Lake Mburo National Park

Although this stop was just a replacement for the Queen Elizabeth National Park that had to be removed from the tour due to a terrorist attack, the things we had planned had us very excited for the day. The guides we had were great and were incredibly well informed and were ready to answer any questions we threw at them. It started off quite standard seeing many, many Zebras, Buffalo, Warthogs, Gazelle, and all the regular culprits. But as we progressed, we began to see baboons, an array of bird species (which I have tried to label for you, mum), and even a mongoose, which we only saw briefly (and, unfortunately, couldnt snap a picture of). Eventually, though, we made our way to the lake to begin our cruise to spot rhinos. This was an amazing experience. Not only did we see a lot of aquatic animals, but even the terrestrial and avian animals were particularly active in this area around the water. The black-headed weaver, while building their upside down nest, which hang from the ends of branches (to protect from predation), flap their wings which creates this black and yellow colourful display throughout the whole tree which is truly amazing. There is a close-up video that does a good job of showing how it works, but I couldn't get a good wide angle shot of the whole tree, unfortunately. It was also really cool to see the Pied kingfisher hunt by sitting atop a branch and diving head first into the water at the sight of movement. Even the African fish eagle would follow a similar strategy, but we did not see any successful hunts from these animals. Even the water buffalo lay on the waters edge, minding its own business, but the main attraction was obviously the hippos. There were so many of them throughout the lake, and it was cool to stroll past them on the boat and listen to them threaten us with their weird growl. We were even treated to the occasional dolphins imitation and watched them leap out of the water slightly acrobatically. They are impressive creatures, and the very big ones would really threaten us by opening their mouths and showing their enourmas and sharp teeth they use to defend themselves. As we continued along the riverbank, we began to notice larger and larger crocodiles. The final one being enourmas, though still not as big as the one we had seen at Lake Nakuru. It's still an impressive sight nonetheless. After this, we rounded out the tour and went back to shore to head back to camp.Read more