Hen Guides of the International: Kenneth Tumusiime, Uganda


What’s your favourite hen species?

I like all birds however the Shoebill is my favourite hen.

What’s your title, and the place do you are living?

My title is Kenneth Tumusiime, I are living in Nyabushozi, Kiruhura District in south-western Uganda close to Lake Mburo Nationwide Park

What are the principle areas or places you quilt as a hen information?

I quilt all 4 areas of East Africa: Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda

How lengthy have you ever been a hen information?

I’ve been a information for 16 years now

Gray-crowned Crane

How did you get into hen guiding?

My profession began in 2000 once I joined the Lion Mission Crew in Murchison Falls Nationwide Park led via Dr Sifert all through faculty vacations. Sifert impressed me to enroll in Murchison Falls Nationwide Park in northwestern Uganda in 2008, and I set to work as a trainee website information. My center of attention was once on birds, and I began attending birding coaching and tours. In the end, my guiding talents ended in my promotion to the Head of the Division of Coaching & Guiding.

What are the facets of being a hen information that you simply like easiest? Which facets do you dislike maximum?

Being a hen information I’ve loved and completed so much, I’ve been ready to find the universe and I were given attached to nature touring. I’ve fulfilled my craving of assembly folks from in every single place the globe. Additionally, the network mindset of the locals in spaces the place I take my purchasers for birding has very much progressed.

As a hen information, I dislike seeing encroachment on wetlands and different flora and fauna habitats via the locals and likewise depletion of our surroundings via the rising numbers of factories/industries that fail to apply environmental rules and Same old working pointers!

What are the highest 5-10 birds on your area that you simply assume are probably the most fascinating for visiting birders?

There are a number of birds which might be sought via all birders around the globe. Right here in Uganda, those come with

  • Inexperienced Broadbill
  • Shelley’s Crimsonwing
  • Nice blue Turaco
  • Red-breasted Sunbird
  • Regal Sunbird
  • Rwenzori Turaco
  • Good-looking Francolin
  • Rwenzori Blue-headed Sunbird
  • Narina Trogon
  • Bar-tailed Trogon
  • Rwenzori Nightjars
  • Pel’s Fishing Owl

Are you able to define a minimum of one standard birdwatching travel on your space? Please in brief describe the places, the important thing birds, and the approximate period of one of these travel

The 14 Days Thrilling Uganda Birding Excursion begins and ends at Entebbe World Airport and combines birding and flora and fauna gazing. Habitats lined come with equatorial forests, wetlands, savannahs, highland forests, Albertine Rift Mountains, semi-arid scrublands, and lakes.

This excursion is about to hide the original habitats of Uganda, the Pearl of Africa. Those habitats are house to the area’s most original and restricted-range species. We intend to hide the good Albertine rift for the montane wooded area birds and different flora and fauna, the mid-elevation birds at Budongo Wooded area, Bwindi Impenetrable, Mabamba Bay Swamp, Queen Elizabeth Nationwide Park, Kibale Wooded area Nationwide Park, Semuliki Nationwide Park, Murchison Falls Nationwide Park, Cultivated Lands, Lake Victoria. Whilst the excursion covers montane habitat, the tempo will usually be simple.

Abyssinian Curler

Key Hen Species of the excursion come with Shoebill, Pel’s Fishing Owl, African Finfoot, Crimson-throated Bee-eater, Red-breasted Sunbird, Regal Sunbird, Papyrus Gonolek, Narina Trogon, Bar-tailed Trogon, Good-looking Francolin, Black Bee-eater, Saddle-billed Stork, Egyptian Plover, Northern Carmine Bee-eater, Nice Blue Turaco, Ross’s Turaco, Crested Barbet, and plenty of raptors and waders.

Crimson-throated Bee-eater

African Finfoot

Saddle-billed Stork

What different ideas are you able to give to birders on your space?

For unbiased birdwatchers with top expectancies, hiring a neighborhood information is extremely really useful because it will increase the possibilities of seeing unusual and localized species, contributes at once to the native financial system, and creates an incentive for the safety of birds.

Birding in Uganda is completed during the 12 months between its two dry seasons: December to February and between Would possibly, June and August.

Issues to deliver with you for a birding excursion in Uganda

  • Water-proof gentle mountaineering boots/footwear
  • Gardening gloves
  • Lengthy-sleeved shirts/shirt
  • Lengthy Pants/brief pants
  • Toiletries
  • Insect repellant
  • Sun shades
  • Hat
  • Sanitary put on
  • A excellent pair of Binoculars
  • Box hen information e-book (Birds of East Africa)
  • Rain jacket/Coat
  • First support equipment
  • Bottled ingesting water
  • Further batteries
  • Power giving snacks
  • Shawl and heat sweaters

If any reader of 10,000 Birds is concerned about birding with you, how can they easiest touch you?

Is there anything you want to percentage with the readers of 10,000 Birds?

Sure! I’m additionally dedicated to saving Shoebills and all different birds in Uganda! I’m very thankful for taking this chance to introduce the Save Shoebill Conservation Mission (SSCP) to you.

We’re a community-based group in Murchison Falls Nationwide Park Uganda (SAVE SHOEBILL CONSERVATION PROJECT ‘SSCP’). We’re eager about ecotourism and conservation tasks aimed toward construction a aware network about shoebill significance, price and retaining its habitat along side all different birds. This group was once shaped via a crew of devoted ornithologists eager about environmental conservation actions round Murchison Falls Nationwide Park, a key biodiversity space in Uganda with the entire function of excelling in nature coverage and developing alternatives for sustainable lives, the inception of SSCP was once a results of the affect of human actions at the Murchison falls-Albert Delta wetland gadget and different ecosystems.

Our website is a key water hen space inside the Rift Valley chain of lakes, marshes, and rivers. In addition to resident hen species those habitats are vital for lots of migratory birds each via species and via numbers, together with palearctic birds. We’re dedicated to retaining this wetland habitat and we’re doing habitat surveys to turn the level of any ‘patchwork’ of habitats e.g. dust, open water, waterside margins, and the use via different species of those spaces in addition to inside the dense papyrus required via the shoebill.

We’re lately sporting out the common tracking of resident and migratory hen species, assessing utilization and species interactions for shoebill’s ecology and all different birds, for instance when it comes to predation and festival.

Now we have evolved education schemes aimed in class kids and native fishermen to preserve and offer protection to Shoebills and all waders and their habitats in Uganda, elevating consciousness of Shoebill conservation via enticing all of the native communities. Our program will give a boost to the working out of the conservation wishes of the Shoebill.

We notice that birdwatching is a booming global ecotourism challenge that draws low quantity, low affect, and top go back guests that may spice up rural and nationwide economies. Birdwatching is one of the crucial global’s main leisure actions and in Uganda has the prospective to generate income in comparison to Gorilla tourism. The SSCP promotes birding tourism via getting the formative years and small children concerned, and via coaching native folks as hen guides.

We’re calling upon your fortify in retaining this vital Hen House via involving the native communities. For more info, seek advice from



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