10 Day Rwanda Birding And Gorilla Trekking Safari

Our driver guide and your birding guide meet your flight, and you can be birding within half an hour of clearing customs. Nyandungu Urban Wetland Eco Park sits roughly five kilometres from the airport, a degraded valley that has been restored into boardwalks, trails and ponds, and it now holds over 100 species inside the city limits. It is the ideal first afternoon: gentle, close, and a chance to calibrate your ear on the common species before the harder sites. White collared oliveback is the local prize, alongside papyrus specialists in the reed beds, grey crowned crane on the margins and a good spread of weavers, kingfishers and cisticolas. If your flight lands early we add Nyarutarama Lake beside the golf course, known locally as Lover’s Lake, which produces African swamphen, grey headed bushshrike and, with luck, bat hawk at dusk. Your birding guide will go through the plan for the next nine days over dinner and ask what is already on your life list, because the route can be adjusted around the species you most want. Overnight in Kigali, list started.

A full day south of the capital in the wetlands and lakes of Bugesera district, which are the most accessible serious birding in Rwanda and hold something around 415 recorded species. Gashora is the centre of it, one of the last extensive papyrus systems in the country, fed by the Nyabarongo river and ringed with acacia woodland so you work two habitats within a few hundred metres. The papyrus specialists are the targets and they are why birders come here: papyrus gonolek, papyrus canary, Carruthers’s cisticola, white winged swamp warbler and white collared oliveback, with lesser jacana, Hottentot teal and white backed duck on the open water. A local boat gets you into the channels where the reeds are too thick to work from the bank. Northern brown throated weaver and blue headed coucal fill out the list. Back to Kigali in the late afternoon, or straight on east if your guide wants an early start tomorrow.

East to Akagera, roughly 110 kilometres and two to two and a half hours to the southern gate, birding the roadside wetlands and Lake Muhazi on the way. Akagera has recorded more than 500 species across papyrus swamp, lakeshore, acacia woodland and open grassland, which is the longest list of any protected area in Rwanda. We check in, then take a boat on Lake Ihema in the late afternoon. Water level permitting, the quieter papyrus channels are where the shoebill is looked for, that heavy grey prehistoric stork standing motionless waiting for lungfish, and our guides know which channels have produced recently. Sightings are never guaranteed. Alongside it: African fish eagle, great white pelican, goliath heron, saddle billed stork, African openbill, malachite and pied kingfishers, and African jacana walking the lilies. Papyrus gonolek and Carruthers’s cisticola both occur here too, so anything missed at Gashora has a second chance. Dinner at the lodge, with nightjars on the track and a genuinely dark sky.

Out at six, working north through the sectors, because the savannah and woodland here carry a completely different cast from the water. Grey crowned crane, Rwanda’s national bird, gathers in small parties on the wetland margins. The acacia belt holds the red faced barbet, a regional speciality that birders travel for, along with Ross’s turaco, bare faced go away bird, spot flanked barbet and a long run of weavers. Raptors work the thermals over the Mutumba Hills: bateleur, martial eagle, long crested eagle, augur buzzard and several vultures. The open plains at Kilala and Mohana add ground birds, and the mammals come as a bonus, since Akagera now holds all Big Five across 1,122 square kilometres after lions were returned in 2015 and rhinos from 2017. Nightjar diversity here is exceptional, so we go out again after dinner if you have the energy for it. The park is far enough from any town that the darkness is absolute, which is part of why the nightjars do so well.

A long transfer with a very good site in the middle of it. We drive northwest out of the savannah and up into the Buberuka highlands to Rugezi Marsh, Rwanda’s only Ramsar site and an Important Bird Area, sitting at around 2,100 metres, which is an unusual elevation for a papyrus wetland anywhere in East Africa. The target is Grauer’s swamp warbler, an Albertine Rift endemic that holds good populations here, alongside grey crowned crane, papyrus canary and the possibility of papyrus yellow warbler. At the southern end, an area of open water called Lake Nyagafunzo can be worked by local canoe, which is how you reach white backed duck and lesser jacana. Allow the afternoon for it and expect to be cold; the wind comes across that marsh with nothing to stop it. Then on to Musanze, arriving in the evening with the Virunga chain ahead of you.

