Resident Bycanistes brevis
A huge forest hornbill with a cream casque, whooshing overhead with every wingbeat.
Silvery-cheeked Hornbills are big, noisy and impossible to overlook once a pair flies over. They live in forest and feed on figs, which means fruiting trees in Arusha National Park and Lake Manyara are the places to wait.
In the breeding season the female seals herself into a tree hole and the male feeds her through a slit for months, one of the strangest nesting strategies in the bird world.
Arusha National Park’s forest, Lake Manyara’s groundwater forest and the Eastern Arc mountains.
Guide’s tipYou hear the wings first, like a steam train in the canopy. Then look for the white rump.
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.
Montane forest birding on the slopes of Africa’s highest mountain.
Tree-climbing lions, groundwater forest and a soda lake full of waterbirds.
Ancient Eastern Arc forests holding Tanzania’s rarest endemic birds.
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.
