5:20am alarm. Arrived at Bigodi early at 7:30 - strange how we can get going quickly when there are birds on the agenda.......hahahaha
It started raining just as we arrived. We set off with Owen our guide and a trainee (Hillary). We were out in the fields, forest and swamp for about 4 hours, it was extremely nice in spite of the rain persisting for a lot of the time. We saw a lot of birds and animals that we wouldn't have spotted by ourselves, including: red colobus monkey, mangabey (grey cheeked with their funny grumbling calls), red-tailed guenon, black & white colobus, great blue turaco, blue throated roller and many others. It was a shame about the rain because as it eased we started seeing a lot more birds, in fact we could hardly keep up.
Poor Owen really tried hard to call a flufftail for us - it was answering his whistles but didn't come into sight.We learnt that tobacco plants are bad for bees as they take the nicotine back to the hive and they all die.
We normally avoid community projects as we've had some "interesting experiences" with them in the past, however the Bigodi project gets a big thumbs-up from us as it is clearly working well for visitors, the community, the environment and particularly the wildlife. The swamp with it's flora and fauna have survived because the community makes such a good income from visitors who come to see it. Sue made some purchases from the various community handicrafts markets, including a whole 12m of cloth - even she admits that it was "a bit bonkers"!
We had lunch in a layby in the forest (we always choose the best spots!) and then returned to Kluges where we topped up the water again.
We found that one of the back windows wouldn't open, on investigation I found that a bee had built a mini nest in the rubber seal. It took ages to clear out - hardened wax with sticky honey. We think that it was Sue's bee - she had been commenting for a few days that she was hearing a single bee every morning at about 7am buzzing around the rear windows.......Now we know.
Sue chased away about 6 of the lodge workers who had taken up residence lounging on the campsite appearing to watch our every movement - in fact they seemed to just be sciving off work and the campsite was a convenient place as it has good phone signals - but to have them constantly around the vehicle and ammenities was disturbing to say the least. Best teachers voice was used apparently.
We sat with Robert who gave us a lot of useful information about Queen Elizabet National Park (QENP or simply "Queen" if you're Ugandan). We both had whole tilapia in the restaurant - eaten with fingers - they really know how to cook it well at Kluges!
It started raining just as we arrived. We set off with Owen our guide and a trainee (Hillary). We were out in the fields, forest and swamp for about 4 hours, it was extremely nice in spite of the rain persisting for a lot of the time. We saw a lot of birds and animals that we wouldn't have spotted by ourselves, including: red colobus monkey, mangabey (grey cheeked with their funny grumbling calls), red-tailed guenon, black & white colobus, great blue turaco, blue throated roller and many others. It was a shame about the rain because as it eased we started seeing a lot more birds, in fact we could hardly keep up.
Poor Owen really tried hard to call a flufftail for us - it was answering his whistles but didn't come into sight.We learnt that tobacco plants are bad for bees as they take the nicotine back to the hive and they all die.
We normally avoid community projects as we've had some "interesting experiences" with them in the past, however the Bigodi project gets a big thumbs-up from us as it is clearly working well for visitors, the community, the environment and particularly the wildlife. The swamp with it's flora and fauna have survived because the community makes such a good income from visitors who come to see it. Sue made some purchases from the various community handicrafts markets, including a whole 12m of cloth - even she admits that it was "a bit bonkers"!
We had lunch in a layby in the forest (we always choose the best spots!) and then returned to Kluges where we topped up the water again.
We found that one of the back windows wouldn't open, on investigation I found that a bee had built a mini nest in the rubber seal. It took ages to clear out - hardened wax with sticky honey. We think that it was Sue's bee - she had been commenting for a few days that she was hearing a single bee every morning at about 7am buzzing around the rear windows.......Now we know.
Sue chased away about 6 of the lodge workers who had taken up residence lounging on the campsite appearing to watch our every movement - in fact they seemed to just be sciving off work and the campsite was a convenient place as it has good phone signals - but to have them constantly around the vehicle and ammenities was disturbing to say the least. Best teachers voice was used apparently.
We sat with Robert who gave us a lot of useful information about Queen Elizabet National Park (QENP or simply "Queen" if you're Ugandan). We both had whole tilapia in the restaurant - eaten with fingers - they really know how to cook it well at Kluges!