Ethiopia Birding Tour

This Ethiopian birding tour combines some of the best birding sites in central and southern Ethiopia. You start with visiting Dibre Birhan and then to the Awash National Park before heading south to the Bale Mountain National Park and the Rift Valley lakes.

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Overview

Addis Ababa * Goha Tsion * Debre Birhan * Awash National Park * Langano * Bale Mountains National Park * Langano

Note on Tour pricing

The pricing below is based on 2-3 people travelling. We strongly recommend the upgrade to Bale Mountain Lodge, even though its relatively pricey. The price decreases by quite a margin (approx 15%) if you have 4 or more people so contact us for a quotation if you are a larger group.

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The tour starts with a pick up from the airport/hotel. Then, drive up to the Entoto Mountains, the best location to observe the panoramic view of the capital, Addis Ababa. It is also a historical place where Menelik II resided and built his palace. It is notable as the location of a number of celebrated churches, including Saint Raguel and Saint Mary (Maryam Church). After a relaxed lunch, you will have a birding experience in the grounds of Ghion Hotel. Here, you will find wide enchanting gardens filled with indigenous flora and a stunning collection of birds, including the endemic Wattled Ibis.

Overnight stay at Swiss Inn Nexus Hotel or similar, Addis Ababa.

Before reaching Debre Libanos, we cross the famed Sululta Plains, which is a brilliant place to find the beautiful Spot-breasted Lapwing, the taxonomically strange Blue-winged Goose, and other endemics. You also hope to find your first gelada baboon (nicknamed bleeding-heart baboon) – these ferocious-looking but vegetarian baboons have huge vocabularies and a complex social system.

You’ll eventually reach your well-placed accommodation, from where you will look for Egyptian Vulture, Griffon Vulture, Bearded Vulture and other raptors as they gracefully sail by, as well as the Little Rock Thrush and many other mountain birds.

Overnight stay at Goha Land Hotel, Goha Tsion.

Today you enter a truly different world. You descend from the dizzying heights to the Jemma River far below you. You will enter an arid land, where you’ll look for a very different suite of birds compared to those of Debre Libanos.

You will look for species such as Speckle-fronted Weaver, Fox Kestrel, Foxy Cisticola, Siffling Cisticola, Abyssinian Wheatear, Senegal Thick-knee, Black-billed Barbet, and many others that are characteristic of East Africa’s arid areas. In this area you’ll also continue to look for some of Ethiopia’s localized endemics such as Harwood’s Francolin, Erckel’s Francolin, White-throated Seedeater, and others.

Overnight stay at Getva Hotel or similar, Debre Birhan.

Among many other things, today you go to dizzying heights to the Ankober Escarpment for a spectacularly localized bird, the endemic and vulnerable Ankober Serin.

The scenery here is a lot more spectacular than your main target bird, which some people just call a “little brown job”, while others are kinder and call it a “subtly beautiful bird” – whichever way you look at it, the bird is unlikely to dazzle you, but the search for it certainly takes you to marvellously beautiful mountains overlooking distant valleys. You could find other birds on the way as well, like Verreaux’s Eagle or Bearded Vulture.

Overnight stay at Getva Hotel or similar, Debre Birhan.

If the road is good enough at the time, you will drive through some of Ethiopia’s most remote areas to get to Awash National Park.

Here, you’ll be birding the amazing Afar Plains, where a rich diversity of birds hopefully will make their appearance. You could see Abdim’s Stork, Yellow-necked Francolin, Kori Bustard, Black-headed Lapwing (arguably the most spectacular plover species), Chestnut-bellied Sandgrouse, Red-bellied Parrot, Bare-faced Go-away-bird, White-bellied Go-away-bird, Blue-naped Mousebird, Olive Bee-eater, Abyssinian Roller, Black-billed Wood Hoopoe, Abyssinian and Black Scimitar Bills, various Hornbill species including Abyssinian Ground and Von-der-Decken’s, Black-throated and Yellow-breasted Barbets, Greater Honeyguide, Black-crowned Sparrow-Lark, Grey Wren-Warbler, Grey-headed Batis, Slate-coloured Boubou, Rosy-patched Bushshrike, Chestnut Weaver, and White-crested Helmetshrike, among many others. In the late afternoon, you will arrive at Awash National Park.

