it used to belong to Idi Amin. This was Zachary's spot for Rock-loving Cisticola. After quite a bit of walking around and searching the abandoned section of the resort, I thought I spotted one briefly land in a bush before flying away. We struggled to relocate it. We split up and walked around for quite a long time. Eventually, we caught up with a pair of Rock-loving Cisticolas. They appeared to have plain backs and were totally silent. I didn't get any photos of those ones. At the base of the hill, I got photos of another cisticola which at the time I thought was a Rock-loving but upon looking at the photos, seems to be a Rattling (due the the streaks on the back). We still stand by our identification of the original 2 birds and think that they were different birds. A White-headed Vulture soared overhead.
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| This was seen in the vicinity of where we ID's 2 Rock-loving Cisticolas. But I take it to be a Rattling |
Our campsite for the second 2 nights was the special campsite, located atop a flat hill surrounded by plains, savannah and dry wetlands. At night, we heard hyeena, lion and leopard! I had never heard a leopard moaning at night before. We cooked our food on the fire and squeezed into my 3-man tent.
On our third and last morning, we actually ventured outside of the park boundary, despite that our permits were still valid. We were searching for some species not available in the park. The first was Ring-necked Francolin. We heard it quite easily. Seeing it was another matter completely. Walking around was not paying off, but the birding was good. Just outside the park, we explored a semi-dried riverbed with some remnant pools. This is Zachary's main spot for Pygmy Sunbird, but there were no flowers, so we dipped. Instead, we got great views of Black-breasted Barbets, Pearl-spotted Owlet and plenty of Yellow-billed Shrikes.
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| Black-breasted Barbets |
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| Pearl-spotted Owlet |
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| Yellow-billed Shrike |
While walking around some dry grassy woodland, we eventually spotted a group of 3 Pygmy Sunbirds! Zachary said they were far from guaranteed with no flowers about. We got great views.
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| Pygmy Sunbird |
Suddenly, a flock of Black Scimitarbills appeared unexpectedly. We were able to enjoy them this time, undistracted by leopards. At a choice roadside meadow, Zachary found us a pair of White-fronted Black Chats. They are more of a woodland/savannah species than the abundant Sooty Chats, and not available inside the park apparently. While we viewed them, Emmy called out a snake from his driver's seat. It was up in a tree at arm's reach. I was tempted to try to wrangle it but no one of us was certain about its ID. It turned out to be a juvenile Boomslang! Good thing I let it be.
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| White-fronted Black Chat |
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| The legendary boomsland, albeit a baby one |
While driving way, we were halted abruptly by two large critters rustling in the grass in the ditch. They seemed to be francolins. I trained my bins on the movement of one of them through the grass, but it was the wrong one. Wilson was on the other one, and saw it pop up its head from the grass. They were Ring-necked Francolins. We got out of the car and searched desperately, trying to flank them and cut them off. I never got a look, despite seeing the grass moving the whole time. I was gutted by this miss. It's one of those species you're almost certain you'll never have a chance at ever again.
We had the option of adding one more day to Kidepo but the general feeling was to keep going, since one day here would mean one day less in Murchison Falls and of course there was lots to see there as well. It had been a pretty extraordinary 3 mornings at this park. We dropped Zachary off and continued the long drive across to Murchison. About 45 minutes after we left, I was reaching in the back of the Toyota for some mango juice and noticed a military backpack there. Oh no! It was Zachary's bag! We didn't want to drive all the way back as that would waste fuel and time, so we found somebody in the next town to help us get it to him. It was the chairman of the town. We hired a boda boda man to take him with the bag, because we figured a) he's trustworthy and b) he isn't gonna get any problems at the military checkpoint we had just passed, asking him why he's carrying military-issued camping gear. Zachary's wife was able to acquire the backpack, but we heard the the boda boda guy abandoned his chairman at the town!
All in all, for those thinking about making the long journey up to Kidepo National Park, it is a magical wilderness full of wildlife and super unique birds that I think every East African birder should aim to visit at least once in his or her life. And I learned that I hate Francolins.
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| Flap-necked Chameleon |
