Herbert took us out for some more excellent birding through the day and toward the end we stopped by Nabajjuzi Swamp because he had a lead on a shoebill. You can see the birds and some more photos at our eBird checklist. And we did see the malachite kingfishers, jacanas and crakes, it was a lovely time. He wouldn’t let us leave town without seeing one. It was a disappointment and all part of the game but Herbert assured us that we would have other shoebill opportunities. We spend two hours in the wetland…and completely dipped on the shoebill. Our poor servers couldn’t keep us in our seats to eat or drink because were glued to the window for things like vervet monkeys and shikras. Herbert took us to breakfast and then we’d be off to the shoebill. Every movement was exciting and mostly likely a new bird. The next morning I woke and met my travel companions for the next two weeks in the parking lot a motley crew of birders from the United States, the UK, Panama, Australia and Taiwan. I’ll will have to dip on some.īut my flights were uneventful and after 24 hours of travel I found myself in Uganda crashing on a bed in a hotel room at 1am. And then there was the general anxiety of will we get the bird or miss it…because there are over 450 birds to seen in Uganda, I’m not going to see them all. I worried that something would go wrong with my flights from Minneapolis to Chicago to Brussels to Kigali to Entebbe would go wrong and I’d be delayed and miss it. The very first full day of the trip was our chance at the shoebill. I could barely think about this trip for months, even delaying vaccinations because I couldn’t believe it was real, something had to go wrong to make this not happen. Giraffes, hippos, leopards, chimps and gorillas were possible…but so is the shoebill, which can be found in freshwater swamps in central Africa. Then in May I got in touch with Herbert Byaruhanga from Bird Uganda Safaris and the opportunity to visit Uganda came. So I ordered them and populated my bullet journal with them. Even my non birding friends were excited about them. But hey, how often do you see shoebill stickers? Thanks to their popularity on the Internet, they warrant their own stickers. Shoebills are the only member of their genus Balaeniceps, and the only living member of their family, Balaenicipitidae.I’d never seen a shoebill and had no plans in the foreseeable future for that to happen. The global population is currently estimated at between 5,000-8,000 birds and the species is classed as Vulnerable by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The Shoebill is undergoing a continuing decline owing to the effects of habitat destruction and degradation, pollution, nest disturbance, hunting, and capture for the live bird trade. The breeding season varies, being dependent on Africa’s seasonal flood cycle. Although a clutch of up to three dull, chalky-white eggs is laid, typically only one nestling survives due to inter-sibling rivalry, where the larger (generally first born) chick will out-compete and/or kill its siblings. The construction can be up to three metres wide. The nest is large and flattened, built amid swamp grasses or sedges and usually on a mound of floating vegetation or a small island. Individuals are highly solitary – often the male and female in a breeding pair prefer to occupy different ends of their shared territory. This large waterbird is unmistakable due to its unique ‘shoe-shaped’ bill which gives it an almost prehistoric appearance – reminding us of birds’ dinosaur ancestry.įound in nine countries across Africa the species has a large range, but exists in small localised populations concentrated around swamps and wetlands.
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