Best time for bird watching in Lake Mburo national park
Best time for bird watching in Lake Mburo national park: With over 350 bird species, Lake Mburo national park is a great bird watching destination in the country. Lake Mburo national park is situated in Kiruhura district in the western part of Uganda. The national park is the smallest savannah protected area but so many bird species including the red-faced barbet only seen here.
Birds of Lake Mburo national park are seen in most of the park areas among which include Rubanga forest, areas around Lake Mburo, and many others. Birding is among the major activities carried out in Lake Mburo national park because of the so many bird species spotted here. With a lot of bird species recorded in this national park, tourists normally want to add the park to the list of those they will visit during a bird watching safari.
To have the best of your bird watching safari once you are in the park, the time you visited matters. There are best times to visit the park for bird watching activities. The park experiences two weather seasons namely the rainy season and the dry season and they both have advantages and disadvantages.
Best time for bird watching in Lake Mburo national park
Below are times when you need to visit Lake Mburo national park for bird watching activities.
November to April
This is the best time for birding in Lake Mburo national park. It’s because migratory birds join permanent birds within the park and this increases the number of birds to spot while on a bird watching activity. Doing this period, it’s always a fruiting season for most plants in the park so birds have plenty of what to eat.
May to June
This is a period when there is plenty of food for birds inside the park. This means tourists will see different bird species in areas of the park they will visit. When food is enough, birds don’t move to the nearby areas to look for what to eat but rather stay in the park and eat the plenty that is readily available.
The dry season
For the dry season, not so many bird species will be seen in the park because of the little food available for them however the birding activity won’t be interrupted by the weather. There is little or no rainfall in the park and good sunshine. This keeps the birding trails dry and easier y go through and the vegetation is thin and short giving clear views of the birds.
The rainy season
Even though the rainy season has plenty of rainfall, birding activities give the best experience. In the rainy season, the plants grow faster because of the heavy rainfall and this means that there will be plenty of fruits and food for these birds. The birds are seen everywhere in the park but tourists need to know that sometimes you may have unclear views due to the tall vegetation cover.
The bird watching exercise in Lake Mburo national park
Birding in Lake Mburo national park can start in the morning or evening hours. The activity does start with a briefing from the rangers where birders are taught the rules and regulations of the activity. Bird watching is carried out on foot and rangers lead the birders through the best birding trails to the best watching areas.
While walking, when birds are seen, you will have to stop and watch them properly while keeping the voices low. You are free to ask the ranger or your birding guide the name of the bird in case you are not sure. The rangers and bird guides know most of the bird species in Uganda because they have studied about them.
Birds of Lake Mburo national park are sometimes searched using their voices. While walking when one hears the voice of a certain bird you will trace it with your fellow birders and if you are lucky enough you will see it. The bird watching in Lake Mburo national park lasts for as many hours as you want but it’s normally 2 to 3 hours.
By the end of the bird watching exercise, you would have encountered bird species such as African wattled lapwing, red-faced barbet, shoebill stork, bare-faced go-away bird, black-bellied bustard, greater painted snipe, saddle billed stork, African finfoot, blue-headed coucal, African scops owl, papyrus yellow warbler, blue breasted kingfisher, mosque swallow, carruhers’s cisticola, greater painted snipe, malachite kingfisher and many others, Over 350 bird species live in Lake Mburo national park and good bird lovers will be able to encounter most of them.
