Zakouma 2015: Returning to Wildest Africa in Style

[inyathi]

Having shown just how abundant Zakouma’s big game and its other mammals really are, I will now show just how prolific and spectacular the park’s birdlife is indeed why it would be worth going to Zakouma just to see the birds alone.

 

Posting individual entries for every bird I saw on this trip as I’ve done with the mammals would be both impractical and rather boring so instead I will cover the big flocks of birds and then post individual entries for just the most significant species finishing up with a complete list at the end.

 

The Birds of Zakouma

 

As the dry season progresses and the waters recede from the flood plains, channels and rivers, fish and frogs become more and more concentrated in the shrinking pools attracting waterbirds in vast numbers to feast on this bounty. Great flocks of white pelicans, marabou storks, yellow-billed storks, saddle-billed storks, openbill storks, herons, egrets, ibises, spoonbills and alongside these fish eaters thousands of spur-winged geese, knob-billed ducks and white-faced whistling ducks and on the surrounding grassland huge gatherings of black crowned cranes. With an almost constant backdrop of reedbuck, tiang, lelwel hartebeest and waterbuck and occasionally giraffes, roan and buffalos creating a spectacle that is almost unrivalled anywhere in Africa. I have seen bigger flocks of white pelicans on Lake Chamo in Nechisar NP in Ethiopia and I know that you can also see larger flocks at Lake Manyara and a good few other places and this is I think true of yellow-billed storks as well. However I cannot think of anywhere where you can see such a variety of waterbirds and in such numbers all together and with so much large game alongside this for me is what makes Zakouma such a special place in April. As with last year some of the biggest concentrations of birds we saw were at Rigueik

 

White Pelicans and Storks at Rigueik

 

Having learned somewhat more about video editing since our last trip I usually like to remove any voices and other unwanted noises just leaving the sounds of nature but in this case I thought ....‘s comment on this short video would make a fitting start to this part of the report.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In last year’s report I remarked on the fact that in one of the photos I posted I could count 13 saddle-billed storks as opposed to the usual one or two that you normally see. Well in the full sized version of this next photo I have counted 37 and there may be a few more that I can’t see clearly enough, though you'll have to take my word for it as I haven't uploaded that version

 

 

 

I also had a go at counting them in the following panorama (made from 20 photos) some of the ones that are hidden in amongst the marabous or in the background on the other side of the water are not that easy to make out so I’m not completely sure what the exact number is but I would guess at about 60. I you want to have a go at counting the saddle-bills or just to have a proper look at a much bigger version of the picture click on it and go to Flickr click "Download this photo" then "View all sizes" and then click "original". Of course the 60 or so that I counted are just the ones that are actually in the photo there were still more there that I didn’t capture in this panorama because at the time Squack counted 86. Where else can you see 86 saddle-billed storks all in the same place?

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

With their huge webbed feet pelicans always look very ungainly when perched in trees, but with so many lions and maybe a few leopards or spotted hyaenas on the prowl, this is probably the safest place to be, as the sun starts to go down.

Edited May 25, 2020 by inyathi

[inyathi]

More pelicans and storks at Rigueik

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

White pelicans at sunrise on our penultimate morning

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marabou and yellow-billed storks

 

 

 

 

 

 

African openbill storks and black crowned cranes

 

 

Edited May 24, 2020 by inyathi

[Atravelynn]

The Zakouma Pales are very handsome indeed!

My thoughts exactly. Or maybe we should credit the photographer with catching the lion's best look.

[inyathi]

Storks and Pelicans at Dikere

 

Close to Rigueik we often passed more storks and pelicans feeding along the Bahr Dikere

 

 

Marabou storks, yellow-billed storks and great white egrets

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 1, 2020 by inyathi

[inyathi]

Birds at Biherat

 

Last year we saw huge flocks of storks, egrets and other birds both from the ground and from the air on the pans at Maniam, this time when we drove from our camp at Am Kalam over to Maniam this vast open floodplain was completely empty seemingly devoid of both big game and birds. Not knowing how long it might take to get around to the other side to explore and see what if anything we could find we gave up and headed elsewhere. There were in fact some really quite big flocks of egrets and openbill storks on the pans at Am Kalam that we could see from camp or when we were driving around but the main concentration of birds that we went to watch and photograph were on a channel known as Biherat. Here we found lots of egrets, storks, sacred ibis, African spoonbills and other birds frantically feeding on the trapped fish, not the biggest concentration of birds we'd seen but watching them fish was fascinating seeing how much they were consuming it's remarkable that any fish are able to survive at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sacred Ibis, great white egrets, African spoonbills and spur-winged geese

 

 

 

 

Spur-winged Geese

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 31, 2020 by inyathi

[egilio]

WOW! To put 86 saddle-billed storks a bit in perspective, that's about equal to half the breeding population of South Africa...

