Resident Tauraco hartlaubi
A flash of crimson wings in the forest canopy. Arusha National Park is the easiest place to see one.
Hartlaub’s Turaco is green, blue and violet with a white eye patch, but it is the red flight feathers you notice first as it crosses a forest gap. It feeds on fruit in the canopy and is surprisingly tame once you find it.
The forest road in Arusha National Park is our best spot, usually within the first hour of birding. The forests of the Ngorongoro Crater rim hold them too.
Montane forest in Arusha National Park and on the Ngorongoro highlands.
Guide’s tipTuracos glide between trees rather than fly far. Watch where one lands and wait; it will often hop back into view.
Sightings are never guaranteed: these are wild animals in wild places. What we can promise is a guide who knows where to look.
Destinations
The parks and reserves where our guides look for it, each with its own best season and safaris.
Montane forest, the Momella Lakes and Hartlaub’s Turaco, just 45 minutes from Arusha.
Clear lake, western forest birds and the gateway to Gombe and Mahale.
Montane forest birding on the slopes of Africa’s highest mountain.
A volcanic caldera with black rhino, lions and big grassland birds.
Keep exploring
Chersomanes beesleyi
Fewer than a hundred birds left, all on one patch of plain north of Arusha. Nowhere else on earth.
Tauraco fischeri
The coastal and Usambara forests’ turaco, with a red crest tipped white. A target bird for every East Usambara trip.
Sagittarius serpentarius
A raptor that hunts on foot, stamping snakes to death in the grass. Unmistakable striding across the plains.
Balearica regulorum
The golden crown, the dance and the bugling call. Endangered, but still a daily sight on the crater floor.
Ardeotis kori
The heaviest flying bird in the world, pacing the plains with its neck puffed up in display.
Phoeniconaias minor
Pink crowds on the soda lakes. Numbers rise and fall with the water, so your guide checks before you go.
Lamprotornis unicolor
Tanzania’s own starling: long-tailed, dusty grey and common around the baobabs of Tarangire.
Agapornis personatus
Green, yellow and masked in black, chattering in flocks around the baobabs. A Tanzanian endemic you will hear before you see.
Tell us your dates and the birds or animals you most want to see. We’ll reply within 24 hours with a route and a full quote.
