Resident Gypohierax angolensis
A vulture that eats palm fruit. Black and white, with a bare pink face, along Lake Tanganyika and the eastern rivers.
The Palm-nut Vulture is an oddity: a raptor that is largely vegetarian, feeding on the fruit of oil palms and raffia. It also takes fish, crabs and carrion along the shore.
Lake Tanganyika is its stronghold in Tanzania, and a pair is usually around the camp at Gombe or Mahale. We also see it in the Kilombero valley below the Udzungwas and around Amani.
Lakeshore and river forest at Gombe and Mahale, the Kilombero valley and Amani.
Guide’s tipLook for oil palms. Where the palms grow, the Palm-nut Vultures follow.
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.
Clear lake, western forest birds and the gateway to Gombe and Mahale.
Ancient Eastern Arc forests holding Tanzania’s rarest endemic birds.
Track wild chimpanzees in the forests where Jane Goodall began her research.
Rainforest endemics, Sanje Falls and the Kilombero Weaver in southern Tanzania.
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.
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.
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.