[inyathi]

 Lelwel hartebeest, egrets and Roan antelopes at Am Kalam

 

With so many hundreds of fish eating birds all piled in together feeding. they can soon empty a pool, so they have to keep constantly on the move, in search of new sources of fish, to sate their voracious appetites. Having found a huge gathering of pelicans and storks one day, you might return to the same spot the next day. only to find not a pelican in sight, that the whole flock has moved on to somewhere new.

 

Medjalam

 

On our way back up north to Rigueik, Darren while up in the air searching for the elephants spotted a big flock of white pelicans on a large pool called Medjalam, not that far from where he’d found the elephant herd. So we decided after going to see the elephants that we should take a look for these pelicans, this large pool far from anywhere hidden deep in the bush proved to be an ideal spot to have our picnic lunch. We laid some mats down under the trees at the edge of the pool and enjoyed our sandwiches in the shade looking across at hundreds of pelicans, marabous and openbills with a few yellow-billed storks, woolly-necked storks, black-headed herons, spur-winged geese knob-billed ducks, olive baboons and kob in amongst. Just close to where we were sitting a huge flock of red-billed queleas were drinking from the water’s edge; we sat out the hottest hours of the day listening to their incessant chattering. To enjoy a nice lunch at this spectacular spot was another rare privilege as we were the first groups of tourists ever to visit Medjalam.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 It's not really possible to count them properly but there must be at least 400 white pelicans in this panorama and who knows how many more not in it.

 

 

Here today gone tomorrow

 

The pelicans just dropped into Medjalam briefly, before moving on to somewhere else, anyone visiting the pool a few days before or after us would likely not have seen any pelicans at all, Zakouma is ever changing and unpredictable and this is part of what makes safaris here so exciting.

Edited May 31, 2020 by inyathi

[Sangeeta]

This is all crazily wonderful

[inyathi]

The black-headed heron (Ardea melanocephala), is I believe Africa’s most common heron species and in Zakouma they are everywhere, I have never seen as many as I saw on this trip, especially at Rigueik.

 

 

At Rigueik

 

 

Juvenile black-headed heron

 

 

Black-headed herons, black-crowned night herons, Nile crocodile and Kob at Tim

 

Edited May 30, 2020 by inyathi

[Marks]

@@Marks I suppose the reason I asked the question about the mongoose is because as I said in my entry for white-tailed mongooses I really don’t recall seeing any of this dark form last year and yet most of the ones we saw this year were dark. So in fact until we saw them this time I wasn’t really aware that melanistic white-tailed mongooses are common in some places, The Kingdon Field Guide does say that they are very common in Uganda but he doesn’t mention other places and he doesn’t illustrate the dark form in the book though he does have a drawing of one in the Mammals of Africa. The Pocket Guide which I took with me doesn’t mention the dark form at all, I thought I knew my African mammals pretty well but had Squack not informed me that they were white-tailed mongooses and that this dark form was particularly prevalent in Zakouma I might have been left scratching my head.

I should clarify that I was not specifically aware of that form of white-tailed mongoose ahead of time - I just figured that many other mammals have melanistic forms, so maybe it did, too.

 

The pelican and stork flocks are mesmerizing. My favorite thing about being around large numbers of birds is the sound. They create a sort of aural landscape that is so easy to lose yourself in. Your videos capture this!

[inyathi]

Ducks and Geese

 

Alongside all of the fish eating birds are huge flocks of spur-winged geese, white-faced whistling ducks and knob-billed ducks. Normally spur-winged geese are found in small flocks numbering no more than about 50, but at the height of the dry season, they gather in large congregations to moult, especially where there’s permanent water, an aerial survey of the inland delta of the River Niger, back in the year 2000 counted 6,000 geese. Quite how many there are in Zakouma I’m not sure, but there must be at least a few thousand, the edges of some of the channels notably at Machtour, were almost black with them and every gathering of waterbirds we saw, had more than a few of them in amongst.

