Southern Tanzania: Endemic Birds & Spectacular Mammals
SOUTHERN TANZANIA: ENDEMIC BIRDS & SPECTACULAR MAMMALS SEPTEMBER 18–OCTOBER 6, 2018 Tanzanian Red-billed Hornbill © Kevin J. Zimmer LEADERS: KEVIN ZIMMER & ANTHONY RAFAEL LIST COMPILED BY: KEVIN ZIMMER VICTOR EMANUEL NATURE TOURS, INC. 2525 WALLINGWOOD DRIVE, SUITE 1003 AUSTIN, TEXAS 78746 WWW.VENTBIRD.COM SOUTHERN TANZANIA: ENDEMIC BIRDS & SPECTACULAR MAMMALS September 18–October 6, 2018 By Kevin Zimmer After meeting in Dar es Salaam, we kicked off our inaugural Southern Tanzania tour by taking a small charter flight to Ruaha National Park, at 7,800 square miles, the largest national park in all of east Africa. The scenery from the air was spectacular, particularly on our approach to the park’s airstrip. Our tour was deliberately timed to coincide with the dry season, a time when many of the trees have dropped their leaves, heightening visibility and leaving the landscapes starkly beautiful. This is also a time when the Great Ruaha River and its many smaller tributaries dwindle to shallow, often intermittent “sand rivers,” which, nonetheless, provide natural game corridors and concentration points for birds during a time in which water is at a premium. Bateleur, Ruaha National Park, Sept 2018 (© Kevin J. Zimmer) After touching down at the airstrip, we disembarked to find our trusty drivers, Geitan Ndunguru and Roger Mwengi, each of them longtime friends from our Northern Tanzania tours, waiting for us with their safari vehicles ready for action. The first order of business was to head to the lodge for lunch, but a large, mixed-species coven of Victor Emanuel Nature Tours 2 Southern Tanzania, 2018 vultures could not be ignored, particularly once we discovered the reason for the assemblage—a dead Hippo, no doubt taken down the previous night as it attempted to cross from one river to another, and, the sated Lion that had been gorging itself ever since.
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