Resident Phoeniconaias minor
Pink crowds on the soda lakes. Numbers rise and fall with the water, so your guide checks before you go.
Lesser Flamingos feed on blue-green algae in the alkaline lakes of the Rift Valley, and when conditions are right Lake Manyara can hold hundreds of thousands. They come and go with the water level, which is why we always ask the rangers where the birds are that week.
The Momella Lakes in Arusha National Park are smaller but more reliable, and a few hundred birds are usually on Lake Magadi on the crater floor. Our flamingo guide explains where to look in each season.
Lake Manyara, the Momella Lakes in Arusha National Park, Lake Magadi in the crater and Lake Ndutu.
Guide’s tipThe deeper pink the bird, the better fed it is. Flocks on the same lake can look very different.
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.
The Rift Valley soda lake where East Africa’s Lesser Flamingos breed.
Seasonal soda lake with flamingos, waterbirds and quiet dry bush.
Tree-climbing lions, groundwater forest and a soda lake full of waterbirds.
A volcanic caldera with black rhino, lions and big grassland birds.
Vast plains, the Great Migration and big cats all year round.
Keep exploring
Chersomanes beesleyi
Fewer than a hundred birds left, all on one patch of plain north of Arusha. Nowhere else on earth.
Tauraco hartlaubi
A flash of crimson wings in the forest canopy. Arusha National Park is the easiest place to see one.
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.
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.