 

Terribly out of focus it may be, but this shot still gives an idea of the number of geese at Machtour

 

The number of knob-billed ducks and white-faced whistling ducks, was probably similarly high, Egyptian geese on the other hand are not that common and there only seemed to be a few in amongst here and there.

 

 

White-faced whistling ducks and Spur-winged geese

 

 

Spur-winged geese, knob-billed ducks and a few Egyptian geese hiding in amongst

 

 

On this trip I decided to bring along a Nikon ED50 spotting scope this is a very small lightweight telescope that only weighs 470 grams but has much more powerful magnification than my binoculars and is so light that I could easily use it on a monopod something that would not be possible with a proper big scope. On last year’s trip I’d thought that a telescope would be very useful in situations like this for picking out any unusual birds that might be hiding amidst these big flocks. April is the time of year when the last remaining Palearctic migrants are leaving and heading back to Eurasia so there was a chance there could still be some around and after a certain amount of searching pools like this one at Rigueik I did manage to find a small number of garganey and one or two northern pintails but no northern shovelers this year. Surprisingly there aren’t actually many African ducks in Zakouma, Cape teal is on the park list but I didn’t see one nor any fulvous whistling ducks otherwise there aren’t any other ducks. African pygmy goose is on the list but they like to live in pools with waterlilies I didn’t notice nearly as many waterlily flowers this time as we saw last year but I suspect pygmy geese are probably quite rare, we certainly didn’t see any last year even though there were plenty of lilies at Maniam. Even if there aren’t a huge variety of different ducks and geese just the sheer numbers of those that are present makes for some amazing scenes. Seeing so many ducks and geese is one of the things I particularly remember from last year’s safari, just when you thought you’d already seen every spur-winged goose and whistling duck in Africa you’d go around a corner and fined another pool covered in hundreds of birds.

 

 

Knob-billed ducks

 

 

Spur-winged geese in front of Camp Nomade at Rigueik

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spur-winged geese, Kordofan giraffes and olive baboons at Machtour more of the 'magic of Zakouma'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 1, 2020 by inyathi

[SSF556]

Any predator birds?....you would think with the large flocks it would be open season for hawks, eagles, etc...

[inyathi]

@@SSF556 Yes there are plenty of raptors in Zakouma

 

 

Unfortunately another shot where I messed up the focus, fish eagles and black kites are especially common

 

 

Causing some panic amongst the other birds

 

 

 

More raptors will appear later on

Edited May 27, 2020 by inyathi

[SSF556]

@@inyathi....figured they were around...

 

What about self drives? Is that an option?

Edited May 29, 2015 by SSF556

[graceland]

@@inyathi

 

Such a beautiful series of birds on the water. Since I moved to a river here in Virginia, I have come to realize the immense beauty and pleasure of watching the birds and their day to day lives going on. We have may nests around us; swans, eagles, osprys, right here in our back yard. Moving from the "city" I had no idea how much I would love to observe and protect: "my" families of birds.

 

Thanks for all your work on Zakouma; definitely a must for us ONE DaY. Who knew I'd ever love to see flying wings as I do

 

Thanks to the incredible personal and very beautiful perspectives of safari life are shared amongst all.

 

Safaritalk travelers are the most informed and sharing individuals (any groups!) ever. I would have never known of this amazing area if not for you all sharing; a very heartfelt thank you!

[inyathi]

@@SSF556 I would go along with pretty much everything .... says, if you can hire a really good reliable 4x4 in NDJ to drive to the park then doing some sort of self drive is at least a possibility. The description of Zakouma on Tripadvisor says the following

 

 

Zakouma has three tiers of accommodation available in the park. Camp Salamat which is a camp site for self catering. Tinga Camp which is a 3* lodge which offers traditional safari activities and very reasonable prices. And new to the park is Camp Nomade which is a high-end mobile safari camp which will be open from January 2015.

 

Tripadvisor Zakouma

 

So, I imagine that if you drive to the park you may be able to camp at Camp Salamat, but you’d have to contact African Parks to find out more details, camping elsewhere is not an option. Staying at Tinga would really be the best option. as they can take you out on game drives which should mean you don’t get lost, as you might driving yourself. Although there are some road signs in the main area around Tinga, Zakouma HQ, Rigueik and Dikere it would still be quite easy to get lost. if you haven’t got a guide with you. Getting down to the south of the park isn’t really an option, if you have to return to Tinga for the night,  it’s really just too far, even if you left very early by the time you got there, it would be too hot, so you’d effectively miss the morning and then if you stayed for the whole afternoon, you’d have to drive back through the dark, arriving back at Tinga pretty late. There are no road signs at all in the south, so without a guide getting lost would be very easy, when we drove from our camp at Am Kalam over to Maniam to see what was there, (which turned out to be almost nothing this year) we would not have found our way without Mahamatt navigating.

