SEMLIKI WILDLIFE RESERVE

Semliki National Park, an extension of the Congo's vast Ituri rainforest, is situated on the Uganda/Congo border, approx. 240 kms/6 hrs from kampala between Lake Albert and the Rwenzoris. Totally off the beaten track with breathtaking scenery and fuming 130ºC hot-springs, this rich mosaic of grassland savannah, tropical lowland forest, bamboo forest and wetland habitats is endowed with a correspondingly diverse fauna. While the Uganda kob is the most common large mammal, there are also forest elephants, giraffe, chimpanzees, buffalo, leopard, sitatunga, pigmy hippos, crocodile, chimps, even the more localized De Brazza's monkey, and antelopes.

But the main attraction in Semliki remains birding over her well established birding trails that loop around the hot springs at Sempaya. The over 400 species of birds recorded include many West African forest types like White Crested, Red Dwarf, Black Dwarf and Wattled Casque Hornbills as well as the shoebill stork, Red Rumped Tinker Bird and the Palm Greenbul (a localized endemic). The park remains of special interest to ornithologists for some 40 essentially Congolese species found nowhere else in Uganda.