Last week I stopped overnight in Mabira Forest, about two hours' drive west of Mbale toward Kampala. While there I indulged in a late afternoon walk in the forest and another early the next morning. The number of bird species I saw/heard was somewhat less than average for birding in Mabira, but there were some notables, as always.
A few highlights:
*** In the weaver department, black-necked weaver and red-headed malimbe
*** Representing the turacos, the great blue turaco and black-billed turaco (voice only on the black-billed; these guys are fairly elusive in Mabira and I didn't get to lay eyes on one this time)
*** From the barbet and woodpecker families, speckled tinkerbird, grey-throated barbet, yellow-billed barbet (voice only), yellow-spotted barbet, and the diminutive buff-spotted woodpecker
*** Robins, thrushes and their kin -- forest robin and scaly-throated illadopsis
*** Greenbuls and allies -- saw a variety of these, but in most cases they exceeded my amateur forest-bird identification skills; I did run across several red-tailed bristlebills
*** Sunbirds -- would have expected more than I saw, but enjoyed sightings of olive and collared sunbirds
*** And my new species for the outing, Nahan's francolin -- these reclusive forest-dwellers start searching the fallen leaves and ground debris for food around sunset. They are extremely shy and difficult to observe, so I was more than a little pleased to come upon a family group of them on the trail in front of me as twilight was turning into evening darkness. They scattered on seeing me, but I was able to approach to within about 20 feet of them and get a brief look before they noticed.
*** Finally (stepping momentarily out of strictly birding mode), I had good views of red-tailed monkeys and red colobus monkeys.
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