 

My view is that if you are a very experienced self driver, then driving yourself to Zakouma could be an option, the risk of breaking down is more serious, than any security concerns, so ideally you’d want to have two vehicles and I would suggest at least some good mechanical knowledge, because if you do breakdown, you could be stuck for a very long time. Being able to speak at least some basic French would also be a big help. Doing this, you’d have a great adventure, but you wouldn’t have an experience quite like we had on this safari, aside from not having a professional guide to look after you, you’d miss out on an awful lot just by being tied to Tinga. However, you would certainly still see some of the wonders of Zakouma, whether enough to justify the effort of getting there only you can decide. The sort of safari that Tinga offers, is ideal for expats based in N'Djamena, but then for them Zakouma is the only show in town, coming from the US you'd want to weigh up the difficulty and cost of visiting, against all the other possible safari options, you might be considering elsewhere, to see if you think such a self drive trip would be worthwhile and value for money.

 

@@graceland I do think that actually one of the big problems for Zakouma more than the cost of staying at Camp Nomade or the logistics of trying to visit Zakouma, without staying at Camp Nomade or deciding where else to go in addition, is quite simply the fact that people haven't heard of the park. I'm happy to put in the effort to have the satisfaction of knowing that this report and my photos on Flickr, will be seen by lots of people, who have quite likely never heard of Zakouma at all. If you look up Zakouma on Google you tend to find mostly stories from a few years ago about the poaching crisis and elephants being slaughtered in large numbers, not the sort of thing that is going to persuade people to visit the park, I am happy, also to be a part of hopefully changing that, so that in future when people search, they'll find lots of photos of the amazing wildlife and reports and articles about safaris in Zakouma and not just dead elephants. Of course people will only search for Zakouma if they know the name, having had the good fortune to visit twice, I'm just glad I can do my little bit to make that name much more well known, as it deserves to be. You can repay my hard work by visiting Camp Nomade in the near future to see it for yourself and then you too can help to spread the word about this wonderful place, that's all the thanks I need.

Edited May 27, 2020 by inyathi

[inyathi]

Black crowned cranes

 

If giraffes and elephants are the iconic mammals of Zakouma then the title of iconic bird has to go to the black crowned crane Balearica pavonina much darker than the more familiar grey crowned crane Balearica regulorum this species occurs from Ethiopia across to Senegal. The western race Balearica pavonina pavonina has declined quite significantly in recent years the eastern race found in Zakouma Balearica pavonina cecillae is still common though populations may be threatened by the ongoing civil war in South Sudan which has made all conservation efforts in that benighted country difficult. In Zakouma sitting out on the open plains at Rigueik in the morning watching small flocks of these beautiful birds fly in is very special. Anything up to around a dozen or so birds will fly in land and then walk over to join the other flocks that have already arrived until they have eventually formed a large gathering of hundreds of birds. The sight and sound of these cranes will always be an abiding memory of my two visits to Zakouma. It may be that there are places in South Sudan where the cranes congregate in similar numbers I don’t know but I’m not going to venture there to find out, I’m also not aware that there is anywhere where grey crowned cranes gather together like this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 2, 2020 by inyathi

[inyathi]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 27, 2020 by inyathi

[inyathi]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 25, 2020 by inyathi

[inyathi]

The cranes at Rigueik really are one of the special sights of Zakouma and nothing says ‘Zakouma’ to me more than seeing them flying over the herds of antelopes that dot the floodplains.

 

 

Cranes and Defassa waterbuck

 

 

Cranes, spur-winged geese, tiang, lelwel hartebeest and Defassa waterbuck

 

 Cranes, tiang, lelwel hartebeest and Defassa waterbuck

 

 

Cranes, Defassa waterbuck and lelwel hartebeest

 

 

In the video you can see African openbill storks, black crowned cranes, cattle egrets, red-billed queleas, spur-winged geese, knob-billed ducks, sacred ibis, glossy ibis, woolly necked storks, black kites, roan antelopes, Defassa waterbucks, lelwel hartebeests and bohor reedbucks.

