Splendor Safari
Wildlife group
The Rift Valley soda lakes and the great southern rivers carry some of Africa’s most concentrated birdlife: flamingos in their hundreds of thousands, pelicans fishing in formation at Lake Manyara, and skimmers cutting the surface of the Rufiji at dusk.
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14 species
Water Birds
Featured Phoeniconaias minor Heroe mdogo
East Africa’s small, deep-pink flamingo, with Lake Natron providing its most important regional breeding habitat.
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Water Birds
Ceryle rudis
A bold black-and-white fishing bird, frequently seen hovering above Tanzania’s lakes and rivers before plunging after prey.
Read field guidePhoenicopterus roseus Heroe mkubwa
The taller, paler flamingo of the Rift Valley lakes, feeding in deeper water than its lesser cousin.
Read field guidePelecanus onocrotalus Mwari
A huge white waterbird that fishes cooperatively, herding shoals into the shallows in a coordinated crescent.
Read field guideMycteria ibis
A white stork with a deep yellow bill and crimson face, fishing by touch with one foot stirring the mud.
Read field guideEphippiorhynchus senegalensis
Africa’s tallest stork, with a scarlet-and-black bill topped by a bright yellow saddle — always in pairs on the floodplain.
Read field guideLeptoptilos crumenifer
The "undertaker bird" — bald, hunched and enormous, with one of the largest wingspans of any land bird.
Read field guidePlatalea alba
A white wading bird that sweeps its flattened spatula bill side to side through the shallows, feeling for prey.
Read field guideBalearica regulorum
A stately grey crane crowned with a halo of golden bristles — and the only crane in the world that roosts in trees.
Read field guideArdea goliath
The largest heron on earth, standing 1.5 metres tall and motionless in the shallows of the Great Ruaha.
Read field guideMegaceryle maxima
Africa’s largest kingfisher, shaggy-crested and crow-sized, patrolling the forest streams of Mahale.
Read field guideRynchops flavirostris
A tern-like river bird that flies with its lower mandible slicing the water surface — a Rufiji speciality.
Read field guideVanellus albiceps
A sandbank wader with long yellow face wattles and a white crown stripe, always beside big rivers.
Read field guideMerops nubicoides
Brilliant crimson bee-eaters that nest in thousands of tunnels dug into Rufiji riverbanks.
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