theragingbirder: An Obsession with Papyrus

We'd given ourselves one day left on the rental in Rwanda and after much debate, decided to do our papyrus stuff by the Nyabarongo River as described by many a birding tour report. Our experience, however ended up quite scrappy with some species seen and some missed. But that's birding!

We got to a hotel quite late and were absolutely knackered, and it was difficult to get up early enough to do it justice. But there we were, about 45 minutes after dawn but the place was complete rubbish. You couldn't even get up close to the papyrus stands without finding some guy with a rowboat. Despite Jackson's better judgement I made an executive decision to take us to Gashora Birding Site, which had 17 Papyrus Canaries on one ebird checklist! Even seeing one of those would make it worth the visit and I agreed to pay the late return fee for the car, whatever that might end up being.

We drove fairly hastily to gather up what remained of the morning period (it usually gets dull after morning), and after much navigating of dirt roads, some of which had major washouts in them, we finally came upon the most glorious papyrus swamp I'd ever seen with a dirt road going straight through it (which meant good access for us). This was perfect.

The habitat looked good, but were we too late?

The locals there found us extremely interesting, especially the local children who, it being Sunday, were out and about. They were quite shy and couldn't speak English or French, but were curious about what we were doing so we let a couple of them try our binoculars and point at a few birds.

However, I quickly ripped mine out of a small child's hands when I heard the striking song of a Papyrus Gonolek. We duly taped it in and got ridiculous looks for about 10 minutes of this thing. Proper redemption for missing it back in 2016 in Kenya!

Papyrus Gonolek

The swamp flourishing with bird activity but it was a race against time for both Papyrus Canary, Papyrus Yellow Warbler and Greater Swamp Warbler, all would-be lifers.

Little Bittern - a bird you don't see everyday

African Marsh Harrier, Greater Swamp Warblers galore, Little Bittern, Southern Red Bishop, Red-chested Sunbirds and various weaver species put on a show, but the morning was getting late - it was already about 10 o'clock.

Red-chested Sunbird

Greater Swamp Warbler (originally mis-ID'ed as Lesser)

Southern Red Bishop

After a sustained effort of playing the tape up and down the road, we eventually got a pair of Papyrus Yellow Warblers to respond, then fly over some reeds, land briefly, then disappear forever. It was as good a listen and a view as we needed to add this one to our life lists! Unfortunately, we were forced to give up on Papyrus Canary and Greater Swamp Warbler as I didn't think they warranted another day on the rental which was costing us $40 a day. (Note, photo review confirmed that we we had thought to be Lesser Swamp Warblers were in fact Greater). All in all, the warbler was the least expected of our targets so we were really pleased with that and to have such views of Papyrus Gonolek (twice) added to the fun.

We took the car back to Frank in Kigali who was not really thrilled about having to go into the office on a Sunday (we forgot it was Sunday) and requested the late fee. Anyway, we were glad we'd gone the extra mile and visited Gashora birding site, I'd be interested to know the name of any local guide for the future and would say thanks to Frank for his patience with us!