Overnight stay at Doho Lodge, Awash National Park.

Awash is one of Ethiopia’s premier national parks, which has a rich diversity of birds as well as mammals.

You’ll look for African Swallow-tailed Kite; a host of Bustards including Arabian, Buff-crested, Hartlaub’s, Black-bellied, and White-bellied; Bruce’s Green Pigeon, and tons more. During your time here, you will hopefully find Somali Ostrich; African Collared Dove; Singing Bush Lark; Gillett’s Lark; Chestnut-backed and Chestnut-headed Sparrow-Larks; Boran and Ashy Cisticolas; Eastern Olivaceous Warbler; Pale and African Grey Flycatchers; Mouse-colored Penduline Tit; four of Africa’s most lovely Sunbirds, namely Eastern Violet-backed, Nile Valley, Beautiful, and Shining; Southern Grey Shrike; Somali Fiscal; Woodchat Shrike; Northern Masked Weaver; Cut-throat Finch, and many others. At this time of year you might also get the chance to enjoy migrant Common Whitethroat and White-throated Robin. As always, raptor-watching will be spectacular – you can easily find 40-50 species during the tour, of which many are in Awash National Park.

Overnight stay at Doho Lodge, Awash National Park.

You continue birding in Awash National Park, before driving to the Ali Dege Plains where you will eventually arrive at your next lodge.

Overnight stay at Doho Lodge, Awash National park.

After some final Awash birding, you drive to Lake Langano, where you will spend the night. You will bird this lake and other lakes,

Among these are the beautiful Lake Ziway and the wetland sites of the Great Rift Valley. Here, you will look for Black Crowned Crane; Collared Pratincole; African Snipe and several other shorebird species; various Tern species including Gull-billed, Lesser and African Jacanas; Fulvous Whistling Duck; African Pygmy Goose; Western Marsh Harrier, and many others. Other possible highlights include the Greater Spotted Eagle, Egyptian Vulture, White-headed Vulture, Clapperton’s Francolin, Blue-spotted Wood Dove, Lichtenstein’s Sandgrouse, Buff-bellied Warbler, Northern Black Flycatcher, Blackstart, Black-headed and Pygmy Batises, the striking Masked Shrike, Green-winged Pytilia, and Red-fronted Warbler, as well as many others.

Overnight stay at Sabana Beach Resort or similar, Langano.

You drive to Dinsho, which is the gateway to the fabled Bale Mountains, which reach an altitude of around 4 500 meters (more than 14 000 feet). Here, you spend the next two days birding varied habitats for such sought-after species as the Abyssinian Owl, Cape (Mackinder’s) Eagle-Owl (the most massive of the three subspecies), African Wood Owl, Wattled Ibis, Chestnut-naped Francolin, Moorland Francolin, Wattled Crane, Red-billed Chough, White-backed Black Tit, Abyssinian Catbird, African Emerald Cuckoo, Abyssinian Crimsonwing, and, with luck, the Golden Eagle, as well as a long list of other birds. Interesting mammals here are mountain nyala, klipspringer, Menelik’s bushbuck, Bohor reedbuck, and others. The days in this area are also a botanical treat, with vegetation ranging from Hagenia-dominated forest to giant Erica woods to high-altitude moorlands, sometimes with fabulous giant lobelias. In the adjacent Harenna Forest it might be possible to spot some star birds like Brown Parisoma, Ayers’s Hawk-Eagle, African Emerald Cuckoo, Abyssinian Ground Thrush, Cinnamon Bracken Warbler, Rüppell’s Robin-Chat, White-browed Robin-Chat, Abyssinian Crimsonwing, and Slender-billed Starling, or even a flock of migrating European Bee-eaters.

