Akagera NP - A Big 5 weekend

The lions of Akagera

The jewel in the crown of an African safari is the sighting of the big 5.  However, despite Big 5 being thrown around, the reality of sighting the Big 5 are actually very rare. This is mainly because one of the Big 5 - the leopard - is just plain hard to spot anywhere despite its wide distribution. Another - the rhino - is already extinct in some of the iconic national parks in Africa. Buffalo is probably the easiest to spot in any of the African parks along with elephants. If there are lions around, you have a good chance of finding them provided you know how to track down lions.

Yellow-billed oxpeckers

There are few places left in Africa that offers one the opportunity of big 5 sightings. The major drawcards where this is still possible are some of Africa’s iconic national parks such as Kruger in South Africa, Maasai Mara in Kenya, Okavango Delta in Botswana and Ngorongoro crater in Tanzania. Other iconic national parks like Chobe in Botswana and the Serengeti in Tanzania do not have many rhino. There have been attempts to relocate rhino in to both with limited success but the opportunity of spotting a handful of relocated animals in these vast landscapes are just about non-existent.

Since reintroduction in 2015, the lions have thrived

Etosha National Park in Namibia has 4 of the 5, but no buffalo which is the most common in other parks. There are a few private reserves, mainly in South Africa that boast the big 5 but any place that you cannot do self-driving and spot your own game or without spending a small fortune on conducted game drives runs the risk of being treated with suspicion by us - of feeding animals and concocting sightings for big spending tourists – so these do not qualify in the bracket. For die hard self-driving wildlife photographers, a concocted wildlife sighting amounts to match fixing and takes away everything ‘wild’ from wildlife.

Lions in the early morning fog

In the context of these iconic destination offering big 5 sightings in Africa, Akagera National Park in Rwanda hardly gets a mention. In size, Akagera would amount to a single game drive trail in some of the big parks.  In the 1970s, Akagera was 3 times larger than it is now. It boasted almost 300 lions, a small herd of 26 elephants that were relocated from the Bugesera region, 6 black rhino that were reintroduced after the population of 90 had been decimated and thousands of antelope and buffalo.  Fast forward to the 90s and the park was reeling from human encroachment, the lions and rhinos had been poached out and the park was reduced to a third of its size.

The diminutive Oribi is often seen on the mountain ridge

What has subsequently been achieved has been nothing short of amazing – 7 lions were reintroduced in 2015 with the population now triple that, 18 black rhinos reintroduced in 2017, the elephants have slowly grown in number to over a hundred, and a gift of 6 giraffe from the Kenyan government in 1987 has now grown to over 80.  Essentially, now Akagera can boast the Big 5, though catching them all is another story.

Offspring of the original giraffes gifted by Kenya

As with any wildlife sighting, particularly the Big 5, one has to be awfully lucky for all the stars to line up to get images of the big 5. Akagera can be a difficult park for Big 5 due to the relatively small population of Big 5 and the thick bush which makes spotting really hard.

Hippos are one animal you'll see plenty of in Akagera

In particular, the black rhinos are extremely shy and very difficult to find. Most of the sightings has been in the south of the park where the vegetation is very dense and spotting would amount to a chance encounter and the animal would vanish. We also don’t’ spend a lot of time in the south as the campsite and the more game rich areas are in the north – not to mention the tsetse flies in the south can be quite vicious! The elephant herd spends a lot of time in areas inaccessible to vehicles but can be tracked when they appear in the game drive areas. There are single bulls roaming around the park which is probably the best chance of a sighting.

Akagera hosts 490 species of birds

The majority of the lions are mainly the northern section of the park. Two males are reported to be roaming in the southern area but most of the sightings are from the north with the only real pride we are aware of, residing in a private concession inaccessible to self-drivers.

Male lion on Kilala plain

There are Lions reported from both the northern hot spots of Kilala and Mohana plains and we have seen Lions at both, but you need to be keen to track lions on your own and have a basic plan, as with any park.

Lions mating that we'd seen the previous weekend

There are a surprising frequency in leopard sightings in Akagera, the most frequent being the entrance reception! We have had 3 sightings in little under two years which is frequent in comparison to other parks. It is almost impossible to track a leopard so it comes down to luck and keen eyes or fellow tourists finding it for you.

Impala

So in this context, the chance of seeing the big 5 in Akagera would be extremely rare and seeing them in the one weekend, almost impossible, and the chance to shoot all 5 in one weekend is what dreams are made of! Well, we were rewarded with one such weekends in this tiny little national park tucked away along the Tanzanian border with Rwanda.

