Times in Tanzania: Arusha Big Birding Day

The Interpretive Guides Society of Arusha recently hosted a "Big Bird Day", which is basically a time for birders to get out and see how many species of birds they can see in 24 hours. The "rules" are a 100km (60 mile) radius from the start point just outside of Arusha. You had to begin and end at the same place, which was a pain logistically but definitely made the event more social. While not truly a "world-wide event", there has been more of a coordinated effort recently. In case you're wondering, the world record is 354 species.

The crowd of birders listens intently to the instructions.

Our team of birders, the Moshi Mousebirds!

Map of the birding area!

All of our Tanzanian friends that are birders work with a safari company or are professionals in some way. We were hoping to join with them but they all had their own company teams, which meant we never actually had a chance to win. Our team was the only team from Moshi, and we also had two of the youngest participants, with two 11 year olds. Don't be fooled, because the Tanzanian born boy, named Donyo, was the strongest member of our team! We had his pal Willem, along with Donyo's dad Jurg (who was actually our driver), Ana and myself, along with our friend Philip who is an ornithologist on a Fulbright Scholarship teaching for a year. The biggest disadvantage we had is that with the exception of Donyo, we are all relatively new (<3 years) to the country, thus not as familiar with the birds.

Getting stuck, luckily some nice guys towed us out.

The second, windowless vehicle.

One of the best parts of the bird day is that the National Park agreed to waive their park fees for all participants. This was only approved a few days before the day so our plans changed dramatically when we heard that. We decided to go north through the "Lark Plains", head up through Nanyuki Forest, enter Arusha National Park, and we stayed at Hatari Lodge, which Jurg and his wife actually own.

Unfortunately the adventure started literally less than ten minutes from the start as we got stuck in the mud on the road out of the starting point. We tried to pass some birders looking for birds we'd just seen but got stuck. Jurg realized that his mechanic had not informed him he didn't have the drive shaft and we arranged to switch cars at a later point.

The first day was amazing, with a variety of habitats, lots of birds and a whole lot of good company. The weather was cloudy so it wasn't too hot either. When we finally arrived at Hatari Lodge at 730PM, we were exhausted. I didn't realize Hatari Lodge was SO nice, but I'll take a luxury safari hotel any day of the week.

The next day we woke up at 4AM and hit the road at 430AM on our way to Lake Manyara National Park. We managed to get a coffee in a thermos and the ride down was full of interesting conversation ranging from Philip's tales of working in the Amazon to Jurg's adventures hiking across Tanzania (literally). Before we knew it it was daybreak and we were busy spotting birds.

It was Ana and my first trip to Lake Manyara National Park and although we didn't get to see a huge area of the park, we enjoyed the patches of forest and open marshland. Interestingly enough we didn't actually see the lake as the area around it flooded to the point that we never got within eye shot from the west side. We only went so far as a place called Hippo Pool Swamp, but a visit to any of Tanzania's spectacular National Parks is a real treat, no matter the duration.

We cut it pretty close coming back and we were actually the last team to arrive, five minutes late, luckily still quite on time for Tanzania's standards! We finished 13th out of 20 teams, with 173 species. This is even more impressive considering we were actually first among the teams without guides (amateurs). The winning team got 283 species, which is impressive to say the least. Overall the teams saw a cumulative 447 species; quite impressive!

There was an excellent barbecue at the end of events along with a short award ceremony. It was a lot of fun to chat with people and ask what route they did and if there were any exciting birds they saw. I've found birders in the past to be a rather unwelcoming and snobby group of people and this group was anything but. The majority of the people had never done a big birding day so the energy at the end was really positive and although we were tired, we went home all smiles!