Today we headed off to Kampala to tick off a few jobs in the School for Life office but mainly to collect our Gorilla Tracking permits that we purchased back in February. Mission accomplished - now I just need to ensure we remember to take them with us on safari at the end of June.
Tomorrow is a public holiday to commemorate the Uganda Martyrs - a group of 22 Catholic and 23 Church of Uganda priests and their followers who were killed between 1885 and 1887. It was possibly a great misunderstanding as the King of Buganda at the time apparently expressed a desire to be rid of them and his supporters took him too seriously perhaps. It has also been alleged that as Africans were not prone to use incineration to kill people it was likely the work of European colonialists creating mischief. Whatever, the martyrs are revered by a large proportion of the population and many people are on walking pilgrimages to the martyrs basilica to the north of Kampala. For the last few days we have seen large groups of people trudging along the highway aiming to reach the basilica by Saturday for the commemoration. Some have walked from the furthest points of Uganda - others are taking mini-buses and trucks.
Our school at Riverside Mbazzi (the soon to be opened secondary school) has a small remnant patch of swamp forest adjacent. I have seen many good forest-dependent birds and there is a small family of Grey-cheeked Mangabey monkeys there. Some of these forest dwellers will be essentially marooned on this little 2.6 ha island with the nearest decent forest patch about 10 km away. I have discussed with school managers how important I thought this patch was and how it might be encouraged to expand with our help.
My last visit was March 20th so I was keen to see what birds might have turned up when we visited the school on Monday. Sadly I found the forest patch had been cut in half along the creek line with a bulldozed, 10m wide ditch. No point blaming anyone for this - it is done. Now, however, we have to see how to repair the damage and I will be reaching out to local environmental organisations for expert advice.
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| Recent earthworks through the Mbazzi school forest. |
We have been back at school for three weeks now and I have added a few birds to the lists for both sites. We had thought the wet season was over as we had no decent rain for about 10 days. This week was very wet however so my birding was limited. New species for my Uganda list are Velvet-mantled Drongo (a pair at Katuuso School), Wahlberg’s Eagle (one at Katuuso) and Dusky Long-tailed Cuckoo (one at Mbazzi).
My Southern Citril and Striped Pipit records have been accepted by the East African Rarities Committee and are now on the official Ugandan list. I’ve submitted my four records of Thick-billed Cuckoo from Katuuso as well - there have been only 2 previous records apparently.
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| Blue-spotted Wood Dove |
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| Great Blue Turaco fledgling |
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| Klaas's Cuckoo |
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| Wahlberg's Eagle |
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| Dusky Long-tailed Cuckoo |
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| Red-billed Firefinch |
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| Woodland Kingfisher |
One of our colleagues - Emily, a primary teacher from Sydney - contracted severe malaria a month or so back and spent over three weeks in hospital in Kampala. For some time she was extremely ill with non-functioning kidneys and pneumonia. Her parents had come to visit and the three of them were on safari at Murchison Falls NP at the time Emily became ill and she was transferred to hospital. She has had regular dialysis and was flown home to Australia via Johannesburg and Perth on Wednesday.
The lessons from this are:
1. take Malaria preventative drugs; and
2. have good travel insurance - the cost of all this hospital treatment plus business class airfares home for the three of them must be astronomical. Malaria is not to be taken lightly!
Finally, as I reported at the beginning of this post, we drove into Kampala today. The roadworks on the Northern Bypass continue and the concentrations of humanity and vehicles at each of the five roundabouts we negotiate increase daily. Today our 21 km journey from home to the office took 90 minutes at an average speed of 14 km/h. Coming home was much better at just under 30 km/hr. Spare a thought for the two School for Life drivers - Rasheed and Bosco - who drive out to the schools and back each day. I think they are amazing!
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