Background Information of the 4 Days Primates Tour Uganda Birding Safari

• Kibale Forest National Park

This is a national park in western Uganda, protecting the moist evergreen rain forest. It is 766 square kilometers (296 sq mi.) in size and located between 1,100 meters (3,600 ft) to 1,600 meters (5,200 ft) in elevation.

Despite encompassing primarily moist evergreen forest, it contains a diverse array of landscapes to contain both lowland and montane forests. In eastern Africa, it sustains the last significant expanse of premontane forest.

The park was gazetted in 1932 and formally established in 1993 to protect a large area of forest previously managed as a logged forest reserve. The park forms a continuous forest with Queen Elizabeth National Park.

This adjoining of the parks creates a 180 kilometers (110 mi) wildlife corridor. It is an important eco-tourism and safari destination, popular for its population of habituated Chimpanzees and twelve other species of primates

Semuliki National Park (4 Days Primates Tour Uganda Birding Safari)

Semliki National Park is one of Uganda’s newest Parks having been gazetted in 1993 which hosts 194 sq. km of East Africa’s only lowland tropical rainforest.

The national park is located in the far west of Uganda Bwamba County within Bundibugyo district on Uganda’s border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Spreading over a land area of 220 kilometers (85 sq. mi). Semuliki National Park has a high diversity of plant and animal species together with microhabitats being located at the junction of several climatic and ecological zones.

Most of the Park’s vegetation is majorly medium altitude moist evergreen to the semi-deciduous forest. For game viewing tours, the park has got over 60 mammal species and more than 400 bird species for bird-watching safaris.

The park’s dominant mammal species include forest buffaloes, leopards, hippos, Mona monkeys, water chevrotains, bush babies, civets, elephants, and the pygmy flying squirrel.

Primate safaris are also done to the presence of eight primate species including red-tailed monkey, Vervet monkey, blue and De Brazza’s monkey, grey-cheeked mangabey, olive baboon, black and white colobus, and Chimpanzee together with over 300 butterfly species.

Semuliki valley national park is home to 400 bird species 216 of which including the lyre-tailed honeyguide forest ground thrush and Sassi’s olive greenbul are true forest birds.

There are also other 12 unique bird species, which are extremely limited in East Africa but can be seen by tourists spending a few days in the Park and these include Western bronze-napped pigeon, yellow-throated cuckoo, piping hornbill, red-sided broadbill, Xavier’s greenbul, capuchin babbler, a yellow long bill, blue-headed flycatcher, red-billed helmet-shrike, crested malimbe, pale fronted Antpecker and Chestnut-breasted negro-finch among others.

What to See And Do in Semuliki valley national park

• Scenic Drive

Game viewing is excellent in the open savannah grasses of Semuliki Valley national park. Even without entering inside Semuliki National Park, a scenic drive around it brings you closer to the marvelous beauty of the Park’s surroundings.

A drive to Sempaya hot springs makes you come across the Rift Valley towards Congo, it’s also fringed by forest where you can even stop and have a look at the monkeys and birds while no incurring any park fees since it’s found outside the Park.

Swamp greenbul and various forest hornbills are also worthy scanning while at the patch of fig and palm forest about halfway between Sempaya and Ntandi.

Sempaya Hot springs – 4 Days Primates Tour Uganda Birding Safari

This is the most popular attraction in Semuliki National Park and a safari to the national park without visiting the hot springs is surely incomplete. A Short-guided walking trail from the Sempaya Information Centre leads you to the cluster of hot springs at Sempaya.

This eye-catching site has its largest geyser spouts up to 2m high from a low salt sculpture opening. Be cautious of the emerging water from the hot spring that has a temperature of more than 100 degrees Celsius with hot surrounding pools.

While on the trail to the hot springs through a patch of the forest you can encounter red-tailed monkey, grey-cheeked mangabey, and black and white colobus that are very common at this point as well as interesting birds like the forest hornbills, blue-breasted kingfisher, red-ramped, and yellow-throated tinker bird, Frasier’s ant-thrush and honeyguide greenbul.

There is another hot spring, which is more of a broad steaming pool than a geyser; it is located on the far side of the swampy clearing that can be reached by a boardwalk.

• Red Monkey Trail

This is a wilderness trail through the Eastern margin of the Park to the Semuliki River. It also offers exposure to a variety of localized birds than the trail to the springs.

In addition to the red monkey trail, you can as well see a variety of monkeys, crocodiles, buffalo, and elephants on the River.

• Kirimia River Trail

This 15km trail runs North from Kirimia on the main Bundibugyo road to the banks of the Semuliki River, crossing the Kirimia river twice as well as passing a succession of forest-fringed oxbow lakes.

The guided day hike covers the first four kilometers up to the first crossing of the Kirimia River and passes through the secondary and riparian forest which is a residence to several monkey species like the African Piculet, long-tailed hawk, red-sided broadbill, black-faced rufous warbler, and lemon-bellied crombec. In addition to these, there are other 20-30 bird species associated with the oxbow lakes environment but they are unlikely to be seen elsewhere in any other park.

• Birding

Excellent bird viewing sites at Sempaya and Ntandi enable the viewing of these incredible birds like white-crested hornbill, red-billed dwarf hornbill, piping hornbill, yellow-throated nicator, great blue, and ross’s turaco.

The close quarters of Lake Albert are always associated with the great shoebill stork. Waterbirds can also be tracked during forest walks.

• Cultural Trails

The Batwa trail is the main cultural encounter at Semuliki National Park. The Batwa had been dependent on the Semuliki forest for food, shelter, medicine, and tools due to their lifestyle of hunter-gatherers.

Due to the decline of this dependence on the forest because of tourism, the Park offers an alternative source of income to the Batwa by allowing them to display their cultural history to tourists through music and dance performances at Ntandi. In addition to this, they also produce beautiful handicrafts for sale.

• How to get to Semuliki valley national park

From the capital Kampala to Fort Portal, which is the sub-regions biggest city, there are two major roads; Kampala-Fort Portal via Mubende and Kampala-Fort Portal via Masaka, Mbarara and Kasese.

There are 59km from Fort Portal to Semuliki National Park and a further 6km to reach the Park headquarters at Ntandi. The first route via Mubende is shorter from Kampala with 180km driven for about 4-5 hours compared to the second one that has 465km (7-8 hours) though it offers a more adventurous experience even before reaching Semuliki National park as you can have a stop to Lake Mburo National Park, Kyambura Wildlife Reserve, the Rwenzori Mountains National Park or Queen Elizabeth National Park around Kasese.

Both private and public means of transport can be used to Fort Portal and any public transport heading between Fort Portal and Kasese can drop you there. For those who would prefer to use private vehicles to the park, a 4WD vehicle is recommended especially in the wet season.