Ethiopia September - October 2012 - Arba Minch

Arba Minch is the gateway town to the Nechisar National Park were a couple of years ago the wing of an undescribed species of Nightjar was found: the Nechisar Nightjar. This bird has never been seen alive, so we wanted to share a 4WD to go into the park and return after dark to look for this mythical bird. However we failed to find anybody to share a vehicle with. Instead we made two short walks into the National Park and shared a boat with another backpacker to visit the "Crocodile Market".

The first walk was in the late afternoon and therefore the bird activity was rather low as it gets quite hot here. We still managed to see some interesting species like African Olive Pigeon, Rufous Chatterer, Easter Violet-backed Sunbird, White-browed Scrub Robin, Slate-coloured Boubou and a lovely male Narina Trogon. The Baboons here are very tame and scared us  the quite a bit. The Warthogs are equally tame but less frightening. The Bushbucks here are very skittish on the other hand, probably due to hunting pressure. Vervet Monkey and Guereza Pied Colobus can also be seen.

Narina Trogon (Apaloderma narina)

Eastern Chanting Goshawk (imm) (Melierax poliopterus)

The next day we took a boat to "Crocodile Market", a large gathering of Nile Crocodiles. During this boat trip a couple of good birds were also seen: Goliath Heron, African Spoonbill, African Darter, Knob-billed Duck, African Hobby and the (in Ethiopia) very localised Northern Masked Weaver. The boat trip yielded of course good views of Nile Crocodiles including some gargantuan ones. Some Hippopotamusses near the crocodiles were also much appreciated.

Nile Crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus)

A 6 meter long Nile Crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus)

Since we already had bought the permits for the National Park (these last for 24 hours) we went back to do the same walk we did yesterday in the late afternoon. This resulted in some different species like Klaas's Cuckoo, a Yellowbill that gave very good close-up views and a Black-chested Snake Eagle flying over. We also saw the same mammal species as the day before.

Klaas's Cuckoo (Chrysococcyx klaas)