Lake Mburo National Park
Lake Mburo National Park gets its name from Lake Mburo which is main lake located within this reserved area. It is the smallest measuring just about 370 km and the nearest park from Kampala compared to all the other parks. It is a very special park with a not so secure past due factors like poaching and encroachment but today stands strong and continuously thriving. The park is largely occupied by wetland that surrounds the Lake Mburo and along with 13 smaller lakes found in the region, they the 50km long known wetland system thus a great home for wetland dwellers. There are several mammals and birds including those that are only found in this park. It is conveniently located along the Kampala high way to the other parks that are found in Western Uganda thus making the best place to visit any time. You can easily include it in any itinerary even for a brief stopover. Despite being a tiny park, Lake Mburo has got a lot to offer as a tourist’s destination. It has that sculptured landscape that includes rocky rolling hills, lakes and grassy valleys. It is covered with amazing variety of vegetation includes a vast area of acacia woodlands, savannah grassland at some spots, bushy thickets and forest galleries. There are seasonal and in some areas are permanent swamps and all these do support the survival of variety wildlife species and plants.
Lake Mburo is one of the best wildlife safari destinations and it is much known for having the largest Zebra population in Uganda. This is the only place where one can find the elands coexisting with the impalas and the klipspringers. Lake Mburo national park also probably has the highest number of leopards compared to any other park or reserve in the country. Other animals you can expect to find in Lake Mburo included so many buffaloes, so many types of antelopes including the Uganda kobs, Oribis, topis, waterbuck, elands, bushbucks, reedbucks, among others. There are also warthogs, jackals, hyenas, genets, hippos are commonly seen in the shallow ends of the lake during a boat ride and along the shores of the lake when they come out to sunbath. There is however not lions and elephants in this park unlike in other wildlife parks. The absence of elephants in this park is probably the reason there is thick woodlands since there are elephants to feed on them.
Just like the case is with Kidepo, this park also offers the best night spot light game drive. Night game drives gives you the opportunity to meet animals like the white tailed mongoose, owls, leopards and hyenas tend to hurt and feast in the night too.
This is also the only park in Uganda where horse rides are done within the park. This is a really fun activity the takes you to spots where you would not have otherwise reached if you’re in car or just walking. Horses go through swamps and climb hills and access great sites for the best view of the park. You can plan for a morning or evening horseback ride around the park and you will be glad you did.
Bird lovers will also the best time in Lake Mburo since this park is a home to about 315 different species of birds. Given the amount of acacia woodland, this is probably the best park to watch the acacia related bird species. Birds like the black bellied bustards, ruppell’s starling birds, and the mosque swallow and many more others are very common around Rwonyo area of the park. If you’re a keen birder, you can surely see plenty of birds in whichever part of the park you may be in.
And because there is a large par t of the park that is occupied by wetlands which are sometimes flooded and other times not , you can be sure that there is a lot of swamp dwellers that you might not want to leave without seeing. You can take a boat ride or a walk through the wetland to see the wetland/water birds like the African finfoot, fish eagles and the shy ones including the most sought for birds like shoe bill storks are commonly seen in such areas. The rare sitatunga antelope is also only seen within this swampy part of the park.
You can plan a trip to Lake Mburo any time of the year and get to experience how fun it actually feels to be close to wildlife.