A morning in Volcanoes National Park with a birding permit rather than a trekking one, working the bamboo and hagenia zones on the lower slopes. Something in the order of 180 to 200 species have been recorded on the Rwandan side of the Virungas, with a strong list of Albertine Rift endemics among them. The birds to work for are Rwenzori turaco, Rwenzori double collared sunbird, handsome francolin, dusky crimsonwing, Rwenzori batis and Archer’s ground robin. Higher up, where giant lobelia flower on the afro alpine slopes, the scarlet tufted sunbird feeds on them, though reaching that zone means a serious climb and we will discuss whether you want it. The swamp near the base of Sabyinyo repays slow, patient working. In the afternoon, Buhanga Eco Park near Musanze, a small patch of ancient forest tied to the coronation rituals of Rwandan kings, which is easy walking and good for forest edge species.

The one day the binoculars come second. Kinigi at six is cold and dark, with mist on the peaks and dancers performing while everyone assembles. Trackers went out at first light and are already with the families, radioing positions back. The briefing runs at seven, groups are split to eight trekkers per gorilla family, and rangers cover the rules: seven metres back, no flash, mask on during the hour. Then out through farmland to the boundary wall and into bamboo and nettles. Volcanoes National Park was gazetted in 1925 and is the oldest national park in Africa, and the Virunga massif holds more than half the world’s mountain gorillas. When you reach the family you get one hour. Birders do surprisingly well on the walk in and out, since the trail cuts through bamboo and hagenia at a slow pace, so keep the binoculars round your neck. Afternoon at the lodge, or back out to the swamp if your legs allow.

Down the Kivu road, about two and a half to three hours, to the ridge that divides the Congo and Nile watersheds. Gishwati Mukura is Rwanda‘s smallest national park at roughly 34 square kilometres, gazetted in 2015 and made a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2020, and it is the most underrated birding site in the country simply because so few people go. Around 232 species have been recorded in the Gishwati block. What makes it work is the habitat mix inside a very small area: regenerating young forest, older growth, tea plantation edge and open ridge all within a short walk of the community guesthouse, so you cover several habitats in a morning without transfers. Rwenzori turaco, regal sunbird, strange weaver, mountain yellow warbler and Rwenzori batis are the targets, and the high altitude skulkers that stay hidden in mature rainforest are often easier to see in this younger growth. Overnight at the guesthouse on the ridge.

An early session on the Umushwati trail before we move, then south down the lake road to Nyungwe, three to four hours, arriving in the tea by early afternoon. Nyungwe is the reason serious birders come to Rwanda: close to 1,000 square kilometres of montane rainforest holding more than 300 species, of which 29 are Albertine Rift endemics, making it the easiest place in the region to work that list. We start on the Karamba trail near Gisakura, an old mining and army camp site that has grown back into secondary bush and holds a different mix from the deep forest, which makes it the ideal first afternoon. Targets across the park include the red collared mountain babbler, all but restricted to Nyungwe, along with handsome francolin, Grauer’s warbler, red faced woodland warbler, Rwenzori batis, mountain masked apalis, purple breasted sunbird, strange weaver and dusky crimsonwing. Great blue turaco and Rwenzori turaco are both regular.

Your best chance at the remaining endemics, so we start before light. Where we go depends on what is still missing from your list. Kamiranzovu takes you down through the largest peat bog in the park for wetland and swamp species. The Uwinka trails work old growth interior, and the canopy walkway puts you level with birds you would otherwise be looking at from beneath, running about 160 metres between towers at some 60 metres above the forest floor. The Bigugu trail is the long option and the most productive for the red collared mountain babbler if that bird is still outstanding. Rwenzori colobus troops of 300 or more animals move through the same canopy and are worth stopping for. Late morning we take you to Kamembe for the forty minute flight back to Kigali, which saves you a five to six hour drive on your last day and puts you at the airport rested.