Last Day in Tanzania

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As usual, I got up some time before breakfast to do a little birding. I had also been told by someone that he saw a “big black and white eagle” over the camp and then he pointed at the palm nut vulture in my book as that looking the closest “but not exactly the same”. With that in mind, I had a look around and didn’t managed to find it but around the pond I did see a few giant kingfishers flying over which were nice to see again after seeing them once a couple of days ago but I also saw a beautiful male Nubian woodpecker on a tree which was very nice to see because I had always wanted to see a woodpecker outside of Europe and this was my first one. To be honest I think it is nicer looking than all of the European woodpecker species that I’ve seen. A little later (I had a late breakfast that day so had more time for birding), I saw a very large bird fly over and land on a tree that was on the border of the camp and a neighbouring property, I then realised that it was a grey crowned crane and then it held its wings out for a short while before flying off again . I also managed to get some nice pictures of species that I had seen previously ).



I then had breakfast and got in the vans for the short trip that we had that day. This was just visiting a small school and orphanage, the school provided a much higher standard of education at a cost but if the families couldn’t pay then this was reduced. We were given a tour around the place by some of the students and then had a look at the attached orphanage that was run by the same people as the school. The house was at a good standard (I would be happy to live in it) with fantastic views from the windows and had a small farm as well, this made it seem like quite a nice place for the dozen or so orphans in it. We then had to be taken back to the camp which we got back to at around three in the afternoon, leaving quite a bit of time to relax and to pack up, ready for leaving to go to the airport which we would be doing at 11 that night for a flight at 3 AM the next morning. I had a look at the pond where it was very still with almost no birds apart from a purple heron sitting in the grass panting, everything was hiding in the bushes. It was too hot for me to stay out so I just sat around the camp in the shade for a couple of hours.



A little later though, once it was slightly cooler, I went back down to have a look at what I could see. I got nice views of various species that I had seen at the pond previously and I saw a Nile monitor and a very large millipede along with many speckled mousebirds. I was still having a look for the mystery bird that a person had seen on the camp that supposedly looked like a palm nut vulture and in the end I managed to see it! Though it wasn’t a palm nut vulture but instead was an African fishing eagle, it was sitting in a tree only about 10 metres away and was really majestic, then it flew and at one point came extremely close to me before flying away, it was only around 5 metres away in the air and this made it really a fantastic experience. I also showed a picture to the person who saw what they thought was a palm nut vulture and they agreed that it was the same as the African fishing eagle that I had just seen. I then went up for dinner and then after dinner finished off packing my bag and then had quite a wait in the relaxation tent. It was dark so I couldn’t go and explore around the camp and we weren’t leaving until 11 so I read some of a zoo quest book by David Attenborough to pass the time. Eventually it was time to go so we took a bus to Kilimanjaro International Airport and went through the very long tedious queues passing by the stray cats to get to the gate. The plane came and once the departing passengers had walked off, we walked over the airport and up to the runway where the plane was parked.



The flight was Turkish airlines the same as on the way there. It stopped for an hour in Mombasa, Kenya on the way and then we changed for Warsaw in Istanbul. There were some very nice views on the way of the Sahara Desert and Nile River over Egypt and Sudan and also of mountains in central Turkey. I had really enjoyed the trip and it was a great experience.

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