4 Days Quest for green-breasted pitta & shoebill sharing in Mabamba Swamp and Kibale National Park

On arrival in Entebbe you will be met by your Guide/Driver and be transferred to your Hotel. After checking into your room, grab your binoculars because your guide will take you to the nearby Entebbe Botanical Gardens – a lakeside paradise of blooms, lush vegetation, gnarled old trees native to Uganda and troops of stunning pied colobus monkeys.
Dinner and Overnight at your Hotel

After your breakfast you will drive for a short drive to Mabamba Swamp, one of the most reliable places to view shoebill, the most sought-after bird in Africa.
This wetland is a large marshland crisscrossed by many channels that provide the perfect habitat for countless waterbirds besides shoebill. Here, other marsh species such as swamp flycatcher, winding cisticola, malachite kingfisher, black-headed weavers, yellow-billed duck, long-toed lapwing, African jacana and blue-headed coucal, banded martin, grey-rumped and Angola swallows, African pygmy goose, rufous-bellied and purple heron, blue-breasted bee-eater, black crake, African marsh harrier, fan-tailed widowbird are not hard to find. Occasionally one can also be rewarded with the rare and
endangered blue swallow.

We will head into the wetland on a wooden boat paddled by a local community member who is experienced at finding shoebills. The crowning glory of the morning will be finding and quietly observing this magnificent bird.
After our morning adventure, we proceed towards Kibale National Park. We will spend most of the afternoon getting there but will be able to bird along the way. You will arrive in the late afternoon or early evening at Lodge.

Our start today in Kibale National Park will be pre-dawn – essential as we have to listen for the first territorial calls of green-breasted pitta. Breeding pittas are easier to locate, as they call often, but non-breeding birds require much harder work - you will scour the best territories and nesting areas, hoping to find one feeding on the ground. Later, hopefully with this gem in the bag, you will continue to bird Kibale, its prolific forest edge and adjacent birding areas.

The birds at Kibale are typical of medium-altitude forest, with excellent mixed species flocks and specials such as Afep and white-naped pigeons, red-chested owlet, Narina trogon, white-headed wood hoopoe, black bee-eater, blue-throated roller, purple-headed starling, dusky-blue flycatcher, shrike-
flycatcher, superb and green-headed sunbirds, lowland akalat, chestnut wattle-eye and black-and-white manikin, white-collared oliveback or yellow-mantled weaver - to mention a few.

The towering Kibale Forest has the highest primate concentration and species diversity of any reserve in East Africa. Primate highlights might includesightings of central African red colobus, handsome L’Hoest’s monkey and the scruffy grey-cheeked mangabey. You will embark on a Chimpanzee trek, where the chances of finding them relatives excellent are.

In the early evening, you can do a night search for potto, Africa's equivalent of the sloth. This is the best place in Africa to see potto. This unique night forest safari may also reveal three galago species and various small carnivores and ungulates.

Dinner and Overnight Lodge

A walkthrough Bigodi Swamp will be in the cards at some point this morning. This lovely community project offers a pleasant boardwalk through the marsh and a great chance to seek out specialities such as white-spotted flufftail, yellow-spotted barbet, hairy-breasted barbet, yellow-billed barbet, western
nicator, grey-winged robin-chat, white-tailed ant-thrush, brown-backed scrub-robin, black-and-white shrike-flycatcher, brown-throated wattle-eye, superb sunbird, brown-crowned tchagra, bocage’s bush-shrike, black bishop, white- breasted negrofinch and black-crowned waxbill among others.

After lunch you will be driven back to Entebbe, while birding en-route, and perhaps even a second visit to Entebbe Botanical Gardens.

Dinner and overnight in Entebbe or Flight back from Entebbe international Airport.