Buffalo - the most common of the big 5 in Akagera

A little under 3 hours we arrived at the park gate which is surely one of the the closest Big 5 national park to any capital city in the world. Formalities are a breeze in Rwanda and with very little news on the spread of game, we headed up north along the lake shore drive looking to get a decent camp spot ahead of the crowds that can make a mess of the small Mutumba campsite. Meters before the turn off to the campsite we were encountered with who we refer to as ‘Bullet’, a massive bull Elephant with a hole in his ear on his road walk and he looked in no mood to move.

The big bull we call Bullet

After a moment of panic (we have had a few nervy moments with big bulls on this road) it was decided that we would pull off to the side and make room for the big chap to keep on walking. But, as is always the case with the big guys it’s never that easy as he decided he wanted to have a mud spa from a puddle of water in the drain, which meant a nice long wait for us. Finally he was done, and started heading down the road towards us but thankfully went off the road meters from the car and we took the gap to get past him.

Always a spotted hyena or 2 hanging around the plains

Next morning, as always we were up early and on the road heading towards Mohana, easily the epi-center for wildlife activity in the park (other may debate Kilala is better, but Mohana it is for us as we can get there early). We had seen lions mating here the week before and weren’t really expecting them to be around but the usual eager early morning search was on in earnest. Suddenly, we thought we saw a rhino which was a surprise to the extent, while gaping at the rhino, I had to get assurance that it was actually a rhino!

Never thought we'd see a black rhino at Akagera

This completed the Big 5 at Akagera as we had seen the other 4 on previous trips. Although the rhino was miles away, it looked edgy and allowed only two photos, before running off as if it had seen a ghost. We were stunned – as far as we’re aware rhinos have not been reported from Mohana - even in the south they are extremely rare to spot.

Our best sightings of Roan have been in this park

We were stunned at our luck and went on to keep searching for lions as we always do but with ‘cat time’ drawing to a close we stopped for coffee at the picnic site where a roan antelope joined us for coffee at the salt lick. A roan is a pretty rare sight and this chap was chilled and in need of minerals and this should have sent a message that this was going to a special weekend.

The African fish eagle is a common sighting along the lakes

We were back on Mohana hoping the rhino had possibly run itself back on to the plain but no such rhinoness! Then a serious piece of wildlife tracking unfolded before us. We noticed a bunch of zebra had stopped their morning trek for water and were intently looking in to the tall grass at the water edge. There were a few topis looking edgy too so we decided to stop and have a look around.

Nervous topi antelopes

Scanning the tall grass line, we picked up the distinct white end of a leopard tail – a leopard at 9 o’clock in the morning! Soon it revealed itself and did a long walk along the grass-line but never got close to offer anything shootable.

Hugging the papyrus, this leopard wouldn't come any closer

As a rule we never drive off road for a shot, it defies the purpose of coming to enjoy the bush if you are going to drive all over it and destroy it and yes off-roading is the beginning of destroying an otherwise untouched wild habitat and it irritates us to see people destroying nature.

Driving off-road can prevent scenes like this! From the previous weekend

We attempted to pick it up the leopard crossing the main road at a further point but it just didn’t materialize. We were gobsmacked – the rarest 2 of the Big 5 within stone’s throw of each other on the same morning and we already had elephant in the bag. The next buffalo was shot to pieces and gave our usual search for lions a totally new meaning.

Buffalo chilling at a waterhole close to our camp

We spent rest of the day driving around aimlessly, checking out Kilala and then back to what we have dubbed the Bush Shrike picnic site (this is not marked anywhere, just a cool spot where we saw a Sulphur-breasted bush shrike) for lunch and seeing out the hottest part of the day with a lion sighting at the back of our mind.

Palm nut vulture

After an uneventful evening, it was back to the camp site hatching the plot next to the fire for a lion sighting the next day. The plan was simple, get out early and look for signs and if they are not there, keep moving before it get too hot and all chances of a lion sighting vanish.

The colourful Sulphur-breasted bush shrike

Next morning we were off in a flash, keen as mustard and desperate for lions! Absolutely no signs at Mohana and after a doing the usual route and checking out every corner, we decided to head to Kilala straight away. Normally we would do more searching and possibly only leave after coffee and cat time but such was the desperation for lions, we left immediately.

Our final animal for our Big 5 weekend!

And immediately, just outside what we used call the ‘cat zone’ of Mohana, there they were, the 3 Mohana males with a female – the final sighting for the Big 5! We had a full house on the one trip which was an amazing reward from Akagera.

Savannah baboon

We always put down great sightings to the good work we do in the bush to track down game. What’s more it was a perfect opportunity to have morning coffee with lions with broad grins across our faces soaking in the glory of seeing and shooting the big 5 on the one trip. Akagera took a giant step forward in our measure of great national parks.   

King of the road