Uganda Birdlife

It's hard to think of a country in Africa, if not the world, that can rival Uganda when it comes to the number of species contained in a country of such modest size. The "Pearl of Africa” is only the size of Great Britain but has a bird list of well over 1 000.

The secret is Uganda's geographical position: it is an ecological crossroads, straddling not only the equator with all the diversity that tropical conditions bring, but Uganda has elements of East African biomes as well as Central African ones - the savannah and woodland birds of East Africa meet the forest birds of the African rainforests.

Uganda is also geographically blessed with a large stretch of the Albertine Rift, one of the world's most ecologically diverse hotspots and home to numerous endemics - there are 1 061 species of bird alone, and 41 of them are endemic to the Rift.

A country of 236 000 square kilometres, landlocked Uganda is a warm, rainy, elevated country - most of it is over 1 000 metres above sea level. There are large areas of montane and bamboo forest in its rugged mountainous west, forests that give way to moorland and heath at higher altitudes. This is the area of the Albertine Rift - home to lakes, forests and mountains.

The south-west is intensively cultivated but there are important patches of lowland forest and significant wetlands in the Lake Victoria basin and Nile Valley. Some protected areas contain large swathes of wooded savannah, and the north-east of the country completes the ecological mix by being an area of semi-arid grassland and scrub/thicket.

Uganda has parts of 3 Endemic Bird Areas and boasts 30 Important Bird Areas that cover 7% of the country. Despite an enormous bird count there are only 2 endemics in Uganda: Stuhlmann's Double-collared Sunbird and Fox's Weaver; there are 3 if the contested Kibale Ground-Thrush, once considered separate from the Black-eared Ground-Thrush, is accepted.

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