Lake Mburo National Park lies is a perfect place to stopover from Kampala en-route to Bwindi and the gorillas
Lake Mburo National Park lies is a perfect place to stopover from Kampala en-route to Bwindi and the gorillas.
A variety of habitats surround the open water of Lake Mburo. The lake's western side is dominated by a grassy escarpment rising above a shoreline fringed with acacia forest and the closed canopy Rubanga forest.
To the north and east, grassy valley floors, made seasonally lush and soggy by rain, drain between undulating hills. These seep through expanses of wetland into the lake. Rock kopjes are found along the eastern margins of the park.
These varied habitats support an impressive variety of wildlife including 68 mammal species. These include some rarities. Lake Mburo is the only park in Uganda to contain impala and the only one in the rift region to host Burchell's zebra and eland. In Uganda, topi are only found in Lake Mburo and Queen Elizabeth National Parks. There are in fact five lakes within the park, and these attract hippos, crocodiles and a variety of waterbirds, while fringing swamps hide secretive papyrus specials such as the sitatunga antelope and red, black and yellow papyrus gonalek (that's a bird).
The park has a very respectable birdlist with around 315 species recorded to date including the shoebill, papyrus yellow warbler, African finfoot, saddle billed stork, brown chested wattled plover, Carruther's cisticola, Tabora cisticola, great snipe, Abyssinian ground horn bill and white winged warbler. Acacia woodland bird species are especially well represented while forest species may be found in Rubanga Forest.
Incidentally, the pedigree Ankole cattle, with their impressive sweeping horns, belonging to the royal family are also found here.
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