Western and Southern Tanzania (1 Viewer)

[T.O.]

In December / January I will be travelling for 3.5 weeks throughout remote Tanzania, but my focus is not on the well-visited northern part of the country, but the itinerary focuses on many little visited areas. And because they are little visited, I am curious whether anyone has some advice on what to do where and where birding is best. Apart from birds my main interests are mammals and chameleons .

The planned itinerary is

Pemba island (3-4 nights)

Kigoma (2 nights)
Gombe stream NP (1 night)
Katavi NP (3 nights)
Mount Rungwe & Kitulo NP (3 nights)
Ruaha NP (3 nights)
Udzungwa mountains NP (3 nights)
Mikumi NP (2 nights)

Additionally I am spending 7 weeks in Amani, E Usambara mountains for field work prior to my holiday.

Travelling will mostly be done by public transport, possibly except for Ruaha NP.

Any tips, especially on Katavi, Rungwe, Gombe & Kitulo, are welcome.

 

[dandsblair]

A little help

Hopefully this may be a little help. We didn't visit most of your locations but did use a guide in Usambara Mountains who could give advice as he was previously a reseracher at Ulguru and Udzunga we found him pretty good and he was trying to set up some regular guidng near Amani.
He is Victor Mkongewa ([email protected]) it might be worth making contact.

We saw more Chamelions in Western Usambara than any where else on the trip.

In Pemba we based ourselves in the NW near the Ngezi forest and found all the endemic birds pretty easily.

I attach trip report that may be useful as we we were in Usambara and Pemba in December.

 

[T.O.]

Thanks, I had already come across your report once I think . I was also planning to base myself in the northwest of Pemba (though Manta is too expensive for us). But it is good to hear the endemic birds there are quite easily found. Did you see any Zanzibar red colobus there? There is supposed to be a population of about 40 individuals in Ngezi.

 

[dandsblair]

Yes we saw the Colobus

Thanks, I had already come across your report once I think . I was also planning to base myself in the northwest of Pemba (though Manta is too expensive for us). But it is good to hear the endemic birds there are quite easily found. Did you see any Zanzibar red colobus there? There is supposed to be a population of about 40 individuals in Ngezi.

Yes we saw the Colobus