Uganda for Bird's Wildlife & Nature - Day 5 : 24th July 2024

Day of the Bwindi Gorilla trek. Even now, I am still vaguely lost for words. After our morning briefing we drove about 30 minutes to our start point to begin our search for Happy’s family. It was cool at 8000 feet as we set of with bamboo poles in hand through gleaming lime green tea fields looking down sheer tended slopes and into the Impenetrable Forest below.  Happy and his crew were being somewhat mobile and the trackers were doing their best to keep up with them but the resulting walk involved four slippery near vertical descents and subsequent climbs through unforgiving forest rich in the smells of loam and rot and that almondy cyanide smell that come from the Bracken.  Tree Ferns towered above us but the trunks were quite spiky and you had to be careful not to grab them.

Birds called all around but we were so focused on staying up right and breathing properly that on the way we saw little other than a fabulous troop of Colobus Monkeys resplendent in their white shaggy shawls and wondrously long tails. There were however Butterflies of every shape size and colour cruising around us but you can only do so much and I got very few pictures.

We reached a proper clear flowing stream and we beckoned to stop by our trackers and guide Benjamin and it was time to down sticks and pop on masks and there just ten feet away was Happy the Silverback Eastern Mountain Gorilla. He glanced in our direction and refolded his mighty arms across his broad chest and gave us an indifferent rather than ‘pleased to see you’ look. Two of the females were further into the Balsam and Nettles and were pulling vines down from the trees above without shifting their bums if at all possible while two nine month old infants were around.  One put on such a show of acrobatics as it climbed two trees simultaneously to get to some leaves whilst dangling from any number of hairy limbs.

One of Happy's wives

Meanwhile 28 year old Happy had a good scratch and then spent some quality time have a good root round in one of his nostrils before leisurely slumping back into his Gorilla shaped depression in the herbage.  After a while he got up and moved even closer to us showing his gleaming silver pelage and ambled up the slope for some uninterrupted lunch.  To think that there were five more Gorillas lounging invisibly somewhere around us made it all the more special that we had some close up encounters.  It was a moving experience that I shall never forget.

Happy having a good root round

 

During our hour there were some huge Butterflies cruising around and the odd bird which included two showy Rwenzori Hill Babblers and a Mountain Wagtail flew up and down the river twice before the return journey commenced.  It was even harder in reverse and I seriously struggled with my breathing and frequent stops were required but we did see the Colobus troop again and two dinky Carruther’s Mountain Squirrels. A large number of birds were feeding in the backlit canopy and with no Paul to pick out sounds and my head pounding with the thump of my heart, we settled for White Tailed Blue Flycatchers, Dark Headed Bulbuls and Mountain Orioles that we could identify but the morning was about the primates and the bird’s had to take back stage for once.  There were no complaints.

A Lemon Dove erupted from the trail in front and very non-sunbirdy Grey Headed Sunbird initially had us stumped while up in the tea plantations we found Black and White Mannikins, Brown Crowned Tchagra and a striking male Bronze Sunbird before taking lunch on the last ridge.  We even added a Blue Monkey on the drive back to the lodge where I saw Streaky Seedeater, Chubb’s Cisticolas, Bronze Mannikins, Harrier-Hawk and Variable Sunbirds from the balcony whilst recuperating.

Black & White Colobus Monkey

White Tailed Blue Flycatcher

White Tailed Blue Flycatcher

Blue Monkey

A short break back and then back out onto the main road for a walk down the Bwindi School track until dark. We hit a great patch of trees full of different species and once again new birds came thick and fast and the crew were much better at getting onto things quickly. Grey and Petit’s Cuckoo-shrikes, Stripe Breasted Tits, Spot chinned Batis, Yellow Rumped Tinkerbird and Grey Headed Barbets were feeding above us while lower down we found two juvenile African Emerald Cuckoos, various Sunbirds, Slender-billed and Yellow Whiskered Greenbuls, Red-faced Woodland Warblers, Dwarf Honeyguide, Northern Puffback, cracking Rwenzori’s Apalis along with Mountain Masked and Chestnut-throated too, dapper Mountain White-eyes, boldly marked Luhder’s Bushshrikes and both African Dusky and White-Eyed Slaty Flycatchers.  A Banded Prinia played hard to get but the Black-billed Turaco made several passes on glowing red wings over our heads and eventually perched up nicely too while a Narrow Tailed Starling and African Olive Pigeons moved overhead. 

As the light dropped we still found more with a Black-billed Weaver (stupid name as the bird is black with a yellow head) and a family of Abyssinian Thrushes were joined in a tree by a single African Thrush for useful comparison.  The Black Saw-wing and Rock Martin activity dropped off as they light fell and before too long the Rwenzori’s Nightjar came out to play to round up a very full, rewarding and emotional day.