Mozambique Birding Tour: Crab-plover, Dugong and Lowland Forest Birding

This Mozambique birding tour offers a mouth-watering array of top specials. It is designed to be combined with our Zimbabwe: African Pitta, miombo woodland and Eastern Highlands Birding Tour which runs immediately prior to this trip. A significant part of this trip will be spent in the lowland forests of central Mozambique, where we’ll be on the lookout for skulkers such as White-chested Alethe, East Coast Akalat and Lowland Tiny Greenbul, amongst others. Noisy flocks of Chestnut-fronted Helmetshrike flop around overhead, and we’ll keep an eye out for other scarce and localized species such as Böhm’s Bee-eater, Racket-tailed Roller, Dickinson’s Kestrel, Mangrove Kingfisher, Livingstone’s Flycatcher, Pale Batis, Speckle-throated Woodpecker and so many more!

The highly prized Crab-plover should be seen on the beautiful San Sebastian Peninsula!

Beginning in the port city of Beira, we first explore the vast grassy floodplains, wetlands and coastal areas around the town. Following this, we make the long drive northwards to the Zambezi River delta area, where we spend our first few days exploring its associated lowland forests. We then transit to the incredible Gorongosa National Park. This magnificent wildlife area is one of the continent’s best conservation success stories, and boasts a wide range of Africa’s megafauna. On one of our full days here, we will visit the nearby Mount Gorongosa to find the extremely rare and localized Green-headed Oriole. This famed mountain is the only locality where this rare oriole occurs in the southern African subregion, with many birders having made the pilgrimage over the last couple of decades.

We then journey back south and to the coast, where we have three idyllic nights at an all-inclusive private lodge on the San Sebastian Peninsula searching for the monotypic Crab-plover, amongst the vast numbers of shorebirds and other coastal birds that call this sanctuary home. Another hugely exciting highlight of this trip will be our day trip to the Bazaruto Archipelago where we hope to find the rarely seen Dugong; a large sirenian which is closely related to the manatees. This is a wonderful tour and it will ensure you experience the best birding Mozambique has to offer!

Livingstone’s Flycatcher is a localized species we will be searching for in the lowlands of Mozambique.