Beautiful Waterfalls and A Dusky Babbler

Clear, light blue skies with wispy white clouds and a bright sun illuminating savanna grassland and acacias below. Vine tangles near a few taller trees and a perfect view of the Nile River flowing beside. These were a few of the views we had after entering Murchinson Falls National Park. We saw flowers and gazelles with no one else around. The only sounds were of birds chirping. It was hot but the whole thing felt straight out of dream.

Murchinson Falls National Park is a beautiful park and yet we spent the entirety of our first day attempting to find a drab, boring brown bird, Dusky Babbler, instead of enjoying everything else the park has to offer. If we didn’t see this bird here in Uganda, we would have to wait until the DRC solves all of their socio-political issues and becomes safe enough to travel. I’m not holding my breath on the latter. Water levels in the area have risen and as a result several lodges near the riverbank along with decent babbler habitat have been flooded out. We spent our first afternoon and the next full day trying to figure out how we could gain access to dense cover near the river. It’s frustrating to spend so much time on such a stupid bird but in the process of searching for it we saw over 100 other species. In the end we realized that a boat was the only realistic way to gain access to Dusky Babbler habitat and we ended the day with excellent views from a boat cruising along the Victoria Nile and Ross obtained stellar audio recordings of a very vocal pair. What a relief to finally see this bird and now we could actually focus on something else!

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Humans tend to enjoy looking at waterfalls; Particularly big, strong ones over scenic rivers — and for good reason, they are beautiful and breathtaking, and there’s something humbling about watching water flow forcibly and irreversibly downwards. Ross doesn’t care to see waterfalls, arguing if you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all, and if there wasn’t a possibility to see Rock Pratincole I can’t be sure he would be interested in stopping. But Murchison Falls is the namesake of the whole park and one of the biggest draws for tourists so I certainly wanted a brief view. We made a quick, 10 minute stop and moved on. No birds to be had, but the views were 100% worth it! Perhaps these stunning falls were the impetus for saving this whole area altogether.
Unfortunately oil was recently discovered at the bottom of Lake Albert and now a Chinese-built superhighway funded by oil-giant Total is nearing completion all the way through the park. As a result, we saw dozens of big trucks travelling at extreme speeds over the new road. It’s great to have such a nice road to drive on and a brand new big bridge over the river, but I fear many animals will be killed as a result of over speeding and being unable to stop in time. Either way, the habitat on either side of the road looked great and when we weren’t looking for the babbler, we were driving through grassland to hopefully flush the near impossible Ring-necked Francolin. (We didn’t see it of course. At least Hueglin’s Francolin cooperated.)

As we traversed the park from North to South (and then back North again) it was amazing to see how the habitat completely changes from dry savanna to thick jungle to tall forest, each habitat with its own special fauna and flora. We came to the tall, mature forest for Puvel’s Illadopsis and the whole area was quite birdy. We wished that we had the time to bird the area more thoroughly, but we needed to keep to our schedule. We then headed back North for Julien to see his lifer Shoebill and Ross to get his lifer Northern Carmine Bee-eater, two birds we missed when we were in the Northern area on our first afternoon.

Highlights from our two-day whirlwind safari through Murchinson Falls National Park were Bathawk, Pennant-winged Nightjar, Saddle-billed Stork, Papyrus Gonolek, stellar views of an impressive waterfall, and the most delicious fish & chips from our campsite’s restaurant. Overall this was an excellent park and I would recommend a visit to anyone wanting to see lots of wildlife and natural scenery.

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