Northern Tanzania Birding Tour – Introduction to Africa

This northern Tanzania birding tour is designed to give you the opportunity to experience the real Africa, given just 10 days. Where else can you see Leopard, Cheetah, Lion, and a hundred spectacular bird species in a single day? Where else can you see Africa’s highest mountain (Kilimanjaro) and two of the world’s most famous game parks (the Serengeti and the spectacular Ngorongoro Crater)? This northern Tanzania birding tour not only offers an impressive diversity of localized bird species but also incredible wildlife sightings, most importantly the mind-blowing wildebeest migration through the Serengeti, which simply must be seen to be believed!

Grey-breasted Spurfowl, a highly localized Tanzanian endemic.

We begin this tour at Kilimanjaro International Airport near Arusha. Flying into this airport, weather-permitting, you might get views of Africa’s highest mountain. From here we visit the Lark Plains, north of Arusha, for some highly localized species, including Beesley’s Lark and Athi Short-toed Lark. We then visit the famed Ngorongoro Crater (enjoying Lake Manyara National Park en route) which is a unique and awe-inspiring experience. Before leaving the Ngorongoro Conservation Area we will spend an enjoyable day birding the forests on the crater rim, where we will target several range-restricted species such as Brown Woodland Warbler, African Hill Babbler and Mbulu White-eye.

Next, we head to the spectacular Serengeti National Park which not only has high densities of big mammals such as Lion, African Elephant, and the spectacular wildebeest migration, but also several highly sought-after birds that we’ll be on the lookout for. These include some very range-restricted species such as Maasai Apalis, Fischer’s Lovebird, Rufous-tailed Weaver, Red-throated Tit, Grey-crested Helmetshrike, and a range of others, along with many widespread African birds.

The endemic Yellow-collared Lovebird is one of our many colorful targets on this trip.

Finally, we spend two nights in Tarangire National Park, where we look for Northern Pied Babbler, Yellow-collared Lovebird, Pangani Longclaw, Ashy Starling, and other range-restricted birds among a very high concentration of African Elephants and baobab trees. Northern Tanzania has an impressive number of range-restricted bird species, and we hope to find many of them on this exciting birding and wildlife safari.