Zambia birding – Mutinondo Wilderness

Lusaka, 10 May 2011

A new day dawns. After a Shoebill can the rest of the trip match up?

At the ZAWA offices on the way out we disturbed a herd of Black Lechwe that ran off, giving me the opportunity for an action shot. Overhead was a mass of wheeling raptors, Martial Eagle, Black-breasted Snake Eagle, White-backed Vulture, Hooded Vulture and White-headed Vulture. This brought my Bangweulu species count to 94 and the trip list to 168, with my Zambia list soaring past 300.

It would be another 5 hours over another 140km of road(?) heading due east to the Mutinondo Wilderness area set in the Muchinga Escarpment area, overlooking the Luangwa valley. The main camp at Mutinondo is set amid huge granite inselbergs (in fact, on one of them). The highest is Mayense, and quite a challenge to get to the top – I didn’t try. The chalets at the main camp are all set amidst trees with great views of the bare granite hills.

Mutinondo is largely miombo with large dambos and some limited mushitu along the river courses. Mutinondo has a good network of roads, paths and bridlepaths. Birding and horse riding are the main attractions here. I had two full days and made the most of it, walking some 40km according to my GPS. Passing the granite inselbergs one is often watched by the only really obvious mammal in these parts, the Yellow Baboon.

As I mentioned in the context of Kasanka, miombo birding is ‘low-density’ birding. For my 40km I only ticked off 54 species but managed 3 lifers among them – Reichard’s Seedeater, Rufous-bellied Tit and Broad-tailed Warbler. Other interesting sightings were Green-capped Eremomela, Miombo Scrub-Robin, Fawn-breasted Waxbill, Grey Penduline-Tit, Yellow-throated Petronia, Hartlaub’s Babbler, Cabanis’s Bunting, White-breasted Cuckooshrike, Stierling’s Wren-Warbler, Pale Flycatcher, Retz’s Helmetshrike, Yellow-throated Bush Sparrow, Black Saw-Wing and Grey-rumped Swallow. Best images of the commoner species were Familiar Chat, Variable Sunbird and Black-backed Puffback.

As with both Kasanka and Shoebill Island I did not see many insect species, but I’m not really looking for them anyway. The only one photographed at Mutinondo was a Gaudy Commodore butterfly.

After 7 days away I returned to Lusaka with a trip list of 191 species, including 16 lifers with that one real mega, the Shoebill, and a Zambia list now standing at 363 species.