Ethiopia Bird Trip 2019
Bale Mountains National Park and Rift Valley Lakes
Five day (4½ really) Birding Trip: 16-20 March 2019
Guests: Jack Winterbottom and Heather Alexander
Guide: Meseret Mesbuki
Whilst planning a Holy Land trip to Israel in March 2019 and deciding to also do a Victor Emmanuel Nature Tours (VENT) of the spring migration through southern Israel, we realised we had a six day window between the two and it is only a 4 hour flight on Ethiopian Airlines between Tel Aviv and Addis Ababa. We checked out Birding Pal; Meseret came highly recommended (although the report was from 2007) and wrote to him via email (mesbuki@yahoo.com although mesiguide@yahoo.com is the better address. He replied within two days (allowance being made for a bird guide being in the field!) and we developed a 4-day trip which expanded by one day when our Israel plans became solid. Our targets were any Ethiopian birds, a pretty easy task for Meseret. We highly recommend Meseret as a very accomplished birder with huge bird knowledge, quite prepared to call it as it is (including uncertainty), highly personable with excellent knowledge of his country, and just good fun. Having been raised in the Bale Mountains area, he knows lots of people and all the good sites to bird and stay at. His English language is excellent.
Itinerary Summary
Day 01
Drive through the Rift Valley to the Liben Lodge at Meki on the shore of Lake Koka. Birding at wetlands at the Awash River (west of the road) and the grounds of Liben Lodge. Any sites looking promising or where birds seen whilst travelling.
Day 02
Pre-breakfast bird around the grounds of Liben Lodge then on to the Goba Wabe Shebelle Hotel at Goba stopping specifically at Bale Mountain NP at Dinsho, a small wetlands/dam area on the southern side of the Centre of Peaks range where the road drops into the plain where a small sliver of the Bale Mountains NP goes across the plain and any birds seen whilst travelling.
Day 03
Short pre-breakfast bird then an early (8am) start to drive to the Sanatti Plateau high in the Bale Mountains on possibly the least maintained road I have ever been one, especially in a Toyota Highace van. Ethiopian Wolf and Lammergeier were targets here. Return to the hotel at Goba for a pre-dinner bird in the grounds and a second night.
Day 04
Short pre-breakfast bird then retrace our outward journey back towards Addis for 220km (5 hours) staying at the United Africa Shebelle Hotel on the shores of Lake Awassa at Hawassa. Later afternoon bird in the grounds.
Day 05
Long pre-breakfast bird on the shores of Lake Awassa then return to Bole Airport stopping at Hotel Francis ?? in Meki for a pit stop (birded).
As neither of us had birded in Ethiopia before, it was going to be a tick festival. The final total for the trip was 172 species. A few birds had already been ticked elsewhere in the world (that sounds posh – really means Australia). Black-tailed Godwit (JH), Whiskered Tern (JH), Intermediate Egret (JH), Little Egret (JH), Great Egret (JH), Cattle Egret (JH), Glossy Ibis (JH), Eurasian Hoopoe (JH – Israel), White-winged Black Tern (JH), Wood Sandpiper (J), Common Sandpiper (JH),
The personal lifers total was 161 for Jack and 162 for Heather.
Day 01 – Saturday 16 March
We arrived at 0600 at Bole Airport from Tel Aviv on a Boeing 737-800 which replaced the Boeing 737_MAX 800 scheduled on that service! There were about 100 or so folk on the flight. Only three of us were entering Ethiopia! The rest walked on to the transit lounges. Evidently Ethiopian Airlines is the largest African carrier and has a very good safety record. We walked down into the immigration hall and were greeted by a chap who asked us if we had visas. We did as we had done the e-visa thing (cost USD$52) and had a hard (H) and soft (J) copy of the visa. He directed us to a line. The official directed us back to the start of the line saying he didn’t do e-visas. ?? Well, it seems we hadn’t looked around hard enough when coming down the stairs and the e-visa booths were a 180o left turn, not a 90oleft turn which we had done. Got in the correct line and all was sweet. We did notice that no-one was using the visa-on-arrival queue. Once out of customs and into the arrival hall, we could see a few people waiting but no Meseret with WINT on a sign. A local approached us and told us that only official guides now waited in the hall. The rest were out in the car park so we went out there and Meseret spotted us and came over. Remember that only three of us had come off the flight so he didn’t have many new arrivals to choose from! We loaded up into his 4WD HiAce van and off we went. At 20-40kph. In quite amazing traffic. On quite amazing (..ly bad and congested) roads. In an amazing amount of smog – vehicles and breakfast fires. As in anywhere in the world, there are always birds at a car park at an airport. Usually plastics/ferals (sparrows/starlings/blackbirds in Australia). So the first bird was a sparrow!!
