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. Talk about starting things off with a bang! After lunch, we settled into our lovely chalets, situated on the banks of the Ruaha River, and then launched our first real birding/game drive of the tour. In what seemed like no time, we came across a pride of 10 Lions lazing in the shade, leaving, at least temporarily, the giraffe they had killed to the vultures. On this, the first day, new birds were coming fast and furiously—striking Bateleurs careening overhead, groups of bizarre White-crested Helmetshrikes restlessly leapfrogging their way through the largely leafless woodlands, a pair of bushy-headed D’Arnaud’s Barbets delivering their rollicking duets, and groups of Red-necked Francolins only reluctantly yielding the dirt tracks to our safari vehicles. In between birds, there were special mammals as well, among them, a group of Bat-eared Foxes, and scattered magnificent Greater Kudu, none of which lingered for our study like the Lions had previously. Lion, Ruaha NP, Sept 2018 (© Kevin J. Zimmer) Victor Emanuel Nature Tours 3 Southern Tanzania, 2018 D’Arnaud’s Barbets, Ruaha NP, Sept 2018 (© Kevin J. Zimmer) Our next two days in Ruaha were full ones. We awoke, pre-dawn, to the calls of African Fish-Eagles and Hadada Ibis, fell asleep to the soft, monotonous calls of African Scops- Owls at night, and, at least some of us were roused awake in the middle of the nights to the roars of nearby Lions, or by the sounds of massive Hippos grazing right outside of our rooms. A lengthy drive to the contiguous Rungwa Game Reserve on our second morning gave us our first taste of miombo (Brachystygia sp.) woodland, not to mention some swarms of particularly voracious tsetse flies. Knowing that we would have more chances at seeing the many miombo specialties later in the tour, Anthony and I decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and decided to leave the miombo to the tsetses . Besides, we had bigger fish to fry, in the form of two spectacular antelope species, the Roan and the Sable, both species rare here, at the northern limits of their respective ranges. After a bit of work, we found groups of both species, although the distance, combined with mid-morning thermal shimmer, prevented the photographers in the group from doing much with them. We had better luck with several magnificent male Greater Kudu, saw many wonderful African Elephant interactions, and enjoyed daily encounters with Lions, Hippos, and large troops of Yellow Baboons. New birds continued to come our way, from roving groups of Bare-faced Go-away-birds, Ashy Starlings, and Magpie Shrikes to solitary Golden-breasted Buntings, “Burchell’s” Coucals, Rufous-crowned Rollers, and elegant Swallow-tailed Bee-eaters, not to mention what would prove to be the only Saddle-billed Storks of our trip. Tanzanian Red-billed Hornbills proved downright common (our single-day high was 50+), and the endemic Yellow-collared Lovebirds showed nicely on multiple occasions. Even the heat of the afternoons, from the porches of our chalets, proved productive, as we delighted in the antics of White- crowned Lapwings and Pied Kingfishers along the Ruaha, the aptly named Bat-like Victor Emanuel Nature Tours 4 Southern Tanzania, 2018 (Böhm’s) Spinetails wheeling overhead, and the pallid Jameson’s Firefinches skulking in the thickets. Tanzanian Red-billed Hornbill, Ruaha NP, Sept 2018 (© Kevin J. Zimmer) The Tan-Swiss Hotel, just outside of Mikumi town, was the next venue on our itinerary, and was to be our base of operations for exploring the single best site for the many special birds of the miombo woodlands, this time, minus the tsetse flies. Over the course of a full day and part of a following morning, we picked off one new bird after another, in the absence of large game, enjoying the opportunity to bird on foot without being confined to the vehicles. Among our many prizes here, I most enjoyed the fierce little African Barred Owlet, which gave us a real run for our money, before finally showing itself well on the last morning. Other prizes included Trumpeter and Pale-billed hornbills (the latter seen best when a large group blitzed the grounds of our hotel just as we were preparing to leave on the second morning), Crested Barbet, Reichenow’s (Speckle- throated) Woodpecker, Red-throated Wryneck, Brown-headed Parrot, White-breasted Cuckooshrike, Rufous-bellied (Cinnamon-breasted) Tit, Miombo Wren-Warbler, Piping Cisticola, Greencap Eremomela, Bearded Scrub-Robin, White-headed (Arnot’s) Black- Chat, Kurrichane Thrush, Miombo (Lesser) Blue-eared Starling, Shelley’s Sunbird, Cabanis’s Bunting, Stripe-breasted Seedeater, Yellow-throated Petronia and Southern Cordonbleu. The only real disappointment was failing to see the Racket-tailed Rollers that we clearly heard on one occasion. Victor Emanuel Nature Tours 5 Southern Tanzania, 2018 African Barred Owlet, miombo woodlands near Mikumi, Sept 2018 (© Kevin J. Zimmer) Following the last pre-breakfast birding in the miombo woodlands near Mikumi, we headed off for the distant Kilombero Valley floodplains, an important wetland that is increasingly threatened by ongoing rampant conversion to agricultural uses. This spot landed squarely on the ornithological map in 1986 with the discovery of a new species of weaver (subsequently named Kilombero Weaver). The team of ornithologists who followed up on the first reports of the weaver ended up discovering two new species of cisticolas in the process, neither of which has yet been formally described to science, but which are informally known among birders as “Kilombero Cisticola” and “White-tailed Cisticola.” Needless to say, these three recently discovered endemics, two of them still awaiting formal description, were the primary targets of our long, dusty journey to the floodplains. Stops along the way yielded a few things, including African Golden- Weaver, but with many miles to cover, we kept these stops to a minimum. When we arrived at the floodplain, Anthony, Geitan, and Roger were shocked to see the extent of anthropogenic habitat destruction since their last visit. Reedy habitats closest to the road were the most impacted, leaving precious little accessible habitat in which we could hope to find our target birds. On top of this, the midday heat in these humid lowlands was truly oppressive, seemingly dimming our prospects further. Nonetheless, we set out on foot, skirting the edges of the drier-than-expected marsh. In fairly short order, we hit on a flock of 10 or so Kilombero Weavers, none of which were in high breeding plumage, and, almost simultaneously, stirred up a very responsive Kilombero Cisticola. With two targets down and one to go, we had temporarily run out of accessible good habitat, so we retreated back to the vehicles, which were parked on the highway. A short distance down the road, we pulled over at a spot with good marsh vegetation close to the road on both sides. Almost immediately, we scored a duetting pair of Kilombero Cisticolas on the left, and then rustled up a nice White-tailed Cisticola on the right, the latter of which showed Victor Emanuel Nature Tours 6 Southern Tanzania, 2018 its conspicuously white-fringed tail nicely during an aerial song bout, and then landed on a prominent perch and treated us to several more songs. We finished off the marshes by taping in a pair of hulking Coppery-tailed Coucals, which, after a bit of work, finally ascended high enough in the marsh vegetation to be studied at length in the scope. “White-tailed Cisticola”, Kilombero Valley floodplain, Sept 2018 (© Kevin J. Zimmer) That night found us at the Twiga Lodge, gateway to the Udzungwa Mountains. The Udzungwas are the largest and most biodiverse range in a chain of a dozen forest- swathed mountains that rise from the flat coastal scrublands of eastern Tanzania.