“WE GOT THE RAILLLLLL!!!” – Semuliki, Uganda

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been at war for the last several decades. Socio-political issues, ethnic tensions, a civil war, and internal terrorism has made it off-limits for travel, unless you want to risk a high probability of being killed. As a result no one really knows the full extent of what treasures might be lurking in the Congolese forests. What species we do know about seem just out of reach. Because of the inaccessibility of the DRC, the core range of these birds, they are considered rare and naturally we wanted to see them. Far western Uganda is the best place to go to see some of these Central African species. Semuliki National Park of Uganda goes all the way to the DRC border. We hoped to get close enough to the border to potentially see a few birds and add them to our “DRC list” but the border has become even more unsafe in recent months and our ranger, Alex, said we could not go any closer than 5km away. Since we were poaching birds from the fringes of their core range, it was multiple long days of grinding out targets in the intense heat and humidity. We packed backpacks full of snacks and water and stayed in the forest over 10 hours each day. Honestly, there is no reprieve from the kind of heat and humidity found in lowland African rainforests except that it is slightly less hot and humid after the sun goes down. A cold shower after birding all day is as refreshing as it gets. (Not that a hot shower was even an option if we would have wanted it.) It was cold water bucket showers for us before crawling into our tents for the night to do it all again the next day. And we did it three days in a row. Low density, slow birding with the chance to find something awesome is typical of lowland African forests all the way from the west coast to the east coast to everywhere in between, and they have a way of killing one’s hopes and dreams. How long do you actually have to spend in the forest to see a Gray-throated Rail crossing the trail? According to some, you could spend an entire lifetime in the lowland forests of Uganda and still miss this one.

Thankfully our ranger, Alex, had heard of Ross via Facebook and was excited to go out with us and willing to “bird hard.” He never once complained about the long hours in the field. Unfortunately we didn’t see much outside of the expected species and even then, density seemed extremely low. We constantly were debating whether or not this was the most challenging and frustrating birding on earth. The birding was altogether slow and while Ross and Julien attempted to find target birds, I distracted myself by admiring how various fungi in the forest look so much like coral in the ocean. But that’s not to say we didn’t see anything at all. Crested Guineafowl, Yellow-throated Cuckoo, Shining Blue Kingfisher, Yellow-footed Flycatcher and a few other targets were nice to see, but they were nothing out of the ordinary. Bate’s Nightjar flying over was our best bird by far. (According to Alex no one sees this bird and it is extremely rare. We suspect that no one sees it because no one is actually looking. Bate’s Nightjar is likely resident in that forest year round.)

On our third and final night the skies opened up and it poured down rain for hours. When our 0600 departure time came upon us and it was still pouring rain, I opted to sit it out knowing it was highly unlikely that the boys could turn up something rare because we hadn’t even a whiff up until this point. Ross, Julien, and Alex ventured off into the rain, and for the next several hours either slogged around in it or sheltered under an abandoned army camp in the forest for a little protection from it. I heard it was pretty miserable going. I was perfectly content reading and writing back at camp. A day off isn’t a bad thing right??
Thanks to the recent rain the conditions were perfect for eliciting a response from one of the world’s rarest birds, Gray-throated Rail. Ross had called it in and Julien spotted it walking towards them. The two of them spent over 30 minutes with the extremely responsive individual before they called for me back at camp to come. I hopped on the back of a boda-boda (motorbike) despite no helmet being available, something I hate to admit even after literally seeing a dead body laying on the road after a crash only a week prior. We sped off to the site but I was almost certain I was going to die from a motorbike crash because my motorbike driver was more concerned with holding his mask to his face than keeping both hands on the handlebars. I guess the fact that we were outside and both vaccinated didn’t matter. He drove all the way there one handed and I was too afraid to say something and distract him further.
Ross, Alex, and Julien ran the 4 km back to meet me on the trail and then we took off running back to the site despite the mud and increasing water flowing down what once was a nice trail only 2 days prior. They had only been away from the bird for an hour but when I arrived the bird was nowhere to be seen or heard. No response. I have an impressive track record for picking the worst days to miss.

Although, had we actually seen nothing, which at times certainly was the case, it would have been fitting as we learned the backstory of how the name “Semuliki” came to be. An explorer had come to the river and wanted to know the name so he asked a woman walking nearby what is the name of this river? But since she spoke no English, she thought he had asked her what was in the basket she was carrying. She responded with “semliki” which means “my basket is empty” in the local tongue. The explorer didn’t know she was talking about the contents of her basket and that is how the name of the river came to be and as a result, the National Park as well. It would be fitting to leave empty-handed with a name like that but luckily our basket wasn’t empty, at least not for Julien and Ross. Their basket had in it a Gray-throated Rail!

This birding occurred 14-16 June 2021