Bird watching in Uganda

Over the past few years, we have seen the music industry slowly slide into the abyss. There are more free uploaders than ever before, stealing music on the internet and finding other avenues to get what they want for nothing. But then, on the other side of the fence, the music industry spent many years ripping off the public and the artist they were supposed to support.

I have been in the music industry my entire adult life. In the ’80s, I was a recording artist, and through the ’90s I had worn many hats recording with other artists, singing jingles, and even joined the Elton John Band and toured the world until the early 2000s. inside of things, I got to see how it all went wrong. But that will be another article to write about.

This time I wanted to talk about ringtones. Why do we pay? $2.99 ​​for a 0.30 second piece of music that should only cost 1/3 of that in the first place, well I’ll tell you why. There are so many hands involved in getting a piece of the pie. First the tag, you get your cut, about $1.00, then you have a middleman add it, getting the percentage, then the cell carrier takes the cut. After all this, what little is left over goes to the artist, who created the music in the first place, about 0.20 cents. So even with all the billions of dollars made in ringtones, the artist is still getting burned. Uganda stands out as the most exciting birding destination in Africa with thousands of bird species, making it the most bird-rich country in Africa. There are several heavily disturbed birding sites in the country. Uganda’s biodiversity lies in its variety of habitats that not only attract birds, but also the glamor of large mammals in the vast wilderness. It has more than 1010 species of birds distributed in its wide range of habitats and 13 highly vulnerable and globally threatened species. There can be few destinations on earth where one can expect to find almost 612 species of birds in a single park. The Guinea-Congo forest is home to the richest bird life in Uganda with 144 bird species, 12 species are found in the Lake Victoria basin, the Afrotropical highlands have 87 species, Somali and Maasai 32 species, while Sudan and guinea savannah 22 species.

Uganda’s Murchison Falls National Park has recorded 450 species, while the Queen Elizabeth National Park habitat has attracted 610 bird species. These two parks alone are among the richest protected areas to be found anywhere on Earth. And this immense volume and diversity miraculously occurs in a space that birdwatchers can cover in a relatively short visit. Bwindi is believed to support the richest wildlife community in East Africa, including more than 346 species of forest birds.

The Lake Mburo swamp, north western and southern areas are bordered by dense stands of the giant sedge cyperus papyrus. This seemingly monotonous habitat, in fact, is home to an astonishing number of bird species, and indeed there are six birds here that live only in such swamps, the so-called endemic papyri. The papyrus gonolek is one such bird, it has a yellow nape and crown, black wings and a red breast, and long fingers that allow it to grasp the thick stems of papyrus.

These parks recorded species of shoebill, papyrus yellow warbler, African finfoot, saddle-billed stork, brown-crested bearded plover, Carruther’s tailed cist, Tabora’s tailed cist, common snipe, Abyssinian ground hornbill and many more. .

Throughout the mountains there are at least 89 species of forest birds, 27% of the country’s total.

Mabamba swamp that stretches along a narrow bay, dominated by species of miscanthus and cyperus. This swamp is situated 50 km west of Kampala and has threatened species such as the Hen Harrier and Shoebills seen in large numbers. Other species present in this swamp include pygmy geese, white-winged warblers, gull-billed terns, yellow-backed weavers, herons, whiskered terns, northern brown-throated weavers, blue-headed coucal, among others.

The largest mahogany forest budongo has 340 species of birds including African dwarf kingfisher, yellow and gray long bills, crowned eagle, cholate-backed kingfisher, red-tailed thrush, cassin hawk-eagle, pygmy chicks, thorntail sabin’s, brown twin spot, yellow crested woodpecker, little green sunbird, grey-headed sunbird Cameroon sooty, forest robin and many others.

Kibale boasts 339 species of birds, including the bar-tailed trogon, fine-marked woodpecker, and white-crested flycatcher. Lying in the albertin rift valley, bwambaforest/semliki forest reserve, over 131 species have been recorded including howler serpent eagle, black-throated cucal, gray-throated rail, spotted-breasted ibis, capuchin babbler , yellow-throated nicator, northern scrub robin, rufous-robin. the breasted owl, the western black-necked and tan-naped lovebird and the quail finch.

Published in 1991, bwindi is home to 346 species of birds. It has 8 of the 28 globally threatened bird species in Uganda, 4 of which are vulnerable and endangered. Other interesting birds include the African broad-billed, Shelley’s crimson wing, black-faced rufous, warbler, gravediggers’ warbler, striped prinia black-faced opal, mountain masked opal, and yellow-eyed black-flycatcher .

Finally, the mgahinga vegetation consisting of a zone of bamboo forest and a belt of montane forest and also upper alpine moorland vegetation has attracted more than 115 species of birds. 4 globally endangered species and 390 Afrotropical species are known from the highland biome and scarlet-haired malachite sunbirds are observed in the park.