Edited May 30, 2020 by inyathi

[Zubbie15]

Really amazing congregations of large birds, that would be awesome to experience. Is the thought that there are so many in the park because of the excellent conditions of the park, or because conditions outside Zakouma aren't conducive to their living in a non-protected area?

[inyathi]

Much like with the spur-winged geese and ducks when you see so many hundreds of cranes gathered together at Rigueik you think you must have seen almost every single crane so it was a delightful suprise when we arrived at Sourane in the Am Douloulou area of the park to find more cranes gathering.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black crowned cranes, African openbill storks, one grey heron with kob and waterbuck

 

Much smaller in area than the windswept plains of Rigueik and surrounded by trees Sourane had almost the appearance of a large woodland glade and the combination of cranes and antelopes within it made for a particularly beautiful scene. We only passed briefly through this newly opened and unexplored area stopping long enough to have our morning coffee and marvel at the abundant wildlife but as mentioned earlier it was a real highlight of the trip.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 30, 2020 by inyathi

[SSF556]

@@inyathi

 

Thanks for the quick responses....seems to me that Chad is ripe for an Overland Expedition. Also good news on Camp Nomade being booked..maybe this is a baby step for Chad....it needs all the help it can get...it is still a very poor and corrupt country..one of the worst in Africa.

[inyathi]

@@Zubbie15

 

On 5/30/2015 at 11:40 PM, Zubbie15 said:

Really amazing congregations of large birds, that would be awesome to experience. Is the thought that there are so many in the park because of the excellent conditions of the park, or because conditions outside Zakouma aren't conducive to their living in a non-protected area?

 

I would think that the former, is the reason why there are so many birds inside the park, in the wet season Zakouma is almost entirely inundated and as the flood waters recede, they deposit silt and organic matter creating an extremely rich fertile ecosystem, able to support an abundance of life in the dry season, wherever there is still water remaining. Doubtless birds would have congregated in comparably large flocks elsewhere in the region, where the same conditions and habitats exist or existed, but whether it is still possible to find such huge flocks of birds today outside Zakouma in the wider Salamat region or elsewhere in Chad I don't honestly know

 

.... I don't know what the precise rules are with Camp Salamat, I included the information, purely because it is what is stated on Tripadvisor so anyone looking for information on Zakouma on that site, would find it, however I should have included it as a quote, but I obviously failed to do that before I posted . What you say about Camp Salamat may be correct, I don't know who actually put the information on Tripadvisor, but if they knew that the camp is really just for Chadians,  it seems strange they would mention it, as I don't imagine that many Chadians use Tripadvisor. The information was presumably added sometime last year,  so I assumed it might have come from AP, as I'm not sure how anyone else would have known about Camp Salamat, as it presumably hadn't opened then. Either way it gives the impression that you might be able to use Camp Salamat, but what I should have said is that you should contact African Parks to find out if this is possible. Certainly what AP say in their quarterly report would suggest as you say that Camp Salamat is just for Chadians

 

Quarterly Report Jan – March 2015

 

Quote

In Zakouma, the official opening of Camp Nomade, an upmarket mobile tented offering and Camp Salamat, the day visitor centre and camping facility for Chadians, were key development highlights. Together with Tinga Lodge, Zakouma now offers visitors a choice of experiential and accommodation options to cater for all budgets and interests.

 

 

If most foreign tourists arrive by air on the MAF flight and therefore don't have their own car, there may not seem much point in offering a self catering camping option for foreign visitors. Either way anyone brave enough to be thinking of planning an overland trip to Zakouma, would obviously need to get in touch with AP to find out what their options are.

Edited May 25, 2020 by inyathi

[Kitsafari]

@@inyathi the video in post #205 was for me the epitome of what Zakouma is - the absolute quiet, the tranquility, the sheer numbers of wildlife. it transported me to that very spot where you were taping the scene, watching an incredible number of birds gathering in a safe sanctuary, eating, standing, interacting or flying over mammals. I closed my eyes as I did for the other videos, listening to the various calls of the birds, the honks the hootings and the iconic cries of the fish eagle. that was like a piece of heaven that you brought to me on this Sunday morning, and I thank you so much for giving me those minutes of respite.

 

you have worked so hard to bring Zakouma to us and educate us about an hitherto unknown destination. so you both have in no small way helped directly and indirectly the success of the Camp Nomade bookings!