Discover 99 Uganda birds that we saw and photographed on our 2-week trip to East Africa.
Uganda gorilla trekkingis the reason most people visit, but the country is also a bucket list destination for bird watching.You’ll find over 1000 species of birds in Uganda.
A trip to Uganda is simply a delight for opportunistic birdwatchers like myself.
Read on for information about the best places to see Ugandan birds along with plenty of Uganda bird photos to inspire your own Uganda safari.
Note: We visited Uganda in December 2016 and these posts are a reflection on the trip at that time. It is now 2024 and the political situation in the region has evolved. Please check the U.S. State Department website or information provided by other governmental organizations around the world for up-to-date information to determine whether it is considered safe to travel to Uganda.
Birds of Entebbe Botanical Gardens
One cool thing to do in Entebbe is to visit Entebbe Botanical Gardens which is just a short distance from Uganda’s main international airport and it’s possible to walk here from the majority of tourist lodges.
It took us 30 minutes to get to the botanical gardens from Carpe Diem Guest House and we were rewarded with some unique Ugandan bird sightings including a hamerkop building a nest.
1. Marabou Stork
2. Crowned Hornbill
3. Hamerkop
Birds at Entebbe’s Guest Lodges
The gardens of the various guest houses in Entebbe are oases popular with Uganda’s birds. We sat outside at both Carpe Diem and Karibu Guest Houses and watched as the birds simply came to us.
Check out the colorful and entertaining Ugandan birds that we saw and photographed below.
4. Red-Chested Sunbird
5. Black-Headed Gonolek
6. Eastern-Grey Plantain Eater
7. Double-toothed Barbet
8. Rüppell’s Long Tailed Starling
9. African Thrush
10. Marico Sunbird
11. Red-eyed Dove
12. Purple Starling
Uganda Birds by the Roadside
Our Matoke Tours guide, Geoffrey Katende, had an immense knowledge of the birds of Uganda and an eagle-eye for spotting them.
Outside of the urban area around Kampala and Entebbe, the traffic in Uganda was very light. Many times on our 9-day East African safari adventure, Geoffrey would hit the brakes, pull out his binoculars, and point out fascinating birds.
Here are some of the many Uganda birds that Geoffrey spotted along the road.
13. Weaver Birds
14. Black-Shouldered Kite
15. African Open-Billed Stork
16. African-Paradise Flycatcher
17. Lizard Buzzard
Birds of Uganda’s Bigodi Wetlands Swamp
Kibale Forest National Park is best known for chimpanzee tracking. However, nearby community-run Bigodi Swamp was a treasure-trove of bird species.
Our guide, Rodgers, had a special knack for making the birds come to us. I like to think of him as the Bird-whisperer of Bigodi Swamp.
18. Blue Turaco
19. Yellow-Billed Barbet
20. Tinkerbird
21. White-throated Bee-eater
22. Black-bellied Seed-Cracker
Birds of Queen Elizabeth National Park
Queen Elizabeth National Park (QENP) in Western Uganda may be most well-known for the Big Five but we were impressed by the magnificent diversity of bird species that call the park home.
One of our absolute favorite Uganda birds that we saw in QENP was, in fact, the Uganda national bird, the crested crane.
Uganda’s crested crane goes by several names. Some call it the Uganda flag bird. Others call it the Uganda crane bird or more specifically, a grey-crowned crane.
Uganda crested cranes can generally be spotted in pairs and they mate for life. Read on to discover the crested crane and other favorite Ugandan bird sightings in Queen Elizabeth National Park.
23. Verreaux’s Eagle
24. Red-necked Spurfowl
25. Pallid Harrier
26. White-Browed Coucal
27. A Pair of Uganda Crested Cranes
28. Southern Red Bishop
29. Martial Eagle
30. Pin-Tailed Whydah
31. Southern Grey-headed Sparrow
32. Rufous-naped Lark
33. Hen Harrier
34. White-Tailed Kite
35. Laughing Dove
36. Slate-Colored Boubou
37. African Pipit
38. Kittlitz Plover
39. African Pied Wagtail
40. Egyptian Geese
41. Beaudoin’s Snake Eagle
42. Palm-nut Vulture
43. Snowy-crowned Robin-chat
Birds of the Kazinga Channel
During our trip to Uganda, we took a 2-hour Kazinga Channel boat cruise in Queen Elizabeth National Park. While the Kazinga Channel is known for a great concentration of hippos, we were pleased to see a wide variety of the birds of Uganda as well.
Flocks of Ugandan birds followed in the wake of our boat and we saw some extraordinary bird species both on the water and near the shore.
