Can You Say East Africa!

This evening I will be flying to London, and tomorrow morning onto Nairobi, Kenya.  I will be meeting 2 other American birders in London, and we will be spending the next 4+ weeks watching birds, viewing wild animals, and for one day near the end of July we will be trekking in to sit with the gorillas in Rwanda.

I have done some birding outside North America--Hawaii, Great Britain, Italy, Morocco, Peru and Mexico, but nothing like this trip.  We will have a guide, Brian Finch, who is considered one of the best birders in East Africa.  We will be birding everyday for the entire month of July.  Our itinerary takes us to Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda.  This birding trip is generally done in Jan or Feb, or April or May, but the 3 of us decided to go in July instead.  This means there will be few migrating birds, but based on past trips, we expect to see over 700 different species of birds, and maybe over 800!  Having never birded in East Africa, these will probably all be life birds for me.  Even more amazing is that I could see more different species in a month than I did in all of 2010 during my lower 48 big year.

I will not be able to blog while on this trip, but I will be keeping a daily written journal plus taking pictures.  When I return in early August, I will be doing many posts throughout the month about all that transpired on this trip of a lifetime.  Stay tuned!