Ruaha National Park, Lullaby in birdland
Ruaha National Park has recently been combined with the Usangu Game Reserve making the largest National Park in Africa covering over 15,000 sq km. This new park is at the heart of a much larger ecosystem covering over 40,000 sq km. The highlight of a trip to Ruaha is watching the huge elephant herds (the greatest concentration in Africa!), gathered around the mighty Ruaha River; the lifeblood of the park.
Ruaha is a visually stunning park with an undulating plateau about 900m with occasional rocky outcrops and mountains reaching heights of 1900m. Running through the park are “sand rivers”which dry up completely in the dry season and act as roads for the game to move from waterhole to waterhole. Although the eastern camps get full during the high season, Ruaha does not experience visitor numbers like its more illustrious neighbours in the north of the country. Large sections of the park are unexplored and during much of the year you will have the place to yourself. We recommend spending a minimum of three days at Ruaha. Ruaha National Park is a good place for seeing Lions, Buffaloes, Elephants and Painted-Dogs (African Wild Dogs). Grant’s gazelles, Ostriches and Cheetahs may be seen on the plains.
Carnivore Info
Ruaha National Park is rich in carnivorous species including the big cats like lions, leopards, cheetahs and the like. The lions of Ruaha can be seen in large prides of up to 20 individuals. This is indeed a unique feature which is attractive to most of the visitors. Several packs of Wild dogs are frequently seen in this park, though because of their mobility and big home ranges, the certainty is not guaranteed. Cheetahs can be seen in sparsely distributed bushes in the grasslands.
Birds of Ruaha National Park
For bird enthusiasts, the park is one of the birds’ paradises in Africa with more than 540 bird species which is one of the highest bird diversity in East Africa, an excitement that can be enjoyed by both casual observers and serious birders; this diversity is considered to be influenced by various factors such as topography, vegetation zones, transition between Sahel/ Sudan and Zambesian Miombo woodlands. The rainy season from January to June is particularly spectacular as the normal abundant birdlife is enhanced by numerous migratory species. Migrating birds from northern and southern parts of the world make the park as one of their transitional points. This causes the overlaps of the Southern and the Northe
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