Julie Williams asked me if I wanted to go to Rubondo Island with her and Joe Du Plessis to see the place and help out for the visit of some of the investors, the answer was obviously YES.
Man, that place is stunning, Cormorants and Egrets everywhere plus a lots of more elusive forest birds.... Even if we were busy with other duties we still had time to bird a bit.
Joe and I did our best and the list was boosted up when Paul Oliver arrived... birding with good birders is so much easier ...
We spotted many specials: Black and white casqued hornbill in the first walk in the forest, Angola swallows Swamp flycatchers and Slender billed weavers feasting over swarms of lake flies.
A beautiful Brown wattle eye appeared while we were waiting for lunch, Snowy headed robin chat and Red capped robin were seen in the bushes along the paths.... We would not even go ten meters without our binos... Geeks!!! but in the end there were even Easten grey plantain eaters in the staff quarter.....
Forest birding was difficult as usual but boating gave us great satisfaction, I had quite a number of lifers, Red chested sunbird, the amazing Blue headed coucal, Northern brown throated weaver, Blue breasted beeater.....
Viellot's black weaver were nesting above water while African jacanas and Long toed lapwings were busy wandering the water edges.
An osprey caught a big tilapia ten meters from us in a spectacular demonstration of skills.
When the light was already fading we had the last great surprise... Little bittern (my first one) peering through the reeds... we went mad to try to see it properly. Lots of excitement from Paul and me....
I definitely have to thank Julie and Joe for bringing me with... we had so much fun,we worked a lot but we did lot of fishing as well (30 pounds perch with 8 pounds line!!!), we observed stunning mammals (Spot necked otters and Sitatungas), we found a rare snake (Jameson's mamba, first record on the island), we built a friendship and we had great great birding....
Total count 134
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