28th January - Queen Elizabeth NP

Our lodge is quite a large one and is in the same group as the huge Paraa lodge in Murchison NP.  It’s in a superb location on a peninsula overlooking Lake Edward.  It’s got lovely grounds and is full of different birds, a resident family of wart hogs and a huge group of banded mongoose which are very tame.  We’ve enjoyed spending the morning just mooching around watching the birds and attempting to photograph some of them.

A sun bird around the lodge

We even saw a small snake (Mum spotted it) wriggling down some steps to a cover decking area that looked perfect for chilling out in later.  It was a tiny snake but very distinctly and brightly coloured - green and blue with huge eyes in proportion to its head size.  We went into the shop later and they happened to have a poster of poisonous snakes of Uganda and I have to say, it looked horribly like a young Boomslang - a very deadly snake indeed!  We’ll show the photo to Shindishi later and see what he thinks.

We met Shindishi at 13.20 for the short drive down to the jetty.  He wanted us to get there early so we could nab the best seats on the boat - front bottom level on the left-hand side.  As we approached departure time at 2pm, the boat filled up.  Most people went upstairs but at the last moment a large party of Germans got on board and sat on our level....a bit pissed off I think that we’d nabbed the best seats.

We set off for the Kazinga Channel - an area famed for its rich diversity of wildlife.  Well, we were

totally spoiled for the 1st 30 minutes or so.  1st stop was a sandbank full of pied kingfisher holes for their nests.  I’ve never seen so many kingfishers in one spot - it was surreal.  Then it was on to admire elephants, hippos, buffalo and so many birds - African skimmers, herons, egrets to name just a few.  A bit further on we spotted crocodiles, an African monitor lizard and a load of hammerkops.  At this point, thunder was heard not too far away followed very quickly by forked lightening. The wind started getting up and we could see rain coming towards us across the channel.  All too soon, we were enveloped in heavy driving rain and got soaked!  Eventually, the boat captain moored us to the side of the channel and, belatedly brought down the rain proof side panels.  We sat out the storm for about half an hour before chugging out again in a light but persistent rain.  Mum and I had bravely clung to our seats for most of the deluge but eventually gave up and moved to the back of the boat with everyone else.  Of course, the Germans zoomed forward to nick our places, but we weren’t that bothered as it was warmer nearer the back and we’d grabbed all the available life jackets for warmth and to sit on.

Our last leopard

After the worst of the storm had passed, we resumed our journey and saw all sort of water birds including pelicans that thrilled us no end.  We also saw a particularly malevolent looking crocodile swimming straight towards us - my, they do look horribly prehistoric. Suddenly, the boat came to a shuddering halt and we thought it had broken down.  But no, the African Captain, like so many Africans, has amazing eyesight and had miraculously spotted a leopard at the top of an escarpment in some bushes on the nearest bank.  We spent some time admiring this wonderful creature looking very relaxed grooming himself seemingly without a care in the world.  He was a very long way from us indeed but you could see him well though binoculars.

After that, we continued to the end of the Kazinga Channel and saw the fishing boats which belonged to a local community for night fishing - mainly Tilapia. By then, our time was up and it was time to return to the main jetty.  In spite of the rain, it was a marvellous experience and we were totally enthralled by it.

Pied Kingfisher

We got back to the lodge and had a cup of tea and I then went for a wander to try and photograph some of the birds that had eluded me so far.  I was lucky and managed to find what I was looking for pretty quickly so then spent some time deleting a load of terrible photos from my memory card.

Then it was drinkies time followed by a pretty terrible dinner and then an earlyish night as have to be up by 7.15am to leave by 8.30am.