3-Day Nyungwe Forest Birding Tour, Rwanda

Day-by-day itinerary

1. Day1
   

   Kigali to Nyungwe National Park, Roadside Birding on the Way

   Our birding guide collects you from your hotel or Kigali International Airport early in the morning for the drive south-west to Nyungwe, about 225 km and five to six hours with stops. The road crosses the hills of southern Rwanda through Muhanga and Huye, and our guide stops at papyrus swamps and farmland on the way for species such as the papyrus gonolek, grey crowned crane, black-headed weaver and the striking red-faced cisticola. Past Huye the road climbs into the forest, and suddenly you are driving through a green wall of trees and tree ferns, with tea estates on the lower slopes. Nyungwe National Park covers 1,019 square kilometres of mountain rainforest, bamboo and swamp, and it became a national park in 2004. More than 300 bird species have been recorded here, including around 27 Albertine Rift endemics. You reach Gisakura on the western edge of the park in time for some late-afternoon birding at the forest edge. Dinner and overnight at Nyungwe Top View Hill Hotel or One&Only Nyungwe House.

   • Drive to Nyungwe with birding stops
   • Nyungwe Top View Hill Hotel or One&Only Nyungwe House
   • Lunch, dinner
2. Day2
   

   Full Day Birding the Uwinka Trails and the Canopy Walkway

   You leave before dawn for Uwinka, the park’s main trail centre on the ridge at around 2,400 metres, with a packed breakfast and lunch. The early hours along the roadside and trail heads are the best for mixed flocks, and our guide will be listening for the Albertine Rift specials: Rwenzori turaco, red-throated alethe, Rwenzori batis, the regal and purple-breasted sunbirds, the strange weaver, the handsome spurfowl calling from the undergrowth and, with real luck, the Albertine owlet. In the middle of the day you walk the Igishigishigi trail to the canopy walkway, a suspended bridge high above a forested valley, which puts you level with the treetops where many birds feed. Nyungwe also has 13 primate species, and troops of L’Hoest’s monkeys and Ruwenzori colobus are often seen along the trails. In the late afternoon you bird the road back to Gisakura. Dinner and overnight at Nyungwe Top View Hill Hotel or One&Only Nyungwe House.

   • Uwinka trails and canopy walkway
   • Nyungwe Top View Hill Hotel or One&Only Nyungwe House
   • Breakfast, lunch, dinner
3. Day3
   

   Dawn Birding at Gisakura and Return to Kigali

   Your last morning starts at first light on the edge of the forest and the tea estate around Gisakura, where the mix of open ground and trees brings a different set of birds: great blue turaco, black-and-white casqued hornbill, olive-breasted greenbul, Doherty’s bushshrike and a range of sunbirds feeding on the flowering shrubs. If you prefer, the guide can take you along the Karamba trail, an easy, flat walk on an old gold-mining site that is good for forest-edge species. After breakfast you begin the drive back to Kigali, with more birding stops where the road crosses wetlands. You arrive in Kigali in the late afternoon, in time for an evening flight or a night in the city (not included). This short tour combines easily with Akagera for savannah and wetland birds, or with a gorilla trek in Volcanoes National Park.

   • Dawn birding, drive to Kigali
   • Breakfast, lunch