44. Pied Kingfisher
45. Yellow-Billed Oxpecker
46. African Fish Eagle
47. Albino Malachite Kingfisher
48. Yellow-billed Stork
49. Eurasian Stone-curlew
50. Greater Adjutant
Birds Near Western Uganda’s Lake Mutanda
The area in and around Lake Mutanda is the staging area for tracking Uganda’s famous mountain gorillas.
Lake Mutanda also sits near the crossroads of three nations: Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
We saw an amazing array of Uganda birds on our trip to the region.
51. Black Crake
52. Souza’s Shrike
53. White-Browed Robin-Chat
54. Pied Crow
55. Hadada Ibis
56. Cape Wagtail
57. Swamp Flycatcher
58. Streaky Seed-Eater
59. Black-Headed Weaver
60. Yellow-Billed Kite
61. African Sacred Ibis
62. Baglafecht Weaver
63. Mangrove Black Hawk
Ugandan Birds Near Lake Bunyonyi
It’s worth traveling to Uganda’s Lake Bunyonyi to build a little respite into an otherwise hectic African safari.
We took a boat cruise on Lake Bunyonyi and stopped on an island where the local lodge hosted a “bird restaurant”. I was most impressed by the abundance of Speckled Mousebirds that we saw on the trip.
64. Speckled Mousebird
65. Common Bulbul
66. Welcome Swallow
67. Red-billed Firefinch
68. Ring-Necked Doves
69. Brown Babblers
70. Holub’s Golden Weaver
Birds of Mburo National Park
Mburo National Park is Uganda’s smallest savanna park but features a wide range of birds flitting about in the acacia trees.
Check out the abundance of Uganda birds that we spied on our game drives in the park.
71. Woodland Kingfisher
72. Long Crested Eagle
73. African Wattled Lapwing
74. Little Bee-Eater
75. Little Green Bee-Eater
76. Grey-Backed Fiscal
77. Broad-Billed Roller
78. Lilac-Breasted Roller
79. Common Cuckoo
80. Collared Sunbird
81. Crested Guineafowl
82. Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird
83. Striped Kingfisher
84. Bare-Faced Go-Away Bird
85. Arnot’s Chat
86. Yellow-Throated Longclaw
Birds on Uganda’s Lake Victoria
Back in Entebbe, we took a sunset ‘cruise’ on Lake Victoria. Paddling along in a wooden canoe equipped with an outboard motor, we explored the channels through the papyrus swamp at lake’s edge and saw more of the incredible birds in Uganda.
87. Malachite Kingfisher
88. Purple Heron
89. Long-Toed Lapwing
90. Black-Winged Stilt
91. Spur-Winged Lapwing
92. Coppery-tailed Coucal
Birds of Mabamba Swamp
Sure, a trip to Uganda’s Mabamba Swamp offers a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see large shoe-billed storks but this wetlands area about an hour away from Entebbe Airport offers so much more for birdwatchers who take time to arrange a guide and get out on the water.
93. African Jacana
94. Common Squacco Heron
95. Saddle-Billed Stork
96. Yellow-Billed Ducks
97. Red-Necked Stint
98. African White-Backed Ducks
The Star Birding Attraction: A Uganda Shoebill Stork
Yes, I wanted to see mountain gorillas, chimpanzees, and more on our Uganda safari. The one wildlife opportunity that tipped the balance for us toward Uganda versus other safari destinations in East Africa was the Uganda Shoebill.
Your chances of seeing Shoe-billed Storks in Uganda’s Mabamba Swamp are higher than probably anywhere else in the world and the wetlands is just an hour from Entebbe so the journey is very accessible.
I was so excited to see this pinnacle of the Ugandan bird hierarchy sitting among the reeds.
99. Shoe-Billed Stork
As you can see, the birds in Uganda are some of the most impressive and diverse in the world.
Everyplace we visited, the air was filled with birdsong and we spotted an incredible variety of Ugandan bird species on our journey.
I’ve shared 99 Uganda birds with you today, but this only includes those birds that were nice enough to stay still long enough for me to get a picture.
In reality, we probably caught a glimpse of more than 150 out of Uganda’s 1000+ bird species. What an amazing adventure!
For help identifying the birds of Uganda before, during, and after your safari, I recommend picking up a copy of The Birds of East Africa. It is the go-to birds of Uganda book.
All of the photographs of birds in Uganda included in this post were taken with a Canon Powershot SX60 bridge camera with a 65x optical zoom lens.
Identifying the Birds of Uganda with Google Lens
Did you know that Google Lens is integrated into Google Photos on mobile devices?
Google Lens is super-helpful for amateur birdwatchers to identify different Uganda bird species (not to mention birds from around the world).
Open Google Photos on your Android device and then follow the steps in the image below to identify the bird in the picture.
