Four hundred and six birds in nine days

Providence, Rhode Island·Oct 2025

I am a birder first and a general wildlife tourist a distant second, and I have been on trips where that made me the difficult passenger. Not this one.

Four hundred and six species in nine days. My guide, Godfrey, called out most of them before I did, by ear, at speed, while driving. He had his own scope and he knew the difference between a lifer and a tick for me, which I did not have to explain.

Lake Manyara was the highlight and it is the park that gets skipped. Pelicans, storks, the flamingo line on the soda flats, and a Narina trogon in the groundwater forest that I had been chasing across two continents.

We built the trip around the birds and the mammals happened anyway. There is a leopard on my list that I did not go looking for.

If you are a birder, say so at the planning stage and say it clearly. They will put you with the right guide, and the difference between the right guide and a good guide is the whole trip.