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Birding in Nyungwe Forest
Nyungwe Forest National Park is one of the most important bird watching destinations in Rwanda with more than 280 bird species recorded and the majority are forest specialists and 26 are regional endemics whose range is restricted to a few forests along the Albertine Rift. Bird watching in Nyungwe can be rather tiring, since the vegetation is thick and many birds tend to stick to the canopy. You don’t have to be an ardent birdwatcher to appreciate some of Nyungwe’s birds. Most people double when they first spot a great blue turaco, a chicken sized bird with garish blue, green and yellow feathers, often seen gliding between the trees along the main road. Another real gem is the paradise flycatcher, along tailed blue, orange and sometimes white bird often seen around the rest house. Other birds impress with their bizarre appearance the gigantic forest hornbills, for instance, whose wailing vocalizations are almost as comical as their ungainly bills and heavy winged flight. And when tracking through the forest under growth, you should watch out for the red throated alethe, a much localized bird with a distinctive blue-white eyebrow. The alethe habitually follows colobus troops to eat the insects they disturb, and based on our experience it seems humans are merely another large mammal, often perching within a few inches! The priorities of more serious birdwatchers will depend to some extent on their experience elsewhere in Africa. It is difficult to imagine, for instance, that a first time visitor to the continent will get as excited about a drab chubb’s cisticola as they will when they first see a paradise flycatcher or green pigeon. For somebody coming from southern Africa, at least half of what they will see will be new to them, with a total of about 60 relatively wide spread east African forest specials headed by the likes of great blue turaco. Ross’s turaco, red – breasted sparrow hawk and white – headed wood hoopoe. From the east African perspective, however, it is the 26 Albertine Rift endemics that are the most alluring.
Chimpanzee tracking in Nyungwe forest
The Rwandan chimp population is about 500 individuals and thought to be confined to Nyungwe national park including a small community in the Cyamudongo Forest. During the rainy season, a troop of chimpanzees often moves into Uwinka and the colored trail as well, and it is up to the tourist to decide whether to pay extra to track them.
You will be able to hear them before you see them; from somewhere deep in the forest, an excited hooting, just one voice at first, then several, rising in volume before stopping abruptly or fading away. Unlike most other primates, chimpanzees don’t live in troops, but instead form extended communities of up to a hundred individuals, which move around the forest in small mobile sub groups that often revolve around a few close family members like brothers, mothers and daughters. Male chimps normally spend their entire life within the community in which they were born, where as females are likely to migrate into a neighboring community at some point after reaching adolescence.
Nyungwe Forest Monkeys
The thirteen primate species which are found in Nyungwe represent something like 20-25% of the total number in Africa, an extraordinary figure which in East Africa is comparable only to Uganda’s Kibale forest. Further more, several of these primates are listed as vulnerable or endangered on the IUCN red list, and Nyungwe is almost certainly the main stronghold for at least two of them. The most celebrated of Nyungwe’s primates is the Rwenzori Colobus a race of the more wide spread Angola colobus which is restricted to the Albertine Rift. The Rwenzori Colobus is highly arboreal and acrobatic leaf-eater, easily distinguished from any other primate found in Nyungwe by its contrasting black over all colour and snow-white whiskers, shoulders and tail tip. Although all colobus monkeys are very friendly, the ones in Nyungwe are unique in a way, they typically move in troops of several hundred animals. A semi-habituated troop of 400 species, resident in the forest around the campsite, is known to be the largest troop of arboreal primates anywhere in Africa and else where in the world, only the Chinese golden monkey moves in groups of a comparable number. Most of the other monkeys in Nyungwe are guenons, the collective name for the taxonomically confusing cercopithecus genus. Other types of monkeys in Nyungwe National Park are the L’Hoest’s monkey, Silver monkey, golden monkey, Owl faced monkey, red tailed monkey, Dent’s Mona monkey, crowned monkey, Vervet monkey, and Olive baboon which is a savanna monkey that is occasionally seen along the road through Nyungwe, Grey-cheeked mangabey is an arboreal monkey of the forest interior. In addition to the chimpanzees and monkeys, Nyungwe harbors four types of small nocturnal primates more closely related to the lemurs of Madagascar than to any other primates on the African main land. These are three species which include bush baby or galago (group of tiny, hyper active wide – eyed insectivores) and the sloth like potto. All are very unlikely to be seen by tourists.
Other Safari Activities in Nyungwe Forest National Park
Trekking and other excursions are the available activities within Nyungwe .Visitors with satisfactory vehicles and interest can easily be busy for three or four days without drastically retracing their steps. The opinions for travelers without private transport are more limited and depend on whether they are to sleep at Uwinka campsite where the main attraction is the network of colored trails, a good place for colobus and seasonally for chimps, or at the rest house which is the best base for the water fall trail and for visiting the colobus in Gisakura tea estate. In the dry season you need a private vehicle to go chimp tracking wherever you are based and at all times of year you need a vehicle to visit the habituated grey-cheeked mangabey troop and to explore the road to Rangiro. The forest trails are steep and often very slippery. Dress cord is mainly jeans, a thick skirt and good walking shoes, and water proof jackets which are useful during the rainy season.
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