Birding Ethiopia

Trip report: Ethiopia, Birding the Roof of Africa (Feb 2013) by Tropical Birding

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by KEN on JULY 14, 2013

Guided by Ken Behrens.

Custom tour similar to set departure, but without the south.

This was a short custom tour that aimed to take in many of Ethiopia’s top birds and mammals, plus generally to experience its unique environments and cultures. We did not visit the far south, but focused on the area north of Addis Ababa, the Great Rift Valley (including Awash NP), and the Bale Mountains. This was not a hard-core birding trip in which maximizing the endemic tally and trip list were paramount. Despite that, we recorded 428 species of birds, and 35 species of mammals. Bird highlights included endemics such as Spot-breasted Lapwing, White-cheeked Turaco, Banded Barbet, Yellow-fronted Parrot, White-backed Black-Tit, Abyssinian Catbird, and Yellow-throated and Salvadori’s serins. On the mammal front, the top creature as always was Ethiopian Wolf, supported by gelada baboon, mountain nyala, and many others.

http://blog.africageographic.com/africa-geographic-blog/book-reviews/review-of-birding-ethiopia-by-the-biggest-twitch/

thiopia is a vibrant, exciting, bird-rich country with a list of some 850 species and a surprising range of habitats, second only to South Africa in the number of endemic bird species on the continent. Surprising?

As a must-visit destination which we would thoroughly recommend, this new guide will open your eyes to an Ethiopia far removed from the TV pictures. Birding Ethiopia is very different from many sites guides we have used over the years. It is immediately eye-catching and a peek inside shows a lavishly illustrated book. Its 189 pages are packed with information, maps and breath- taking photographs of “must-see” birds. Of course a site guide must deliver a lot more than good looks and we settled down to read the text and see if it matched our recent experience of a month of fast-paced birding in Ethiopia in February 2008, during The Biggest Twitch.

The three authors, Ken Behrens, Keith Barnes and Christian Boix, are all hardened field birders and are never happier than when birding in the fast lane, a perfect team to write this book. All three have travelled throughout Ethiopia and visited every site in the book many times and know the locations, conditions and birds intimately. Not only do they know the sites and birds but they are accomplished bird photographers and their work brings the excellent text to colorful life with amazing bird images.

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(click the above link to go to the writer's full blog...)