Rwandan Adventure - 4th Day - Akagera NP

 

 Akagera National Park 

- Sunday, 11 Dec 2022

Woke at 6am to a gorgeous morning.  Headed to breakfast by 7am and had omelets made to order to go along with the amazing breakfast buffet.  Wow oh Wow!!!  Eating way too much, but loving it!

In the Jeep & ready for action from Marilynn

Fan Tailed Widowbird

Grey Backed Fiscal

Trilling Cisticola

Spur winged geese, Egyptian Geese, White faced Whistling Duck in the background

In the jeeps by 8am and had a beautiful morning.  Saw & id's many birds & there was a huge herd of Cape Buffalo with other antelope & Giraffe.  

Pin-tailed Whydah

Pin-tailed Whydah from the internet

Made a stop at a watering hole to get better close ups of the many ducks & geese.  As we were leaving Bachu spotted a Pin-tailed Whydah and told us a silly story about how to make a girl fall in love with you using a tail feather from the Whydah.  Had something to do with peeing on it!  Too funny!

On up to the top of the ridge to enjoy the gorgeous views & have some fun watching a flock of Bee-eaters - both Cinnamon chested & White Throated.  Better picture from Ken - Thank you Ken!!!  

Topi

Black Bellied Bustard

Northern Grey Headed Sparrow

Topi

Our Group

We took our morning coffee break at a nice rest area with a pavilion.  It even had clean toilets!  Our guides laid out a spread of coffee/tea and & coffee cakes.  We enjoyed the chance to stretch our legs & chat with the view of Lake Ihema in the background.  We even took the time to take a few group photos.  Most of the group pictures were from Marilynn.  Thank you Marilynn!

Next stop was our 11am appointment for a tour of the Akagera National Park Headquarters.  It was amazingly interesting.  One of the park rangers gave us a briefing about the numbers of animals in the park & how they are working hard to manage them & increase the numbers.  They fight hard against the poachers.  Their main problems now come from those sneaking over from Tanzania.  The park is right against the Country borders.  The hope for Rwanda is to build up Akagera to rival Ngorogoro Crater in Tanzania.  They are certainly on the right course.  The scenery would rival it for sure.  The back room was full of very technical equipment that they didn't allow us to photograph.  They do a lot of GPS tracking of the animals and they also use drones.  They have very accurate information on where all 101 of their rangers are at all times & they have many of the animals collared, especially the ones that are in danger.  They have recently increased the numbers of both white & black rhinos & they are doing really well.  We certainly wish them luck & will help spread the word about how much we enjoyed visiting this park.

Confiscated bicycles from would be poachers

The last part of the tour was an demonstration of how the K9 team help with tracking & stopping the poachers.  They were very well trained & very scary.  The man had no chance of getting away when the dog wanted to stop him!!!  The dogs & the men looked to be in excellent condition!  They breed their dogs from the local villages to help with tsetse fly immunity.  It's funny to think that many of the poachers are on bicycles!!

We got back to the lodge to enjoy a marvelous lunch served outside on the open deck.  It was fabulous.  Finally managed to get a picture of the Wire-Tailed Swallows.  Had to get a picture of some of the interesting object de art that are scattered around the lodge.

Baboon Family enroute to the lake

Reed Buck waiting for us at the dock

Elephant Dung!

After a short break we met again to leave the lodge for our Boating Safari on Lake Ihema.  It was a short drive down to the small dock.  On the way we saw our regular family of Baboons and the there was a Reed Buck waiting for us down at the dock.

Once were loaded and settled into the boat with our life jackets, we immediately headed across the lake.  Our National Park Ranger (the same one we had for the Night Safari (Manual Sr) spotted an Elephant just inside the trees on the shoreline.  We couldn't spot him at first, but he stomped around a bit, then same out in full view.  My video follows him for much of our watch. 

Another Fish Eagle

There were 2 beautiful Sea Eagles there also. Never tire of them - just like our Bald Eagle. The best picture is from Ken of course!

Squacco Heron

Little Heron

Cape Buffalo & Cattle Egret

More Cape Buffalo & Cattle Egrets

Hippo, Cattle Egret, & Crocodile

We continued along the edge of the lake, enjoying the beautiful weather & tons of wildlife.  It was a gorgeous afternoon!  

Crocodile in the shadows

The final part of our boat cruise took us to a huge flock of birds & more gorgeous views.  We got another Sea Eagle in a huge Candalabra tree and an enormous crocodile in the shadows of the bushes.  Photo was from Ken again of course!  There was a mix of Anhingas & Herons & Egrets & they were lovely & noisy!  So ended another beautiful day in Rwanda.  Back to the Lodge & we had a lovely dinner before all heading to bed early again!!!  We leave early & on to the west side of Rwanda for our long awaited Gorillas!!!!