Overnight stay at Wabe Shebelle Hotel, Goba (very simple)

Or ask us about upgrading to the luxurious Bale Mountain Lodge.

As you leave Goba, you will soon reach nice stands of Juniper-Hagenia forest that are home to the endemic Abyssinian Woodpecker, White-backed Black Tit, Abyssinian Catbird, Abyssinian Slaty Flycatcher, and Abyssinian Ground Thrush. Driving further, stands of Hypericum trees host the endemic griseiventris subspecies of Brown Parisoma. Moorland and Chestnut-naped Francolins and Cinnamon Bracken Warbler frequent dense shrubbery, and Ethiopian Cisticola prefers the more open areas. Next, you will be driving on Africa’s highest road, passing close to the summit of Ethiopia’s second highest mountain. Here, on the Sanetti Plateau, an island of tundra in the tropics, the habitat is classified as “Afro-alpine moorland”, characterized by a fascinating range of unique plants, including giant lobelias which tower like monolithic giants over the rich tussock grasslands, and extensive cushions of yellow everlasting flowers. The grasslands are estimated to support an incredible biomass of 8,800 pounds of rodents per hectare. Amazing! This obviously attracts a rich array of raptors, and you should see Steppe and Golden Eagles, Augur Buzzard, and the elegant Pallid Harrier circling over this verdant floral sea. They share this abundant food source with the plateau’s most celebrated resident, the Ethiopian wolf, crowned with the unenviable title of “the world’s rarest canid.” Watching these vibrantly coloured animals, most closely related to the European Timber Wolf, exhibiting their hunting prowess while bouncing on giant mole rats (another species endemic to the Sanetti Plateau) is surely among Africa’s greatest wildlife experiences. The plateau also holds the only Afrotropical breeding populations of Ruddy Shelduck, Golden Eagle, and Red-billed Chough. You will also search for Black Stork, Wattled Ibis, Rouget’s Rail (particularly common and confiding here), the endemic Blue-winged Goose, Spot-breasted Lapwing, Wattled Crane, Thekla Lark, migratory flocks of Red-throated Pipit, Abyssinian Longclaw, Red-breasted Wheatear, the dumpy Moorland Chat, and flocks of the endemic Black-headed Siskins.

Overnight stay at Wabe Shebelle Hotel, Goba. Extra USD 300.00 per pax-per night to upgrade to the luxury Bale Mountain Lodge.

To the south of the Park lies a 1200m (3700 ft) escarpment, below which is one of the largest and most extensive forests remaining in Ethiopia, the Harenna Forest. The slope of the southern escarpment falls rapidly from the tree line at 3200m to around 2000m within a distance of only 8km, producing a rapid and spectacular change in landscape, habitat, and species composition. The Bale Mountain Lodge is located beside a clear mountain stream, within a natural forest clearing beneath the escarpment, and enjoys breath-taking views of the mountains and the surrounding forest. Here, rare Bale Monkeys inhabit the trees and the birdlife is spectacular. Wild coffee is harvested to the south of the lodge and delicious Bale honey is obtained by the local people from hives placed high within the canopy. Here is also found 3% of Africa’s remaining bamboo forest. Harenna is truly a magical place in which to relax or to explore. After lunch, depart the Bale Mountains and drive to Sabana Beach Resort.

Overnight stay at Sabana Beach Resort or similar, Langano.

After breakfast, you will drive back to Addis Ababa. Upon arrival in Addis Ababa, you will have the chance to do some shopping for souvenirs. Finally, you will be taken to a farewell dinner depending on your scheduled flight. Afterwards, you will be transferred to Bole International Airport for the return flight back home.

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Cedarberg Travel | Ethiopia Birding Tour

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Bale Mountain Lodge

Bale Mountain Lodge is the nature-lovers perfect spot for "R & R" after touring the historical sights of the north or trekking in the Simien Mountains. Here, in the Bale Mountains National Park in...

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