1. Swainson’s Sparrow
2. Black Kite (Yellow-billed) Milvus nigrans
3. Egyptian Goose
4. Red-eyed Dove
5. Rouget’s Rail
6. Spur-winged Lapwing
7. Wattled Ibis
8. Barn Swallow
Roadside birds on the way to Liben Lodge at Meki included ...
9. Western Yellow Wagtail
10. Red-billed Quelea
11. Black-winged Bishop
12. Northern Red Bishop
13. Village Weaver
14. Red-billed Buffalo-Weaver
15. Brown-rumped Seedeater
16. Greater Blue-eared Starling
17. Superb Starling
18. Fan-tailed Raven
19. Pied Crow
20. Blue-breasted Bee-eater
21. Dusky Turtle-Dove
22. Speckled Pigeon
We stopped at a very nice wetland with open water where the road crosses the Awash River near lake Koka.
23. Northern Shoveler
24. Garganey
25. Spur-winged Goose
26. Eurasian Black-winged Stilt
27. Pied Avocet
28. Black-tailed Godwit
29. Ruff
30. Whiskered Tern
31. Abdim’s Stork
32. Marabou Stork (there were hundreds mixing with cattle, goats and humans on a paddock beside the lake)
33. Goliath Heron
34. Intermediate Egret
35. Sacred Ibis
36. African Spoonbill
37. Eurasian Marsh Harrier
We reached Liben Lodge about midday. It stands on the edge of Lake Koka, separated from the reed-lined shore by about 200 metres of common grassland. As March is the end of the dry season and there was no feed anywhere, there were plenty of cattle, goats, donkeys and horses plus attendant boys of all ages (it was a Saturday hence no school – school is taken very seriously in Ethiopia – compulsory for all children [to an age we were unable to determine]). At any other time of the year, a fair proportion of these animals would have been elsewhere but the Rift Valley was as brown as brown could be. There was no green feed anywhere which meant the atmosphere was perpetually filled with dust generated by feet, hooves and tires travelling all which ways all the time – walking animals to and from water etc etc. We had breakfast/lunch. Eggs is a staple but there is no bacon. The coffee is very good, best without milk. Milk is unavailable so that is good. After lunch and a snooze we met up with Meseret and birded the grounds until about 5pm when most of the animals and attendants had moved away back home.
38. Little Egret
39. Cattle Egret
40. Glossy Ibis
41. Black-crowned Crane
42. Black-breasted Snake-Eagle
43. African Marsh Harrier
44. Eurasian Hoopoe
45. Pied Kingfisher
46. Northern Carmine Bee-eater
47. Eurasian Wryneck
48. Eurasian Kestrel
49. Isabelline Shrike
50. Grey-backed Fiscal
51. Northern Fiscal
52. African Paradise-Flycatcher (hawking the light fittings on the verandah of the restaurant)
53. Pale Sand Martin
54. Common Bul Bul
55. Northern Crombec
56. Zitting Cisticola
57. Siberian Stonechat
58. Rüppell’s Starling
59. Red-billed Oxpecker
60. Beautiful Sunbird
61. Variable Sunbird
62. African Pipit
63. White-browed Sparrow-Weaver
64. Vitelline Masked-Weaver
65. Rūppell’s Weaver
66. Namaqua Dove
We walked the 3-400 metres to a structure on the lakeside owned by the lodge.
67. African Hobby – This was a great bird that Heather spotted hawking for roosting weaver birds in the reeds. It was only the second time Meseret had seen it so a really good bird for him!
69. Hamerkop
70. Great White Pelican
71. Yellow-billed Stork
72. White-winged Black Tern (White–winged Tern in the guide. That caused a bit of confusion. Non-breeding plumage with the earmuffs)
73. Wood Sandpiper
74. Common Sandpiper
75. African Jacana
76. Red-knobbed Coot
77. Eurasian Moorhen
78. Hottentot Teal
79. African Pygmy-Goose
80. White-faced Whistling-Duck
No comments:
Post a Comment