Eco Lodge Africa offers luxury tented
accommodation in the Grumeti
Wildlife Reserve situated north of Serengeti National Park. We offer 10 en-suite tented units individually
appointed. Each unit offers either a king or twin accommodation. A central
hospitality area offers dining and lounge facilities. Fine dining is standard.
Available are a variety of activities including night and day game drives in an
open vehicle and walking safaris. Experience Africa up close and personal
· Luxury Tented Accommodation in
the heart of the Serengeti
· Unique birding, photographic and
game viewing opportunities
· A haven of relaxation on the
famous Tanzania Northern Circuit
· Community Guiding
· Night and day game viewing in an
open top vehicle
·
Guided
nature walking and local cultural tours
The Grumeti Game Reserve
The Grumeti Game Reserve, or Grumeti Game Control Area is situated along the northwestern
border of the Serengeti National Park. The Reserve is one of a handful of
buffer zones put in place in recent years to provide a series of migration
corridors to facilitate the movement of vast herds of wildebeest and zebra that
define the Serengeti/Mara ecosystem itself…
Grumeti Luxury Tented Camp
The Grumeti River
The Wildlife of the Grumeti
The current reality of African conservation dictates that
an accommodation needs to be made between increasing human demans for space and
resource, and the needs of the wildlife of the Serengeti/Mara Ecosystem…
The Serengeti/Mara Eco-system
The Serengeti/Mara Eco-system is in broad terms the area defined by
the Great Migration.
This natural bio-zone is bordered in the south and east by the Great Rift
Valley, in the north by the high grasslands and escarpments of southern Kenya,
and in the west by the Lake Victoria basin. Vital to the continuation of the
ecosystem is the free movement of the migratory herds. These are made up
primarily of wildebeest, but include to a lesser extent zebra, Thompson\’s
gazelle and eland.
In the 1920s the Serengeti National Park was defined. In
later years adjustments were made. The Ngorongoro Crater Reserve was sectioned off and made into a
mixed use area accessible to the pastoral Maasai, while the Maswa Game Reserve
in the south, and the Grumeti and Ikorongo Game Reserves in the north were
added as buffer zones to protect the main Serengeti National Park from
encroachment, and to be true to the concept of eco-tourism by including the
community in the management and control of vital wildlife stocks.
As a
consequence the Grumeti Game Reserve is a vital and unique area. Contained
within it is the Grumeti River as a habitat, but also many pockets of human
activity. If these are to be able to continue then a tangible benefit needs to
be accrued from tourism. This is the key to the Eco Lodge Africa philosophy of
travel. Complete inclusion and cooperation in conservation.
The Eco Lodge Africa Objective
Our key
objective is the involvement of community members in the functioning of our
properties. You will find on Eco Lodge Africa sites the use of community guides
that offer for local wildlife experts alternative means of income from the wild
herds than direct exploitation. Guiding is more lucrative than poaching. This
we hope to prove to both travelers and local community members. In this way
only can we contribute to the preservation of this unique area…
Birding in the Grumeti Wildlife Reserve
This
morning on a scheduled birding drive along the banks of the Grumeti River, within our Grumeti Luxury Tented
Camp concession
area, one of the first sighting of the day was a Narina Trogon (Apaloderma
narina). This bird
is listed as being very rare in the region, and nowhere in Africa is it
particularly common. For the last month or so I have been keeping a
birding list of actual bird sightings along our bird routes and in and around
the camp in order to get a sense of what is around. This is distinct from the
generic bird list covering any potential sighting and numbering over 450
species. I have logged an impressive total of over 100 species in that time,
and I have been looking for an opportunity to make a bit of a noise about
it. When a Trogon landed on the list I though this was probably about as
good as it gets, and so the time had come to shoot out a quick blog to alert
you all to our in-house birding program.
Grumeti River is prime birding habitat
The Grumeti River in probably one of the most rewarding
birding destinations in Africa. It does not offer the kind of vast,
mono-species numbers associated with phenomenon like the lake flamingo
populations in Kenya or Botswana, or the ganets of the Western Cape, but in
terms of the sheer diversity of woodland and riparian species it is quite
extraordinary. In my experience as a bird watcher in Africa I can recall to mind
only a handful of places that have stood out. The Chimanimani in Eastern Zimbabwe is one of these, Gorongosa in Mozambique another, Chobe
River in Botswana another, and of course the Okavango
Delta itself
among the best. However I think the Grumeti River competes very well with all
of these. It offers a classic African riverine environment, dominated by acacia
and fig tree species, but also offering stretches of gallery forest and dense
thickets and open wooded grassland on the edges. At the end of this blog I have
included my personal list as mentioned above. This of course does not include
the ubiquitous ‘little brown jobs’ among which prinia and cisticola are the
usual suspects, but does list quite a few common, and even mundane species,
along with some unique and quite startling encounters that all birdwatchers
look forward to.
What to expect at Grumeti
On a bird-watching trip staged from Grumeti Luxury Tented
Camp there are two possible options, and over the course of a few days we will
usually cover both. These are the acacia/commipora woodland habitat that makes up the
bulk of the wildlife reserve and the riparian forest that comprises the banks
of the Grumeti River itself.
Quite apart from the Narina Trogon, which, lets face it,
is a once, twice or at the most three times in a lifetime sighting, commonly
seen birds are the woodland and riverside kingfishers, the butterfly-like Grey
Helmet Shrike, the rather common van der Dekken’s Hornbill, the superbly
loquacious Slate Coloured Boubou, and this morning alongside the Narina Trogon
I spotted a small brace of Green Pigeons. I also regularly see Brown Parrots,
and once or twice an African Orange Bellied Parrot, and I had the great
pleasure a few days ago of enjoying a long tete-a-tete with a most beautiful pair of Pearl
Spotted Owlets.
Raptors
Raptors are also well
represented. The Bateleur Eagle is an ever present regular, and is the African
Fish Eagle, but such delightful encounters as with a Sooty and Eleanora’s
Falcon, Grey Kestrel and Shikra are not uncommon. Among the larger raptors the
Tawny Eagle is perhaps the most common, but I regularly sight Steppe Eagle,
Long Crested Eagle and I believe, although it is unconfirmed, that a Martial
Eagle touched down in camp recently. There are, of course, many others, but
these are the day to day sightings. Cuckoos and oddities. At around about this
time of the year (June/July) the cuckoos begin to arrive. The expanses of
woodland are suddenly replete with the endlessly repeated and plaintive calls
so easily associated with this elusive species. From their calls I have
identified Jacobin, Lavaillant, Black, Emerald, African, Klaas and Diederick’s
Cuckoos. Quite a haul for a single area! Other exciting little snippets have
been the unusual local turacao, the Plantain Eater, an Anualts Barbet, a
Spotted Creeper, both the Eastern and the Southern Black Flycatchers and a Grey
Woodpecker which is common around here but a bit of a novelty for me. So this
in a nutshell is birding at Grumeti Luxury Tented Camp. For anybody with any
interest in local birding, or who would like any information about birding in
East Africa, and Africa in general, drop me a line and I would be happy to help
organise a trip out here.
This
is a general and ongoing list of bird species to be found at the Grumeti Luxury
Tented Camp in the Grumeti Reserve of Northern Tanzania…
|
Common and Green Scimitar Billed Hoopoe
Arrowmark Babbler, Grey Crested Helmet-shrike,
Common forktailed Drongo, Stulman’s Starling, Ruppel’s Long Tailed Starling, Superb Starling
Pied Crow, Common Bulbul,
African Pied Wagtail,
Von Der Decken’s Hornbill, Lilac Breasted Roller, Woodland Kingfisher,
Brownhooded Kingfisher,
Speckled Mousebird,
Barefaced Go-way Bird,
Plantain Eater,
Emerald Spotted Wood Dove, Ring Necked Dove
Golden Breasted Bunting, Red Rumped Swallow, Wire Tailed Swallow
Dark Chanting Goshawk, Shikra, White
Browed Scrub Robin, Black Headed Oriole, Brubru, Lesser Honey Guide, African Pied Wagtail, Brown Parrot, Martial Eagle, Dusky Flycatcher, Eastern/Southern Black Flycatcher, Red Bellied Paradise Flycatcher, Red Headed Weaver, White Headed Bull Weaver, Common or Blackeyed Bulbul,
Yellow Tailed Woodpecker, Cardinal Woodpecker, Bearded Woodpecker, Gray Woodpecker, Spotted Creeper, African Pitta, Griffon, Silverbird,
Northern White Crowned
Shrike , Magpie Shrike, Grey Backed Fiscal, Black
Crowned Tchagra, Hueglin’s Robin, Rufus Naped Lark, Yellow Longclaw, White Browed Coucal, Black Coucal, Senegal Coucal, Martial Eagle, African Fish Eagle, Black Backed Vulture, White Backed Vulture, Lappet
Faced Vulture, Helmeted Guineafowl,
Coqui Francolin, Yellow Necked Spurfowl, Black Headed Heron, Maribou Stork, Striped Kingfisher, Yellow Throated Longclaw, Silverbird, Long Crested Eagle, Steppe Eagle, Batleur Eagle, Tawny Eagle, Elonoras Falcon,
Sooty Falcon/Grey Kestrel, Northern Whitecapped Shrike, Ruby Striped Owlet, Red Fronted Barbet, Spot Flanked Barbet, D’ Arnaud’s Barbet, Hunter’s Sunbird,Jacobin Cuckoo, Levaillant’s Cuckoo, Black Cuckoo, African Cuckoo, Emerald Cuckoo, Klaas’s Cuckoo, Diedericks Cuckoo, Narina Trogon...
|
Special Offers
Eco
Lodge Africa can
offer a variety of Tour Operator andAgent discounts on all of our
multi-day packages. For all inclusive, fly or drive in, packages, tier priced
for local and overseas agents...
Contact
us for more detailed information.
reservations@ecolodgeafrica.com
marketing@ecolodgeafrica.com
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